Should you Organization start Thinking like an Architect?

We accept that Architects have an ability to design pleasing structures. I feel another part of their repertoire is equally as important; It is the ability to visualize the change needed between current and the future state and to successfully chart the path for evolving to it. You may believe that these traits are common in organizations through engineering, project management and operations but Architects do it a different way. They do it through the lens of design.

How do Architects think? A study, Thinking like an Architect. by Kyle Gabhart explores the subject of architects and how they view and ultimately solve problems.

The overwhelming indication here is that building-style toys (LEGOs, blocks, Lincoln Logs, etc.) were a favorite toy of those individuals that eventually grew up to become architects. Could it be that the abstract thinking and pattern-recognition that is inherent in building-style toys was already being developed and enhanced at such an early age? The second contender is board games, which has a strong component of rules sets and also pattern-recognition. Here again, the impressionable mind of the future architect may already be creating mental categories, placeholders, and thought patterns for future architecture activities.

LEGOs is not that surprising but another part of the survey listed these results:

• 53.08% of respondents studied / trained with a musical instrument
• 36.97% pursued mathematics studies beyond the basics required by a degree program
• 22.27% engaged in formal singing activities, including music theory and sight-reading

What does that tell us? A background in music may mean a great deal of regimented practice and the ability to take instruction. In combination with LEGOs it shows the ability to build on an existing process and achieve future results. It may also say a lot about teamwork, since many that play music in high school participate in the band. 

Architects offer traditional core services but they also balance human, technical and business factors as well, managing these factors to achieve their outcomes. Architects build and coordinate teams from a variety of services. Just doing this within our own organizations seems insurmountable at times. Think about outsourcing your entire business?

Our products/services are increasingly become more strategic. We must enable the use of our product/service to serve clients more effectively and to increase customer engagement. Architects add a great deal of value to this thought process. They have always started with customer engagement in their design practice. Design is not an afterthought, it is the reason for engagement. There is no such thing as features and benefits at this point. That only comes through a definition of the needs of the clients. Interesting? 

Tomorrows podcast is with Zachary Evans, an architect and partner at Kelty Tappy Design, Inc., a Fort Wayne architecture, planning, and urban design firm.

Related Information:
Define the Expectation, Delight the Customer
Lean Engagement Team Book Released
How to Design like an Architect
Co-Creation and Open Innovation from HYVEinnovation
An Architects view of Prototyping and Modeling

Software Quality Assurance Podcast with Murali Chemuturi

I took a little different twist this week on the Business901 podcast and interviewed Murali Chemuturi, an information technology and software development subject matter expert, hands-on programmer, author, consultant and trainer. This podcast centered on Software Quality Assurance and what Murali considers best practice. I found his position quite different than the Agile and Kanban Software people I typically interview. I think most people in the IT field will find it interesting. 

In 2001, he formed his own IT consulting and software development firm known as Chemuturi Consultants. Chemuturi Consultants help software development organizations achieve their quality and value objectives. The firm provides training in several software engineering and project management topics such as Software Estimation, Test Effort Estimation, Function Point Analysis, and Software Project Management, to name a few. His firm also offers a number of products to aid project managers and software development professionals such as PMPal, a software project management tool; and EstimatorPal, FPAPal & UCPPal, a set of software estimation tools.

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J. Ross Publishing has recently published three books authored by Murali  Chemuturi:

• Mastering Software Quality Assurance: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques for Software Developers
  
• Mastering Software Project Management: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques
• Software Estimation Best Practices, Tools & Techniques: A Complete Guide for Software Project Estimators

Related Posts:
Eric Landes Podcast
The differences in Lean and Agile
Kanban, could we call this podcast anything else?
Business901 Kanban Search
Kanban too simple To be Effective? Xerox Operational Excellence Program
Xerox drives Agile Processes thru Lean Six Sigma
Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or is it just a Marketing Funnel?
Why Lean Marketing? Because it is the Future of Marketing Marketing Kanban Cadence
Personal Kanban

Discussion on NLP Techniques and Principles

Tom MacKay of MacKay NLP Solutions believes we can Follow the right steps and Achieve the Life of our Dreams and that’s what we discussed during this Business901 podcast. This is a transcription of that podcast.

Discussion on NLP Techniques and Principles

Tom MacKay is the founder of MacKay Solutions. Tom first trained as a psychologist and in NLP in 1990 and since then  has become one of the most respected NLP  trainers in the UK. Tom is a Master Trainer of NLP, the highest level that can  be attained, and is the only INLPTA Master Coach Trainer in the UK. He has appeared on television on the BBC show “Pay Off Your  Mortgage” and recently filmed a pilot show on family dynamics.

