Critical Mass

Tags

critical mass, development, development projects, priority, projects, R&D, resources

Being involved in some development projects and sharing resources with my colleagues, I realized that there must be a critical mass of sorts when it comes to numbers of projects any organisation can run at the same time before none of them will get finished. The reason for it is very simple: if you shere resources, those have limited time and capacity to fulfil the tasks you present them with in form of specifications or requests. Those are true to a certain moment in time – the world is ever-changing, so are the specs or requirements. Now if your project gets bumped because of the change in priorities, it could get more changes while idle… and then if you push hard enough, it will be moved to the top of the queue removing other project. If you repeat that game often enough, all projects will be worked on, none will get finished, and all of them will have delays. This is the critical mass I came up with.

Luckily for all of us this is just a theory, and even if the situation will come up in reality, it will (or it should) be very short-lived. Some projects will simply get cancelled, some will get finished, some will be added. But if no one will pay attention, this business of doing nothing except shuffling same projects on the priority chart will get you nowhere although everyone will be busy as hell.

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Big Data

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big data, consequences, development, era, future, K. Cukier, revolution, society, V. Mayer-Schönberger

I mentioned already that I am reading “Big Data” by V. Mayer-Schönberger and K. Cukier, now that I finished it, I wanted to share some thoughts.

The book itself should be read by all who have at least minimal interest in what surrounds us, or in direction where we, as humanity or as community, are going. The subject of the book is already reality for all, we cannot stop it anymore, same as we could not stop industrial age or progress in general. As in those previous revolutions, this one – although much quieter – will definitely affect us all, one way or the other. Authors try to present us with most of the good and bad things approach to big data may bring, they even try to present us with some legal frameworks to ensure that this new digital god will not become devil. Only time will tell if they will be right.

One thing is for sure: we, as individuals, will need to change with big data. If we will stop invasion of privacy of a single person, we will need to act in thousands, if not nations. If we will want to get cure for our particular genetic disease, or cancer, we will need to share our data with companies having necessary tools to provide us with cure. Right now, since we all don’t really know (or care) what happens with our “data exhaust”, we just create it merrily going about our lives clutching our smart phones or wearing sensors. The era of big data is already here – only we seem not to heave grasped its consequences yet.

Humility

Tags

creativity, development, idea, presentation, product

Yesterday evening I had my product idea shot down by a group of influential people in my organisation. The arguments were good and it was apparent that I didn’t do my homework and didn’t properly thought the idea through. A lesson in humility for me.

But the experience was not all bad. It was good to be able to actually discuss the idea, not be handed a note saying no. It was good to see people trying to make something out of it, add something on top of it, instead of ridiculing it. They had every opportunity to do so, but they didn’t. For that I am grateful.

I got my lesson and I hope that I will learn from it for the future. One more thing is important – the experience (although not easy) did not leave me angry or mad or anything. In short, it will not stop me from trying to come up with more. I hope that it will help me to do it better.

Secondly, I think it is almost impossible to come up with something good today on your merry own. The ideas need to be built from other ideas. Thinking fuels thinking (or maybe I should say, creativity fuels creativity). No matter – on your own, it is very difficult to get through the maze of possible scenarios, your own relation to your idea makes you blind to some twists and turns. I liked the team play, I think that it can work wonders.

Adaptive Innovation

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adaptive innovation, Arvind Gupta, development, innovation, learning, procedures, prototyping, R&D, Rotman, Rotman Management magazine

In the winter 2013 issue of Rotman Management magazine I found an article by Arvind Gupta titled „Adaptive Innovation: Create, Learn, Repeat“ (p. 97 – you can find the article here), which I wanted to comment on. I already touched on the perils of modern-day innovation in one of my previous posts (https://mrrommie.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/i-think-rd-does-it-wrong-sometimes/) There I also stressed the issue of time in development, especially development of complicated products. Mr. Gupta in his article proposes a valid solution for this kind of problems: Adaptive Innovation.

Everyone knows that today speed to market is everything. Ideas, especially the ones poised to change the world, are very scarce. In this world any idea with any chance of success should be exploited and tried, even if to gain a short-lived competitive advantage. But in order to be able to do that, such idea must be turned into a product rapidly, in order for the inventor organization to be quicker than the other guys. Here comes rapid prototyping and learning from market feedback, be it a failure or success. Right now there is simply no time for internal evaluation inside R&D offices or corporate HQ. If we do that, there is a big chance that all of those meetings will miss the factual reaction of markets to any given product, or will miss the opportunity entirely, as it could be already taken by competitor with a quickly patched up prototype.

This happens all the time and I guess that R&D of big organizations need to change in order to adapt. Using in-house old-time procedures, however justified and efficient they may seem, will not be enough. Allowing for long development time justified by evenly spaced reviews may just as well mean that we are busy perfecting something what consumers already bought from someone else.

The solution should be, as rightly pointed out by Mr. Gupta, rapid learning and creation cycle. This can be achieved with special teams, even if from outside of the organization, tasked with creation of prototypes as quickly as possible. Of course one thing needs to precede such action: a decision to run with an idea and this decision must be made also very quickly. But I guess that is another story…

How to Develop Your People

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development, growth, learning, organisational learning, personal development, personal growth

In one of my previous posts I mentioned that there are organisations, mediocre ones, which do not allow their good personnel to grow, only dump on them more and more tasks which are similar in nature. As a digression, I have to say that development program should be applicable to all personnel, also people seemingly lazy or seen as bad workers. Theoretically, for most people one can find a task which they will perform satisfactorily, one just needs enough time and enough tasks to choose from. Only when that choice is exhausted, people should be judged as unfit.

Let us assume though that we are dealing with intelligent and efficient worker, who excels at his/her assigned task. How do we, as organisation, try to develop such person further? The answer, although easy on paper, is not easy in practice; it also does not fit into “ten things” or “five rules” category. It lies, as all things, with people.

I am sure that in all organisations it so happens that there are people who have more understanding for various areas, there are those who can for example work with cash flow better and there are those which solve operational issues better. If you want to grow one of them, you simply pair them and let one learn from the other. By learn I don’t mean understand – I mean knowing how to do it and doing it proficiently. One can understand how the bricks are laid, but that does not make one a bricklayer.

The process of learning requires three things – and this is where the people factor comes in – open mind on the side of the student, respectful patience on both sides, and lastly ability to overcome curse of knowledge on the side of teacher. Most of the specialists (and unfortunately, also most of the teachers) are victims of curse of knowledge. People tend to assume that if I know something (something what so obvious to me), everyone knows it. This is what teacher has to forget – he needs to presume that it is quite the opposite on the side of the student; or at least be able to test assumptions and act upon the results. The reasons for actions and for decisions in taught field need to be explained in greatest detail, in order for the student to be able to learn to make decisions herself. Here the patience and respect on both sides come in. And this, in short, is it. No magic, no recipes, only time, good will and the right people. Making sure that such exchange happens is the first sign that your company educates its people. Taking it further to external courses makes all this even better, and the development plan for employees completes the picture.