We often hear stories about the genesis of a brilliant idea. Or we celebrate we the end result of a big, creative endeavor. But what about all the stuff that happens in between? The volatile moments of a project when there’s no clear end in sight, but the moments that are nonetheless critical to success. Scott Belsky, founder of Behance and the Chief Product Officer at Adobe, talks about his new book, “The Messy Middle,” and gives advice for how to navigate the highs, lows, and uncertain moments when embarking on a big, ambitious project.

Listen to this podcast to learn:

• Why the overlap of a product team’s “last mile” and a customer’s “first mile” is so important for utilization and adoption

• How to manage the effects “organizational debt” and a team’s “immune system”

• The value of “conviction over consensus” when it comes to doing anything innovative

• The tendency of data to cause lowest common denominator thinking, and how intuition and empathy can get us out