What typically happens when product development decides to create a superior product? The most likely result is 1. slower delivery or 2. costlier development or 3. both slower delivery and costlier development. Why? You don't get something for nothing. Producing a higher quality product takes more development time, which delays delivery to … [Read more...]
Trade-off: Go For Speed
The people whose opinion counts the most choose to go for faster delivery speed. Their thinking may be sound; in this case, they want to beat their competitors to market. Choosing faster product delivery visibly sacrifices product quality and, in my experience, it often invisibly sacrifices the economy of product support. In this post, I answer … [Read more...]
The Wise Use of Extreme Introverts
The social awkwardness of an extreme introvert -- a loner-- confounds most extroverts. Extroverts prefer using social interaction as a big part of the problem solving process while a loner prefers solving problems without social interaction. Can a loner be a contributing member on a collaborative team? Yes. But I need to qualify my … [Read more...]
Testing Products; Shipping Products
Workshop Discover and address fundamental predicaments in shipping products. You will work with a team to deliver a product to market that has more value than your competitors. Parts of your product work as designed: Other parts are defective. You must remove defects, but if you spend too much time removing them, the value of your product will … [Read more...]
PowerPoint Confession
I confess. In the mid-1980s, I really liked Powerpoint. I was a Systems Engineer for the Amdahl Corporation who gave hundreds of presentations each year. Up until PowerPoint, my choices for media was either a slide projector or overhead projector. So, I could use the corporate slide set or hand draw my own overheads. The corporate slide set, … [Read more...]