Issue 5.6 / August 20, 2003

Contents:

• So It Was Written - Part I <read>
• HyperLinks: The Geek Test <read>
• Top Ten Product Development Game Shows <read>
• MRT News <read>
• Calendar of Events <read>

So It Was Written - Part I

Have you ever gone back to review things you've written in the past, like high school essays, your diary, or in contemporary terms, your blog? The experience can be humbling, embarrassing, shocking, educational and informative. Sometimes you can be surprised by how prophetic you seemed at the time, or you can blush at a naïve assumption you can't believe you fell for. In this vein, the following are snippets of articles that appeared here in this newsletter since it was first published in November of 1998, ahhh, simpler times indeed. Enjoy these flashbacks, follow the links to their respective origins and enjoy some newsletter nostalgia...

• From "The Innovation Maturity Model":

"What I didn't mention was my second question to Dr. Goldratt, where I asked him about TOC's role in innovation. "There is none," he said. "Innovation is not a constraint. There is plenty of it available." This would seem to support Hamel's contention that it is not ideas, but the means to use them that are the barrier..." more

• From "The Early Bird Gets the Worm...":

"Typically it is assumed that an engineer (or other function) between tasks costs the company money in the form of unused labor hours, and is therefore allocated to "filler" tasks or overloaded with multiple projects. However, which of the following two people is best able to tackle a new priority or unanticipated development issue? Is it the engineer with the full in-box or the guy who's been surfing the Internet all day? Which one would anger the "suit" from Corporate who decides to walk through the cube jungle that day on a whim? Think hard - you could debate this one with managers for years..." more

• From "Less Is More - Rightsizing Products":

"Too often, companies believe that the benefits of mass customization can be achieved by overloading on features and pushing the responsibility of configuration to the customer. In this vein, products can suffer from the "jack of all features, master of none" conundrum that users of groupware and "office suite" software find so frustrating. More examples? Cable TV subscription packages. Car stereos. ERP comes to mind. The signal-to-noise ratio of product features is an important thing to consider..." more

• From "Cross-Functional Communication":

"Marketers often believe engineers to be social misfits who wield rigid science against all customer challenges to their brilliant engineering solutions. Engineers see marketers as shallow, ignorant and technically naïve contributors who arrogantly use their access to the customer as a defense for uninformed decision making. How does anything get done? Marketers tolerate engineers for their ability to realize the product; engineers tolerate marketers for running valuable interference between the laboratory and the marketplace. Regardless of the truth, perception is the unfortunate reality. Sure, many harmonious environments also exist, but these are stereotypes for a reason..." more

• From "The Customer Food Chain - Part I":

"While I respect the idea and intent behind the "internal customer" concept, in truth, there is only one, true customer. Do they need a name or label? Let's call them the "ultimate" customer. This customer may not even be the product's user. But they are definitely the person who controls the purchase decision. Some organizations take the concept further and design systems where one dept. actually "purchases" goods (parts/components) or services (engineering/mfg) from another dept. But again, these are games - they may be effective in some environments, but they are customer relationship "simulations" at best. There is still only one customer..." more

• From "The Customer Food Chain - Part II":

"Often people are like baby ducks. When baby ducks are born, the first thing they lay their tiny little eyes on they believe is their mother. They may see an elephant right out of the egg. Doesn't matter. To them it's "mommy" and they'll follow wherever mommy goes. The scientific term for this is "imprinting." Has your company ever "imprinted" on customer needs?..." more

• From "The Quick and the Dead":

"A consultant I met, Michael Leach, once said "slap an ECO [engineering change order] on your forehead and follow it around to see where it goes. I bet each one costs you something like $20,000 that you haven't fully accounted for, and some of that is because it just sits around a lot." Exaggeration notwithstanding, he has a point..." more

• From "Eyes Wide Shut":

M"any product developers have expressed resistance and even anger at the mention of achieving production-like improvements in development. The arguments typically sound like this: "Engineering is not a shop floor. Marketing is not a shop floor. The creative process can not adhere to a schedule. Product development is not predictable. We are not a factory!"..." more

• From "Zero Defect Product Development":

"An engineering manager from a company known for lean production once told me about a meeting he held with his staff. He told his engineers, "I am NOT very happy right now. Some of you guys aren't making any mistakes. What's the problem?" Some of the newer engineers looked puzzled. The manager qualified his statement. "And some of you guys are repeating the same mistakes. I'm REALLY not happy with YOU guys."..." more

• From "Product Development Nirvana - Smells Like Lean Spirit":

"Jim Womack, co-author of Lean Thinking, once told a story about how he is often besieged with requests from CEO's to visit their plants. "We are lean," they would exclaim, "we got workcells." "Workcells?" Womack would reply. "Well, if you are truly lean, then you must also have reduced inventory, WIP and batch sizes. You must have dramatically increased your throughput and on-time delivery. Tell me, what has happened to quality? Production cost? Market share? Profits?" The returning silence he typically received was deafening. The emperor, it would seem, had no clothes. We must expect the same to occur in the future when people claim to have achieved "lean development."..." more

HyperLinks: The Geek Test

Link: http://www.innergeek.us/geek.html

Are you a geek or do you just look like one? For most of us, it's really not a matter of "yes/no," but rather, "to what degree?" Many companies have employed personality profiling such as Myers-Briggs to judge the potential of prospective hires, so why isn't there a special test for engineers or technology workers? Finally, the web brings us the definitive litmus test for personal geek quotient, the "geek test." Employing a "check all that apply" examination method, the geek test promises to determine the extent of your geekishness with numerical accuracy. Who knows, if you score high, this may provide leverage for your next salary review. Here's a sample of what you'll be asked.

My personal score was 27.21893 - a number qualifying me for the title of "total geek." Subjects are encouraged to register their score on the website, presumably to establish a standard benchmark. Geek on.

Top Ten Product Development Game Shows
From the MRT satellite office in Burbank, CA

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