The Joys of Designing Agile Solutions for New-Age Problems
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Transcript of The Joys of Designing Agile Solutions for New-Age Problems
Tathagat VarmaVP, Strategic Process Innovations
[24]7 Innovation Labs
The Joys of
Designing
Agile Solution
s for New-Age
Problems
Discussion Topics
New Product
Development (“NPD”)
What’s new?
Why it sucks?
How to make it joyful…
How it all started?
With the advent of mass production …
then somewhere down the line…
…and now!
•Task: Visualize your creative / innovation / new product development process•Time: 2 min•Tip: Keep it simple
Does it look like this?
http://www.polaine.com/playpen/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/creative_process.png
Or, like this?
http://revisionlab.wordpress.com/that-squiggle-of-the-design-process/
Why is NPD such fun Problem: Design
an effective lighting solution
for Dharavi homes.
Problem: How to help farmers get best prices
for their products?
and a world of exciting new ideas…
New Product Development: Old vs New
Old NPDDeveloped markets
Industrial Enterprises
Large R&D $$$s
$(Technology) >> $(People)
Closed Innovation
Technology-driven
Forecast based Production
Long gestation period
Top 3 / Land grab
Mostly Commercial
Slow upgrade cycle
New NPD
Saturated + emerging markets
Knowledge-based enterprises
Small Startup $s (and ¢)
$(Technology) << $(People)
Open Innovation
User needs-driven
Feedback based Design
Short experimentations
Long tail / Zero Billion $
Often Social Innovations
Fast upgrade cycle
Our Charter?
Build next Gen
Faster, Better, Cheaper…mousetrap!!!
Our challenge…
Design, Develop and
Deliver Successful Products
and Services
Continuous Innovation• UX• Features• Performance
Deliver at Speed• TTM• Support• Upgrades
Manage Total Costs• Idea to Launch • Sell ‘Free’• Protect
investment
Images: http://www.appcelerator.com/products/, http://www.ccfninsurance.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/costs.jpg
Our Odds…
http://www.stage-gate.com/resources_stage-gate_latestresearch.php
Many reasons, but my 2¢…
Uncalibrated assumptions
about the constantly changing opportunity, market, products and customer needsStealth mode mindset that gives no opportunity to get early real-world feedback for course correction
Poor collaboration
among internal stakeholders leading to conflicts, delays in decision-making and execution, duplication of efforts and diffusion of responsibility, among others
Premature Scaling up
too soon before all aspects of opportunity, market, products and customer needs have been validated
Sample these beauties…
How to make it better?
There’s a way to do it better…
Find it.
Thomas Edison
What are we trying to solve?
How about the scientific method…
“a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses”
http://www.moisiadis.com/creation_science/Scientific%20Method%20edited.JPG
Would it solve all problems?
The scientific method is a pattern of problem-solving behavior employed in finding out the nature of what exists, whereas the design method is a pattern of behavior employed in inventing things of value which do not yet exists. Science is analytic, design is constructive.” (Gregory, 1966)
…and how does our product development process look like?
“The Stage-Gate system assumes that the proposed strategy is the right strategy; the problem is that except in the case of incremental innovations, the right strategy cannot be completely known in advance. The Stage-Gate system is not suited to the task of assessing innovations whose purpose is to build new growth businesses, but most companies continue to follow it simply because they see no alternative.”
Clayton Christensen, “The Innovator’s Dilemma”
Does Agile help?...yes, but…
http://www.infoq.com/resource/news/2008/01/iterating-and-incrementing/en/resources/Patton_Incremental_Iterative_MnaLisa.jpg
What if you didn’t know if you wanted a painting, a sculpture or a mousetrap, a Monalisa or a Facebook or a Porsche?
How would you design and develop something the world hasn’t known yet?
So, what else can we do?
Learn from children!
How Children Learn?
Holt observed hundreds of children and came to an interesting conclusion. He found that the best learners are also the ones that are having the most fun. The best learners are the ones that like to play with the noise around them. Play doesn’t work if it isn’t fun, which means that learning in times of chaos and change will tend to work best when it is fun as well. Play minus fun equals labor, which doesn’t have the same learning benefits.http://news.noahraford.com/?p=203
Customer Development
GET OUT OF THE BUILDING…
Minimize TOTAL time through the
loop
Instead of making complex plans that are based on a lot of assumptions, you can make constant adjustments with a steering wheel call the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loops. Through this process of steering, we can learn when and if it’s time to make a sharp turn called a pivot or whether we should persevere along the current path
The MVP is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort or development time. The MVP lacks many features that may prove essential later on.
MVP is not a minimal product!
Validated Learning
• Validated learning about customers is the measure of progress in a Lean Startup – not lines of working code or achieving product development milestones.
• Process in which one learns by trying out an initial idea and then measuring it to validate the effect. Each test of an idea is single iteration in a larger process of many iterations whereby something is learnt and the lessons applied to the succeeding tests.[1]
• Typical steps in validated learning:– Specify a goal– Specify a metric that represents the goal– Act to achieve the goal– Analyze the metric - did you get closer to the goal?– Improve and try again
Pivot
In the end, it’s about “Double-loop Learning”
To conclude…
Solving a problem makes us happy
Happy minds are better learners
Continuous feedback
amplifies learning
Experimentation is a great way to solve problems
and get feedback
References and Pictures
• Cover slide: http://velojoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ARIAL_PATTERN_LG.jpg • http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/04/procrastination.aspx • http://www.nbcnews.com/id/16580741/ns/health-mental_health/t/if-you-procrastinate-dont-put-r
eading/
• http://sidsavara.com/personal-productivity/procrastination/procrastination-survey-results • http://www.usereffect.com/topic/how-to-solve-any-problem• http://www.diegm.uniud.it/create/games.htm • http://www.glencoe.com/sec/busadmin/entre/teacher/creative/stimulate/exer8.htm • http://hbr.org/2008/06/design-thinking/ • http://www.slideshare.net/akhella/design-thinking-for-startups-1971227 • http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/04/04/is-there-a-single-example-of-a-company-that-star
ted-in-stealth-mode-and-launched-to-success/
• http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1015091/The-New-Science-of-Product • http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2011/07/12/why-good-products-fail-and-what-you-can-do-about
-it/
• http://www.marketingnewproduct.com/why-new-products-fail/ • http://www.theproduct.com/marketing/product_failure.htm • http://hbr.org/2011/04/why-most-product-launches-fail/ • http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/98834-12-apple-products-that-failed • http://www.baddesigns.com/ • http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2006/03/the_zero_billio.html • http://news.noahraford.com/?p=203 • http://www.khoslaventures.com/design-thinking/
And remember…in the end, there is no such thing as a ‘problem’
http://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/BusinessAnalystHumor/tabid/218/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1742/Problem_Solving_Process_for_Business_Analysts.aspx
Thanks…
http://managewell.nethttp://twitter.com/tathagatvarma
http://slideshare.net/managewell