Breakthrough Blog

This month a new book hit the market “Flexible Product Development, Building Agility for Changing Markets” by Preston Smith. Some of you might remember him from “Developing Products in Half the Time” which he co-authored with Donald Reinertsen in 1991. That was a seminal work in the time-to-market field. His new book could be another big step in thinking for product developers.

FULL DISCLOSURE
I probably should say at this point that I reviewed several chapters for Preston while he was writing the book. I am mentioned at the end of the book with the others that helped out. The small contributions I made show up mostly in the sections on customer needs and risk management. Even so, any bias you may detect here has more to do with how I see product development rather than any loyalty to the book.

IN A NUTSHELL
To oversimplify, Preston takes concepts from Agile software development, translates them, and where necessary adapts them, for people developing other things besides software. Hence, many of the concepts aren’t new, but will be new to much of the audience. At it’s core the material revolves around how to deal with change in a development project. It is that familiar struggle — setting the plan and requirements and working to them versus changing things late in the process. Scope creep and changes late in a project can blow costs and schedule off the planet. On the other hand, when the world takes a sharp turn on you, proceeding as planned can make the entire effort futile.

This book is about working so you can make changes later in a development project without disrupting the work or costs. It’s about knowing when to preserve flexibility, how to preserve it, and when you must make hard decisions. For me all this boils down to risk management, particularly trading off the risks on either side of these decisions. An interesting part of this book is that Preston goes beyond the typical risk analysis to discuss what to do about the unknown risks or the “unknown, unknowns.” (Now who made that phrase famous a couple of years ago? Never mind.)

WHY?
Preston thinks bringing flexibility to the product development process is increasingly important today. First, is due to an accelerating and increasingly chaotic world. Read that as shorter timelines, rapidly advancing technology, global competition and more knowledgeable customers (they use the internet). Second, is because current management processes reward rigidity, which then runs organizations into the buzz saw of his first reason.

COMMON SENSE
To me this exposes an open secret known to many who have labored under rigid development processes in the past or still do. That is, smart developers circumvent their company process when it becomes an obstacle rather than a support. These troublemakers know you can’t steam ahead when a sudden change in the marketplace or regulatory environment, or competition just pushed an iceberg in front of you. They know that salvation will come from reworking the plan, rather than working the plan.

If Flexible Product Development helps codify that common sense for more general use Preston will have helped product developers take another big step forward.

It is an easy read and I like that he ends each chapter with a summary list of the key takeaway points to remember.

Details

My new business cards have been flagged in a recent blog as innovative. See Business card innovation

While that is flattering, in all honesty this is just my incarnation of an idea I took from Marcus Wigan, a friend and colleague in Australia. He also includes his photo, which makes it easier for people to remember which of the dozens of faces they encountered that day correspond to his card. It nailed an unmet need of mine. Was this original to Marcus or was he prompted by an earlier influence?

I don’t think it matters. I think it is a mistake to be too proud to adopt someone else’s good idea if it is better than mine. So I created my own version sans headshot. Is it still an innovation?

(Why not the photo? I don’t know. Perhaps for the reason I was with the radio station rather than drama club in high school.)

Most dictionaries define innovation as “introducing something new.” I don’t think it has to be new to the world to count, just new to the context. That’s why I like cross-disciplinary work. Something old hat in one field can be innovative and revolutionary when finally brought into another. For example, I created a new kind of machine vision sensor for traffic detection based on something I saw in robotics. So for now, most people that notice the card think it is novel. I introduced something new to them, to our environment … though Marcus certainly had the more original idea and in my opinion is the real innovator here.

An invention has to be original, an innovation does not.
An innovation has to be useful, an invention does not.

Let me close with a quote from They Made America.

“An innovator’s essential contribution may be to realize the promise of the known.” — Harold Evans

Two very different innovation conferences: The Front-End of Innovation (by PDMA & IIR) and TiECON East (by TiE-Boston).

PDMA = Product Development Management Association
IIR = Institute for International Research
TiE = The Indus Entrepreneurs

I’ve attended the last few FEI conferences and have also helped organize the VOC conference for PDMA/IIR. After attending last year, I helped work on this year’s TiECON East. Since I have had the perspective of an attendee and an insider now of both I thought I might be able to make a useful comparison.

LOCATION
Both have been held in Boston for as many years as I’ve known about them.

TIME
Both have generally been in May or June.

PRICE
No contest here. TiECON East was $300 compared to $2300 for FEI.

VALUE
This is where it gets interesting. Both programs were essentially the same number of days, with special evening events and big name speakers. Cost did not correlate to quality in terms of the speakers. Whereas FEI had a VP from Google, TiECON East had a founding board member from Google. You can go down the list like that. FEI had a number of CEOs and VPs, some you’ve heard of some you haven’t. TiECON East had some very big names we all would know. For example, Reed Hunt, the FCC commissioner responsible for the deregulation that led to the telecom industry we have today. Or, Patrick Deval, the Governor of Massachusetts, though he had to speak via videotape at the last minute. In fact, Senator John Kerry, who was not even in the program, dropped in unannounced to speak to us for about 20 minutes! Even at the same price TiECON East would have been more attractive. At 7 times less expensive it is a real deal.