Related Posts:
How does your State of Mind alter your Decisions?
Creating a Great Workplace
Helping Customers to Excellence eBook
Value Stream Mapping your Sales Team
Quallaboration Podcast with Personal Kanban Founder

Boyd's Law of Iteration: Speed beat Quality

From the Coding Horror Blog

This leads to Boyd's Law of Iteration: speed of iteration beats quality of iteration.

You'll find this same theme echoed throughout every discipline of modern software engineering:

• Unit tests should be small and fast, so you can run them with every build.
• Usability tests work best if you make small changes every two weeks and quickly discard what isn't working.
• Most agile approaches recommend iterations no longer than 4 weeks.
• Software testing is about failing early and often.
• Functional specifications are best when they're concise and evolving.

I believe that Boyd’s Law directly applies to today’s marketing.

• All marketing should be tested quickly and in small quantities
• Your marketing cycle conversions work bests if you make small changes approximately at twenty percent of the sale cycle and quickly discard what isn't working.
• Most agile marketing approaches recommend iterations of no longer than 4 weeks.
• Marketing stages are about failing early and often.
• Functional specifications are best when they're concise and evolving.

Taking a Closer look at these principles:

All marketing should be tested quickly and in small quantities. In fact, why would you not test multiple emails one day and release an entire batch the next day. Is there absolutely any reason that we are unable to do this anymore? Another example is that headlines can be tested on twitter, blogs, etc. Small business specifically should test constantly.

Your marketing cycle conversions work bests if you make small changes approximately at twenty percent of the sale cycle and quickly discard what isn't working. I think it is difficult for put a time frame on this when we are talking in such general terms. So, what I propose is that if you look at your marketing in five stages, you would want to make modifications within one stage at a time. The important thing to remember is to keep the stages flowing and not in constant flux. Modifications should be planned, your hindrance will be doing these things indiscriminately and causing flow interruptions.

Most agile marketing approaches recommend iterations of no longer than 4 weeks. Again, we must determine what you normal sales/marketing cycle is and then plan accordingly. The secret to this is to shorten the cycle through these principles removing waste and creating value.

Marketing stages are about failing early and often. Marketing is the least expensive in the early stages. As you walk through the process your investment increases so your conversion should increase and maybe just maybe hold on to a lead a little longer.

Related Posts: Throughput Search on Business901 Blog

Technorati Tags: Boyd,Speed,Agile,Agile Marketing

Learn Kaizen and Agile from Pixlar

The past few weeks I have been heavily immersed into Kaizen, Kanban, Agile Project Development and as a result Scrum. I have found it quite interesting but somewhat overwhelming along with a few other things I am doing. I have taxed my learning absorption level to say the least. 

What did I do? I took a little time off and sat back with a good book and a little Jackson Browne(Just like Bach to me). The book; Innovate the Pixar Way: Business Lessons from the World's Most Creative Corporate Playground. It was written by Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson, the pair that wrote The Disney Way, Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company.

It wasn’t long into the book that they discussed stories and development that my mind drifted to agile and scrum comparisons. What they really brought home was the importance of collaboration and building a team. They even discussed the great lengths they go to hire people who are interested in working in a “network” type environment  in solving problems, building and supporting each other. Here is a short excerpt from the book; the definitions of a set of proficiencies by Bill Nelson of Pixlar:

1. Depth – demonstrating mastery in a subject or a principal skill; having the discipline to chase dreams all the way to the finish line.
2. Breadth – possessing a vast array of experiences and interests having empathy for others; having the ability to explore insights from many different perspectives; and being able to effectively generate new ideas by collaborating with the entire team.  
3. Communications – focusing on the receiver; receiving feedback to ascertain whether the message sent was truly understood. Realizing only the receiver can say, “I understand!”
4. Collaboration – bringing together the skills(depth, breadth, and communications), ideas, and personality styles of an entire team to achieve a shared vision. Fostering an attitude to say, “Yes, and…”, rather than “No, this is better.”

Collaboration is critical to the process of generating ideas and problems in any organization. When you review the principles of Kaizen and Agile, your ability to succeed really comes down to how good of a team you put together.  Very few times in an initial read of a book, I started reading this for pleasure, have I ever stopped so soon in a book and reread an entire chapter.

