editor-hh672njp, Author at Sigma Rose

I won’t need to innovate in my job

on October 29, 2014 · Leave a Comment

I recently learnt that many college and university students are uninterested in the ideas and techniques that underpin innovation because they feel that it doesn’t apply to them. If they do not envisage becoming entrepreneurs or designers or engineers or scientists then what’s the point? I do not believe it is a massive leap of the imagination to assume that this type of thinking might also permeate the general working populace. That’s disappointing because there are very few, if any, organisations that are content to rest on their laurels and coast along at the same levels of performance year on year in any part of their value chain. If you want to avoid slipping back in the pack then you have got to innovate and this applies to every area not just the laboratories…

“Innovation opportunities do not come with the tempest but with the rustling of the breeze” – Peter Drucker

I believe that the problem is two-fold. The first is an issue with the perception of what innovation is really about. The second is the lack of a supporting culture and environment.

If only they gave it more thought

on October 22, 2014 · Leave a Comment

I had an interesting conversation earlier this week where an observation was made that the job market is flooded with very competent doers but what we really need is more thinkers. That got me thinking about what mind-set and behaviours a person needs to bring to the table and, equally as important, how projects and activities should be set up in the first place.

I am constantly hearing stories of situations where project drivers are not clear and where ownership is confused. I have encountered a fair few myself. Commonly, there is an imperative to ‘just get it done’ with only scant attention paid to the measures of success and the level of enablement provided by the operating environment. In situations like these there is often a premature expectation regarding the solution based on recycling some approach that has ‘kinda worked’ before but which might not be applicable this time around. Deprived of any real opportunity to influence the direction, people are put to work executing the mechanics of the game without really having much skin or belief in it. This is clearly not a recipe for success.

Project Killers

on October 16, 2014 · Leave a Comment

A project can be anything that requires multiple steps to complete. It’s a managed process that takes you from ‘A’ to ‘B’ and if ‘B’ is a better place than ‘A’ then the project has probably been a success. Sometimes a project can be accomplished with a simple task list and a single person. Sometimes it needs multiple teams in multiple locations collaborating in a variety of ways to realise something quite complex. On other occasions, several projects must to be orchestrated in such a way that they converge to deliver a shared program goal.

The more complicated your situation, the more important it will be to avoid the project killers that I will identify below. Regardless of the context of your particular project(s), these things can almost certainly send it off the rails or, at the very least, make life pretty uncomfortable.

Why aren’t they doing what I want?

on October 8, 2014 · Leave a Comment

For the most part, people do not do things unless they are motivated to do so. Of course, I’m ignoring the various forms of coercion since they are always inappropriate. Actually, motivation, on its own, is not enough. People must also be able to do what is required of them and they must receive some kind of trigger to spur them into action. This is the basis of the Fogg behaviour model and was originally focused on UX design. Its application is much broader and it can be nicely integrated with a number of other useful viewpoints that I’ll be introducing below.

Don’t Torpedo Your 1-on-1s

on October 2, 2014 · Leave a Comment

I’ve always found 1-on-1s an extremely powerful management tool. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, I am referring to a regular meeting with each of your first reports or your manager that is just the two of you maintaining the relationship, staying aligned, understanding goals and removing obstacles. Communication is a fundamental part of both leadership and management and it needs to be open, frequent and, importantly, two-way. A 1-on-1 is the perfect forum for ensuring this is being done effectively. It is not a team meeting. It is not a surrogate for some other project meeting you wish you’d had. It is about continual and constructive engagement, collaboration and growth.

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” – Stephen Covey

MVPs are just a kind of Prototype

on September 24, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Over the past few months I’ve had several conversations around the topic of the Minimum Viable Product [MVP] and prototyping as though they are, in some way, fundamentally different beasts. Personally, I see one as a subset of the other and view them both as part of a necessary continuum that helps maintain alignment and reduce risk during the new product development journey. Initially, you want to be sure that you’re building the right thing. Later, you want to deliver reliable functionality that makes good on the promise. In my mind, an MVP is simply one kind of prototype that happens to be focused on customer-centric issues related to desirability and viability.

But we don’t build it like that!

on September 17, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Have you ever taken a design for a physical product through to production? If you have then you’ll appreciate the need for a solid and useable Bill of Materials. Have you ever tried to develop a maintenance program for a physical product or system? If so, then you’ll know how pivotal the Bill of Materials [BoM] was in helping you define the modularity and level of spares inventory required. I believe there is an underlying assumption made by businesses struggling with the transition of a new product into production and deployment – that the development BoM is automagically transferable without rework and review.

Right Customer – Right Problem – Right Solution

on September 10, 2014 · Leave a Comment

A few days ago I enjoyed a high energy weekend mentoring at the Lean Startup Machine workshop in Sydney. Around 65 participants formed 12 teams to explore their startup business ideas and make sure they were properly focused on delivering value. Not surprisingly there were quite a few discoveries and changes of direction. The final outcome was impressive with some well-crafted pitches delivered in style and validated in a variety of ways including that all-important cash commitment. Startups aside, I believe the underlying ideas have an important part to play in any innovative endeavour regardless of scale.

Don’t Sacrifice the Future to BAU

on September 4, 2014 · Leave a Comment

I had an interesting discussion last week where a very capable manager was complaining about being stretched and not having sufficient time to capture the process. Critical information was trapped in the heads of key personnel and this made it difficult for new staff to get up to speed without impacting those experts. Also, many process and ownership related problems resurfaced on a regular basis because there was never time to capture the outcome of the previous debates. Focusing solely on business-as-usual [BAU] is a trap. Few companies want to simply maintain existing performance; most want to improve it in significant ways.

Don’t plan to fail. Plan to adapt.

on August 27, 2014 · Leave a Comment

There’s been quite a lot of debate in recent years related to the need to take risks and have the courage to innovate. There is a concerted push for us to escape entrenched thinking about incremental change and take more plunges into the unknown in order to really differentiate and succeed. Coupled with this view is the idea that we need to embrace failure and, in fact, wear it as some sort of badge of honour. This seems especially popular among the budding entrepreneurial set. Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way.