SIZE
FEI had around 700 people, TiECON East had around 1200.

PHILOSOPHY
The most stark difference was here. IIR is a large conference organizing business that has a contract from PDMA to produce several of their conferences. My experience working with them on the VOC conference is that they are in it to make money. That colors their view of what is in the attendees’ interest. They also have a lot more say than volunteers on the PDMA side. So I saw them drop benefits to the attendees (like the book of slides) without the PDMA Chairman even knowing before we arrived at the conference. This is also the reason for the high cost. It was very hard to get innovative ideas into the conference because of the way IIR staff dominates what happens over the PDMA volunteers. There was a very large corporate feel to how they work. Not innovative (like what is preached at the conference) but what does happen is generally professional.

TiECON on the other hand was almost entirely done by volunteers from TiE-Boston. They had one group whose sole purpose was to come up with new and innovative ways to add value for the attendees (a very different mindset from IIR). At one point there were 8 separate initiatives being worked on. Some I’d never seen at other conferences. That fell to 5 due to the limited number of volunteers to work them. As in any volunteer effort, the quality varied, but the energy of the people involved was impressive. It should not be a surprise that working this had a feel that was more entrepreneurial. Not always efficient, occasional glitches, but great content and value for attendees.

ATTENDEES
Most of the attendees at FEI that I met are mid-level people working in large corporations. The next largest group may have been consultants and service providers. After that a few executives from smaller companies, academics, and press.

Most of the attendees that I met at TiECON East are entrepreneurs, wannabe entrepreneurs, officers in startups, venture capitalists, and service providers.

NETWORKING
I just told you whom you’d meet at either. Both conferences scheduled time and events for people to meet and network, from breaks to dinners. Unique to TiECON East was music and dancing at the end of the dinner program.

Some of the innovations at TiECON East were to help the right people find each other. For example, at one event a number of entrepreneurs got to give short pitches or set up tables. This was for attendees, not exhibitors, to make their case and get noticed by the right people. The exhibitors had their usual arrangement nearby.

EXHIBITORS
Speaking of exhibitors, at FEI they were almost entirely consultants, a few selling software and a business bookstore.

At TiECON East a lot of the exhibitors were VCs, bankers, and business service providers. There were some consultants as well.

RECOMMENDATIONS
First, you will learn a lot from both conferences. Neither is a waste of time.

FEI is a good conference if you’ve never been before and someone else (like your company) is paying the admission. Since I’ve seen speakers from the same big name places repeated year to year I don’t think it’s necessary to go every year (like I have been) especially if money is tight. It is expensive. It is particularly suited to you if you work for a large company. You’ll meet peers from other large to mid-sized companies and hear some very good speakers with experience relevant to you.

TiECON East is focused on a different market – entrepreneurs. This one is ideal for folks from small companies or anyone on a tight budget. Again, great speakers and interactive panel sessions but with a focus helping the little guy hit a homerun. (Read that as IPO.) They also seem to get bigger thinkers on the program.

On the topic of innovation, I’d probably recommend this for anyone. The cost is minimal. Moreover, the sheer energy of people excited with very new ideas is far greater. Folks from large enterprises won’t find as many peers but they will be exposed to new ideas and people for which innovation isn’t just their job.

The chairman of the FEI conference told me once that they studied small companies like the one I was with to “teach the big boys how to do it.” TiECON is a chance to mix directly with the little guys some of whom will change our world. The problem is you’ll have trouble telling who they are. Don’t feel bad. The VCs have the same trouble.

LINKS
The conference links tend to go out of date so I’ll instead list the organizational links. You can look at their events to find these conferences.

www.pdma.org
tie.boston.org

I met Michael Raynor at a book launching event that was notable for two reasons — first, the thesis of his book and second, the nature of the event.

THE THESIS

The Strategy Paradox arose from Raynor’s observation that companies that dramatically succeed or fail have much more in common than mediocre companies that just get by. Spectacular success requires taking large risks and committing to your path. Unfortunately, if you commit to the wrong path you crash. The paradox is how can you ask people to commit and manage uncertainty at the same time? His solution is that you don’t. You separate these functions within the organization. The very top management should focus on managing uncertainty at the strategic level, leaving division heads to totally commit to their mission without fear of reprisal if they’ve been given a losing horse to ride. I’m probably not doing justice but to say more will spill out of the nutshell.

It was interesting to see the “revelation” of managing uncertainty to the executive business world when risk management has been a science in systems engineering since before I was born. Coming from a background in systems engineering I thought this was a place where some cross-fertilization would have been helpful to him. No matter, I agree with him that executives at the top should have more understanding of it and should take strategic responsibility. If his book helps that to happen it’s a contribution. I also think his observation about the tradeoff between the commitment to blast through barriers and the flexibility needed to lower risk is a keen insight.

