Solving the Original Problem

Isn’t this invention a WOW ?

This invention has opened up new frontiers in levitation. Imagine a friction-less transportation system, a friction less machinery. It would lead saving of fuel, energy and increase in efficiency by over 1,000 times.

So, what?

The idea is – are you solving the original problem with your product or just producing me-too products? Will your product truly create a long-lasting value in the whole ecosystem or it will die after few months or a year?

Solving Original problems takes time. The first step is identifying the original problem. That needs a paradigm shift. Standing with the new idea is risky, you may fail but the rewards are excellent. Are you willing to risk the trend to create something original, which will last for years to come? Can you forego the investors and listen to your heart instead? Can you convince a team to work on original product?

Often, we choose the easy way over the tough one, but can you make an exception this time? There is no guarantee, there is a leap of faith. Can you be the next Einstein? Next Newton? Why not dare to dream? Why not live your dream one more time?

What the heck is with job title?

Why are we so obsessed with job title, be it CEO, Product Manager, Director, VP… and so on? Have we not invented all this title crap to just exercise the control mentality. A CEO has the maximum power and office peon has the least power. It is all power structure at work. A power structure will almost always create a less powerful products, unless the CEO is someone like Steve Jobs, who has a Vision about the product. Any organization with titles is made to kill productivity and creativity. Some suggest that titles denote the area of influence, nothing can be further from the truth. Go to any organization, informal authority is what gets the work done. Isn’t it? Why we need titles? To earn more money in the organization. To have better lifestyle than juniors. A senior job title allows you more time for yourself, be more creative, supposedly more responsible for others work.  What a collective sham we live in!

A truly creative organization will allow people to pick up the titles based on the value they want to bring in. An organization is build by the people, for the people inside and outside the organization. The idea should be to chuck out the titles and give a way to value, which can be directly linked to customer satisfaction and brilliance or creativity in solution provided.

Why to live in 20th century anymore? Lets grow up to new realities and accept the way people work in the new world.

Think Different – Steve Jobs

One More Thing… Unaired ‘Think Different’ Ad Narrated by Steve Jobs
 

Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
 

Steve Jobs – Rest in peace

The iconic figure who molded my perception on user experience and showed me how it needs to be done. When I touch the Iphone, I know I am touching a marvel. The way he revolutionized the electronic gadgets, which people were thinking were dead long ago as far as innovation was concerned, is simply marvelous. His thinking, a work-style, which most of the corporate managers don’t agree to has made a significant contribution to the ways we live our lives. End of the Steve Jobs is an end of a era and legacy will continue to live on, where people like me will walk on the path he has shown us about products design, market perception, usability and product ecosystem. Salute to the great leader. Rest in peace Steve jobs.

Futility of Value Addition

Few days back, I used to talk great deal about value addition, without realising what does it mean? In every meeting, I would use this phrase at least few times, to make sure that other person understands about value addition. From last few weeks, I am pondering on “Quality” as mentioned in The American who Taught Japanese about Quality by Dr Deming and Net Promoter Score. I was able to relate the beauty of these concepts to those I have learnt during Vipassana.

All of these concepts share a common attribute: They measure a single attribute. Dr Deming measures Quality in its inherent sense, Net Promoter Score measures customer loyalty and Vipassana measures Impermanence in your awareness. Gradually, the wisdom seeped in and I came to question the validity of value addition, which in itself tells nothing about what value is being added and applying common sense would say value would vary for each business, Wrong! A business exists to service the customer. There has to be the fundamental value of business commonly shared by each business. What is that fundamental value? Through business services, a customer benefits. So, can value be replaced with benefit. “Benefit Addition” doesn’t sound right. Applying Net promoter score verbiage would make sense here, so here it is: “How much benefit am I adding to client’s business?” Does it look perfect? I am not sure how benefit would be measured but definitely it looks better than value. As such, “benefit” may imply different meaning to different people. To sales minded people, it may mean revenue, to product minded people, it may mean more customers for the product and so forth. So, the search for “a single attribute” continues.

So how does benefit happen? It happens when right problem is solved. Iphone solved the right problem of touch interface, Gmail solved the right problem of fast email with huge space. Google solved the problem of searching the internet. To things come to my mind at this point: One, identifying the right problem to solve an Second, solving the problem to utmost customer satisfaction. The common bridge which, binds them together is still elusive. The single attribute may be translated loosely as – right problem solved to utmost customer satisfaction.

However, my search for single attribute continues. In the mean while, I will stick to the current attribute “right problem solved to utmost customer satisfaction”. And, I will refrain myself from using value addition terminology again.

The Value of Time

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries
over no balance from day to day. Every evening it deletes whatever part of the balance
you failed to use during the day.
What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course! Each of us has such a bank. It’s
name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes
off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose.
It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for
you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposit, the
loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against the “tomorrow.”
You must live in the present on today’s deposit. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost
in health, happiness, and success!
The clock is running.
Make the most of today.
To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.
To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize the value of ONE DAY, ask a daily wage laborer with kids to feed.
To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train.
To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.
To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal in
the Olympics.
Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more because you shared it with
someone special, special enough to spend your time.
And remember that time waits for no one.
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That’s why it’s called the present!

Author ~Unknown

Learnings from the Last Week

- Be attentive to details
- Make sure you know the full process of product launch
- Keep track of things as they happen and all the stakeholders updated all the time.
- Get involved in NPD at the early stage.
- Do your work on your own. Do not depend on others to do your work.
- Recognize deliverables/ shortcomings/ limitations/ gaps/ bugs during the early phases of project to avoid panic and mistakes at the later stage.
- Be involved with the developers daily discussing the updates/ problems/ product direction.
- Find bugs early and get them fixed early.

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Confusion in the team

Now, the typical situation is technical team making independent decisions without keeping product team in loop. The result is lack of transparency, mismatched expectations and healthy ground for future conflicts. The same situation can also happen in reverse, where product team wants moon and stars from tech team and it results in heavy discussions over the requirements list. Usually the product team surrenders in favor of timelines and current capabilities of tech team. All of this ends up in creation of less than optimal product.

Who’s at fault here? Are both teams not giving their best? Are both teams not committed to get the work done and deliver best possible product to the customer? However, the resulting product may end up in having at least one team dissatisfied, which creates further communication problems among both teams and reluctance to work with each other cordially.

How can situation like this be resolved? May be, the situation lies in defining timeline first. This will give a sense of hours to be devoted for product development. Then Product manager can develop requirements list and share it with tech team for their feedback. Both of them should understand these things:

1. Requirements list once finalized cannot be modified.
2. For monitoring the project’s progress, a tool should be utilized. It could be an excel sheet, a word doc or a project management tool.
3. Dependecies on other teams should be identified and delays due to co-ordination should be factored in.
4. Deadlines should be religiously kept.

While, tech team works on developing the code, product team may lay down the foundation for next phase.

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