The technical stuff is the easy part. Technical systems respond predictably, but people don’t. There’s nothing worse than solving the wrong problem, so before you start solving you’ve better done a whole lot of defining. There is no exact answer; engineering is all about judgment. Organizational structure is important. Whatever......
I like Dave Snowden’s thinking on innovation – starvation, pressure, and perspective shift. Here’s what it means to me: Starvation – Left to our own, we’ll do as we did before. Starvation of resources pushes thinking away from stale, worn paths. Almost in reverse, define what you don’t want, then......
The system is big and complex and its output is outside your control. Trying to control these outputs is a depressing proposition, yet we’re routinely judged (and judge ourselves) on outputs. I think it’s better to focus on system inputs, specifically your inputs to the system. When the system responds......
They say job satisfaction is important for productivity and quality. The thinking goes something like this: A happy worker is a productive one, and a satisfied worker does good work. This may be true, but it’s not always the best way. I think we may be better served by a......
How long will it take? The short answer – same as last time. How long do we want it to take? That’s a different question altogether. If the last project took a year, so will the next one. Even if you want it to take six months, it will take......
Our productivity-by-the-minute culture is killing us. In business speed is king, and with it comes our short-sighted drag racing behavior. As we pull to the starting light our big engines shake and rumble, our pipes shoot flames, and our tires smoke. We stomp the throttle, accelerate to mach 1, kill......
We often forget, but regardless of industry, technology, product, or service, it’s a battle for hearts and minds. The building blocks of business are processes, machines, software, and computers, but people are the underpinning. The building blocks respond in a repeatable way – same input, same output – and without......
That’s a best practice. Look, there’s another one. We need a best practice. What’s the best practice? Let’s standardize on the best practice. Arrrgh. Enough, already, with best practices. There are no best practices, only actions that have worked for others in other situations. Yet we feverishly seek them out,......
If you want to learn, to really learn, experiment. But I’m not talking about elaborate experiments; I’m talking about crude ones. Not simple ones, crude ones. We were taught the best experiments maximize learning, but that’s dead wrong. The best experiments are fast, and the best way to be fast......
Shipulski On Design
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The Shipulski On Design