The rest of the book proved to be just as valuable and I think the authors did a very nice job of displaying the brilliance and the imagination that is taking place at Pixlar. I encourage you to read the book before you put together your next team.  

At first I was going to put a picture of the book with an Amazon link into the blog post. Sounds pretty boring. Lets figure out how to make Toys.

Related Posts:

Holding Successful Kaizen Events Part 3 0f 3
Agile Marketing – Maybe?
Start your Marketing with a User Story
A Hidden Asset of a Kaizen Event

Technorati Tags: Pixlar,Innovate,Agile,Scrum,Kanban,Kaizen

A Simple Exercise to Differentiate Yourself

Everyone tells you to differentiate but are you comfortable that you are different enough. A tool that I use to make a strong impact on a client is one that is from the book, The Chasm Companion: A Field Guide to Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado (Revised).  Here is how you complete it:

The benefit your service/product is to the user:
    A. Provide Modest Enhancements
    B. Add substantial value
    C. Gives dramatic productivity gains.
    D. Changes the competitive field

The pain of obtaining the benefit to the user:
    4. Significant reengineering, new systems 
    3. Major changes to existing systems 
    2. Modest changes to existing systems 
    1. Integrates with existing systems

When completing this of course the more opinion and arguments the better. You will have to create a consensus, however and a decision reached. Sometimes positioning the competitor’s products/service around yours can assist. Are more changes required, do they add less or more value? If you end up at square A4, no Gain with a lot of pain, you can probably throw the product/service away. It simply will not work. In fact A2 and A3 should probably cause the same reaction. The truth to the matter is that unless you are doing a startup, you probably end up in the twilight zone. The problem being in the twilight zone, according to author Geoffrey Moore is that these offerings will cause little market movement. In other words, they are not COMPELLING. The other areas follow this pattern:   

• D4, you are in an early market category.
• D2/D3 is about market segmentation and making the pain a favorable trade-off to that group.
• C1/D1 means that your product can move to widespread adoption and you are ready for that transition.
• A1, B1 is being accepted in your target market and an easy solution. 

This description is a take-off from the book but to fully understand you have to read the Crossing the Chasm. It is a must read and still today it is one of most cited books in the innovation area. I have bought the book around 5 times. I keep giving it away.

However, the point to this entire exercise for me is differentiation relative to the gain and pain of the customer. It is an exercise that enables you to look at your product/service more objectively from your customer’s eyes. Are you really that different if all you are doing is complicating their life without making a significant gain? Another item it addresses is your market segmentation. Are you targeting a customer that your product/service causes little pain? If you are in the twilight zone, where are you headed? What will it take to move you to the outer perimeter? It is a simple answer make yourself more valuable by making the gain greater or the pain less!

Related Posts:

Evaluating your Marketing Funnel, Only Seven Levers matter

Lean Marketing, The Toyota Way

The Marketing Funnel using Six Sigma DMAIC – Define stage

Technorati Tags: Differentiate and Dominate,Differentiation,Marketing Segmentation,Define,DMAIC

Interesting Survey

Here's an interesting survey done by the National Federation of Independent Businesses on small business marketing...part of a great resource site which you can find at http://www.411sbfacts.com/

Results of 2006 Survey on Marketing:

1. The primary customer base for 45 percent of small businesses is the general public; However, for 30 percent, the primary customer base is too varied for small employers to identify one.
2. Twelve (12) percent of small businesses sell to a small number of business customers creating the potential of becoming a captive supplier.
3. Fifty-five (55) percent of small employers think that their businesses do not need much marketing since their products/services pretty much sell themselves. Forty-two (42) percent disagree.
4. A large share of the small-business population depends on repeat customers. Twelve (12) percent of small-business owners indicate virtually all customers are repeat customers while another 35 percent say most are repeat.
5. The distinction between marketing and selling is sharp for virtually as many as the distinction is non-existent.
6. Forty-eight (48) percent of small businesses have a separate annual marketing budget within the firm’s overall budget.
7. Experience and customer observation are substantially more likely to influence small-business owner marketing decisions than formal, systematic approaches. Seventy-four (74) percent think it is important to rely on gut feel when making marketing decisions.
8. Small-business owners advocate a long-term business outlook.
9. Seventy-eight (78) percent of small employers think that adding innovative products/services is important to business success.
10. 87 percent agree that customers require businesses to be very flexible and adapt to special customer requirements.
11. More small employers intend their marketing efforts to lead customers (61%) than to respond to them (28%).

Where do you fit into all this?