6 Myths of Product Development

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Joe Little

I was going through the articles I have, and this one struck me. A HBR article by Stefan Thomke and Donald Reinertson. Reinertson is known well in the lean-agile community. And it is an excellent article. Go here to buy it for $6. Well worth it.

Here are the myths or fallacies:

1. High utilization of resources will improve performance.

By ‘resources’ they mean mainly people. Speed of delivery is much more important.

2. Processing work in large batches improves the economics of the development process.

Hence, small stories in small sprints. And get fast feedback from business stakeholders.

3. Our development plan is great; we just need to stick to it.

For many reasons, during the course of ‘development’, the needed features will change. Hence, the plan must also change.

4. The sooner the project is started, the sooner it will be finished.

Reduce WIP.

5. The more features we put into a product, the more customers will like it.

Deciding what to omit is as important as deciding what to include.

6. We will be more successful if we get it right the first time.

Demanding that teams “get it right the first time” just biases them to focus on the least-risky solutions.

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This article is good in helping managers see what lean-agile-scrum is all about.

Something unexpected

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Joe Little

What do we do when something unexpected happens?

“The readiness is all”, said Hamlet.

And so must we be ready. Not ready to be fools and become silly. But ready to meet that new thing, that innovation, that crazy idea, that new person…more than half-way.

Yes, we may be skeptical. Yes, as Polonius says (careful grandmother that he may be)…we must try our friends well before we truly take them in. [Note below.] And so we must also for innovative ideas.

But first we must be open to them. We must take a risk. And try.

As many a Zen Master has tried to open many a student’s mind to satori.

This all comes to me by way of a new friend made last night, rather unexpectedly. Well, completely unexpectedly. We were forced together, sitting beside each other. Rather than sit in stony silence (as they say) we talked. Exactly why or how it happened, I cannot explain. And, while I deserve little credit for it, it was an amazing and far-reaching conversation. Very satisfying on many levels. I will take some credit that I let it happen. And in part it happened because I had no expectations. I asked and said what I wanted to say at the moment…but I was not trying to win or convince or do or accomplish anything. Well, occasionally I wished to be polite and kind and teasing (as some of you know, I like to tease my friends). But mostly I had no big goal, except to learn and discover.

And later, I was sad. Not sad to have had the conversation, but sad that it had ended.

So, I give myself that credit. And I take it away too. I did not follow up well. The friendship made, the conversation started… But it may never happen again because I probably have lost contact. I was too polite.

And this is true of our ideas about innovation as well. We must have the idea, let it in, remember it, and then do something about it. See if it will fly.

So here and now. A moment to imagine in your mind the blue birds of your happiness. May they fly. Wonderfully.

***

Note: The reference above is to the famous speech by Polonius to his son Laertes, which I have copied here. Polonius is of course proposing that his son be far more careful than I am suggesting in this post. I am suggesting more openness, more readiness. But I am not proposing that we be careless, either.

Ozymandias: Creation birth pangs

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Joe Little

It is hard sometimes to create. We wonder, will our darlings ever survive. I have spoken already of a book called The Courage to Create by Rollo May.

Now I want to show a short poem by Shelley. Ozymandias, it is called.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Ozymandias was once a famous king, of surpassing wealth and power in his time. And Shelley wrote this after seeing the ruins of his kingdom. You will note that Shelley, the great poet, was not daunted by this vision of despair.

I note with irony and pun-ishness, that in our computer world, the lone and level sands stretch far away. (Ok, Virginia, I am alluding to how sand becomes silicon, as in Silicon Valley. The valley of dreams.)

I hope that you do not seek that fickle goddess, Power. Or wealth (perhaps slightly less fickle, if you know a good Swiss banker).

But if we only build castles of dreams in the breasts of our friends, even those dreams, once built, can die surprisingly quickly. A new product will come along and charm them a different way. I am sure any of you can think quickly of an example.

We must have the courage to create, and the laughter to let that beautiful creation come crashing down. And then to create again.

I will close with this quote from Henry Ford:

I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.