Working for Deloitte, his experience has been with large enterprises and his book is directed at the leadership of the same. That’s great when you are large enough to have division heads below the corporate headquarters. His observation certainly applies no matter the size of the company. But, …how well does his solution translate to small companies? I asked him how small a company could be and still benefit from his prescription. He agreed that at some point you can’t separate those functions but didn’t know how far down you could go.

His take on startups was that they commit to their one big idea and then make it or crash, c’est la vie. Amusing but clearly a view from the enterprise world. We help startups dramatically improve their odds, most importantly by making sure they understand their customer and the problem they are solving before solving it, but also via standard risk management practices. Just because you are a startup doesn’t mean you can’t place more than one bet. Even with one big idea, you can have a “portfolio” of paths to do it, a “porfolio” of markets to try it on, etc. So though his prescription may only be suitable for large companies, his concept may very well translate into other presecriptions for startups. In fact, if someone were to study startups successes and failures they might see uncertainty management a vital part of the story already.

When I finish the book I’ll review it in more detail and there’s a good chance I’ll like it well enough to include on the resources page in our knowledge center. Knowledge Centerl

THE EVENT

The event itself was even more unusual than the book. It was best summarized by two words, “new media.” For example, it’s the first time I’ve ever signed myself up via a wiki. Strategy Paradox wiki It was a new twist for me but an interesting one. It let’s you get familiar with many of the strangers you’ll meet before you even get there. (Though some don’t show.)

Most surprising was that three quarters of the people there were not close to the target audience of Fortune 1000 executives or even business people that I expected. In fact, most of us present from the business side run or work in businesses too small to employ his suggestions. The Deloitte employee that organized this innovative event is deep in the “new media” community so most of the attendees were creatures of the blogosphere. That is, his e-friends and their network, or in other words, people whose lives revolve around digital communication about digital communication. So most of the people there were more excited about the new media way the book was being promoted than the book itself.

At Breakthrough NPD we are trying to come to grips with Web2.0 and you can see on the wiki sign up one attendee is already tired of Web2.0 and ready to move on to the next thing. One man I met publishes 4 blogs and 2 podcasts a week on his multiple websites. For these folks it was much more about the buzz, and creating buzz, in this case buzz about the book, than actually reading or using it. The book and event is something they can blog about (as I too am doing) and link up their posts to each other to drive more traffic, get a higher Technoratti rating, and so on. It seemed like it’s about handling more buzz than what one is actually buzzing about. As an outsider to this new media world I’m sure I’m painting with a little too much black and white. The people I met were quite nice and very entertaining. Without a doubt I got a taste of the future.

Other blog posts on this event.

Posts about it beforehand
(Notice these talk more about the book.)

Marksguide
Leadership Now

Posts afterward.
(If you look at any of these notice how much talk is about the event rather than the book or its concepts.)

Paul Gillin
Pardon the Disruption
Bryper

Ok, the web site is finally up! It was a longer road than anticipated. Now for a first blog post. I guess I’ll start by talking about the site. One objective was to show that it is possible to make an attractive site that complies with the accessibility standards. That is, make a site that works well for the visually impaired as well as for everyone else. We weren’t purists about it but hope we came close. It wasn’t easy finding a good web designer who understood the accessibility and W3C requirements. Our thanks to David.

We focus on unmet needs because we care about people. Our mission is to create products and services that make lives better, that delight users. So an accessible website is one way for us to show our social responsibility. But, there is also a business side to this too. The more accessible our design, the wider browser compatibility we should have. We are in business so nothing should stand between our message and our clients, especially not any browser quirks. Hence, no dancing babies here. We are not in the media business so that stuff doesn’t help. If it messes up in someone’s browser then it hurts. The KISS principle is a good place to start.

Because of bugs in the browsers, particularly IE, some annoying tradeoffs had to be made to stay compliant. It turns out it is not possible to be perfect on all browsers without embedding many complicated browser-specific hacks. (For example, the IE 3-Pixel Float Bug.) That hurts robustness and maintainability. We went for the latter, so apologize for the minor quirks that will appear to some of you and hope those disappear with the newer browser versions. The benefit is that you should never have a problem getting the content.

If you want an accessible web site I can suggest the following links. We used them early in our research. Good luck with it.

~~ Alan

Introductory help on accessibility and browser compatibility:
http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/abdesign.html
http://www1.shore.net/~straub/wprmultb.htm

Catalogs of resources:
http://www.washington.edu/doit/Resources/web-design.html
http://library.uwsp.edu/aschmetz/Accessible/pub_resources.htm

Helpful advice:
http://www.makoa.org/web-design.htm
http://trace.wisc.edu/world/web/index.html
http://www.mardiros.net/accessible-web-design.html

Standards:
Version_2.0 http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/
Version_1.0 http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505/
V 1.0 Techniques http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-TECHS/
Core techniques http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CORE-TECHS/
HTML techniques
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/
CSS techniques http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CSS-TECHS/
Checklist http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html

The view from England
http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/…

A site for testing your pages:
http://webxact.watchfire.com/

Update (May 20th)
Wordpress has a very good article on accessibilty. Though oriented toward blogs and gets into more detail than I wanted to see it has good explanation of the basics and ways to be accessible.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Accessibility