Exceptional Management

This article was originally published in The Critical Path email newsletter, March 21, 2003.  

Not all products are the same. Not all development teams are the same. Why then do companies try to create standardized development processes? Logically, any company attempting this does so to alleviate perceived problems with recurring errors, things like rework, slow cycle times and information defects. The theory is that a formulaic approach will drive down process variability with benefits similar to how a standard tooling process will drive down defects and scrap in manufacturing. Unfortunately, this is not without its costs.

The ABCs of Product Development

A

is for Assembly, could it always be leaner?

B

is for Benchmarking, from grass that looks greener

C

is for Customers, whom we love and we hate

D

is for Deliverables, and delaying due dates

E

is for the Engineers who clean up the mess

F

is for Finance, who make us do more with less

Lean VS. TOC

This article was originally published in The Critical Path email newsletter, December 15, 1998.  We received several emails about this article when it was published which may be even more interesting than the original piece.

LEAN VS. TOC – GOLDRATT’S PERSPECTIVE

At Management Roundtable’s recent Metrics conference, I had the opportunity to participate in a special luncheon with Theory of Constraints guru, Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt. Having read both “The Goal” and “Lean Thinking,” I took the opportunity to ask Dr. Goldratt a question that I had been thinking about for some time:

“Dr. Goldratt,” I asked, “Can you compare and contrast TOC with Jim Womack’s “Lean Thinking” as it’s derived from the Toyota Production System?” Both philosophy ‘systems’ appear cast from the same mold, both are strategies that focus on value, both challenge ‘batch and queue’ conventional wisdom, and both are attempting to apply their shop floor principles to the overall enterprise, especially product development.

Paper: Anticipating Disruptive Innovation

It is very true that humans are naturally shortsighted and that we often “mortgage the health of our future for the urgencies of today.”  Nowhere in any company is this more true than when it comes to innovation.  The majority of your product teams are, and rightfully so, likely to be laser-focused on  meeting their current project schedule rather than developing your next generation revenue source.  With the persistent economic malaise, resources for these activities are shorter and shorter, which in turn stunts economic recovery in a very vicious circle.

This subject is well addressed in the paper, Anticipating Disruptive Innovation, a winner of the Industrial Research Institute’s (IRI) Maurice Holland “Best Article Award” for 2004.  This paper was written by Ralph Katz and Jay Paap, who is the instructor for Management Roundtable’s workshops on Technology Scouting and Roadmapping.  Here’s an overview of the paper with links below to the full text .pdf.

The Idiot’s Guide to Theory of Constraints (TOC) – Part I

The late Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt was a genius, a visionary, an unbelievably prolific business guru…and a scary man.

Sadly, he passed away this past June of 2011, and I don’t mean to call him scary out of disrespect, honestly, it was a trait I think made him more effective.  He was exceptionally intimidating despite a short stature and seemed to always get his way, I mean, look at that mug, would you contradict this man?  He once opened a keynote speech by saying, “business consulting is just a hobby of mine, my real occupation is as a soldier, my real job is to kill people.”  No joke.

MRT Time Capsule: PDBPR January 2002

Before there was open innovation and crowdsourcing, there was just the Internet.  Before web-based discussion forums, companies only had expensive tools like focus groups, interviewing and ethnographic studies to get at the voice of the customer.  Once the web took off and enough homes had Internet access, companies started creating their own online presences for customer feedback, which in turn helped fuel Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing.

One of the major first movers in this space was greeting card company, Hallmark.   Below you can download a copy of MRT’s old newsletter, Product Development Best Practices Report (PDBPR), from January 2002, whose feature story is about Hallmark’s Idea Exchange online community program. 

Social Media makes babies cry…

Some people say email is obsolete because today’s younger generation uses text, tweets and other tools to communicate, but I don’t buy it, it’s still here, hasn’t changed much, and forms you fill out still ask for it, but not your twitter ID.  The same does not go for social media, which is much more of a fad and prone to eventual extinction.

Here’s some more evidence that supports the idea…

Epic Fail: The Entire Wall St. Concept

Almost every day I read or hear about a longstanding truth discovered to be false.  Things like “X substance once thought to be healthy, now found to cause cancer,” or “X substance once feared as cancer risk now found to reduce heart disease by 80%.”  It is with this lens that I look at today’s economy and wonder if the stock market is worth having at all.

After all, it was once accepted wisdom that buying a house is superior to renting, that putting money in banks was secure and that holding onto too much cash was not a sound strategy.  There is still some truth to these things, but the buckets that hold them have several major leaks and don’t hold water as well as they used to.

Video: Extreme Yo Yo

Sure, this doesn’t have a lot to do with innovation or product development, but in blog world, sometimes you just have to post stuff that is cool.   Before watching these various Yo Yo masters ply their gifts in a recent competition event, I had NO IDEA that these types of tricks were even possible.

The thing that puzzles me most is wondering how often these guys hit themselves in the head while learning these routines.  Some do believe that Yo Yo’s were originally created as weapons, so they can be dangerous.

I’m not really sure if the following warning is necessary, but these are trained, experienced Yo Yo masters, don’t try this at home.

Link: Gizmodo post: Six Yo-Yo Masters Performing Mind-Bending String Feats

Scott Adams says boredom is the key to innovation

Is Dilbert still relevant?  I stopped subscribing to my newspaper a couple years ago and thus got completely out of my former habit of reading the daily comics, so I admit, my knowledge of Dilbert is stale – I am unaware of how he has adapted his strip to the modern age.  I would normally think that, well, all comic strips have an end of lifecycle, but I thought Dilbert would be able to transition from his TQM world to today’s iPad reality without too much fuss.  But there have been several pieces of evidence that Dilbert’s creator, Scott Adams, may have expired his 15 minutes or jumped the shark or whatever the appropriate hip aphorism is that should be applied.