Thought of the Day - Energy Levels

Despite my current diet (mostly fruit and vegetables) and lack of a large heavy lunch (i snack on fruit throughout the day) i still experience that afternoon dip in energy. More than that i find that quite frequently on Friday afternoon and at weekends my energy levels dip to the extent that i take a nap.

I don't know whether it is boredom or physical but i really need to find some way to feel more energized, something that wakes me up and motivates me. Unfortunately i can't think of anything at the moment so will just have to be on the lookout for things in the future.

Thought of the Day - TV and Social Surplus

I read an article today which argued that television represents 'social surplus', an abundance of time that people don't know what to do with. It suggests that it is like a security blanket that we need to hold on to because of the pace of change in society. Lastly it argues that this security blanket is needed only for a generation, then uses are found for the surplus and society as a whole reaps the benefits. I have a few questions: Of most global importance; is TV too addictive for people to give up and put the time to better use? This would result in a brain-dead society as is portrayed so vividly in Mike Judges excellent Idiocracy. Of most relevance to me, as i watch more TV than anyone else i know; what could i be doing instead of watching TV?

According to www.myepisodes.com in the last 3 years i have wasted; 2 months, 3 weeks, 4 days, 9 hours and 45 minutes watching TV shows. I should note that is only counting the TV i care enough about to track, the real number is probably a good bit higher. As a comparison, that is probably round about the amount of overtime i have worked in various jobs in the same time period, but still it is not an inconsequential amount of time. We're talking about 1 month per year (~9%), including sleeping (~42%) and working (~23%). That means that 75% of my time is spent doing things that aren't really that exciting. I wish i could say i filled the remaining 25% with bungee jumping and dog sledding across Alaska but in reality most of it is probably filled looking at random stuff on the internet.

I initially went into this post wondering what i should replace my television watching with, but in reality i could keep it more or less constant and still have an abundance of time to be doing other things. The question from a paragraph above still remains though; what could i be doing instead? Something that adds value to me (learning, travelling, working out), adds value to the community (voluntary work) or adds value to the world (creating something new).

I don't have a shortage of things that i could be doing (improving my web design skills, learning a foreign language, selling my excess possessions on e-bay etc etc), i just can't think of something that i have enough motivation to do properly. I suppose the first step in any change is an awareness that you want to make the change, now i just need to work out what to change too.

Idea From: http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html

Thought of the Day - Benefits of Persistence

Just watched The Pursuit of Happyness and it got me thinking about the value of persistence. In the film the guy decides he wants to do something and in spite of many and varied setbacks he reaches his goal.

My calendar at work says; "Give Up: At some point, hanging in there just makes you look like an even bigger loser." and while in films the plucky hero who keeps trying always wins, in real life i wonder what the percentage is?

There is a certain level of persistence that is required to achieve your goals but how do you know when you have crossed the line from persistence to stupidity, or is stupidly pursing BHAG's (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) the only way to really succeed?


It also made me realise i have never really been strapped for cash. Sure i've lived on pasta and baked beans for a few months at uni but there was never any danger of me starving or ending up on the street. As with many 'extreme' circumstances portrayed in film and on TV you have to wonder how you would cope. But it wouldn't be a true representation, the consequences wouldn't be there and if they were, would you really want to risk not being able to cope?

Thought of the Day - Time Constraints

Today i happened across an advert for possibly my ideal job - Business Design Consultant with IDEO, the daddy of all creative consultancies. There was only one slight problem, the closing date was the 25th of April ... today.

It was 20:30 and my first reaction was; "stuff it, not enough time, why bother". Then it occurred to me that my CV would probably only need minor tweaks and really 3.5 hours should really be plenty to draft a cover letter and project report. So i whipped up a plan with some tight deadlines and set to it. Turns out i didn't even need until midnight, i finished 30minutes early!

About half way through the work i realised that if i had found the advert earlier i would have procrastinated or forgotten or not really worked on it until now. So really having a very challenging time scale was probably beneficial to me. Unfortunately we can't rely on serendipity to bring tasks to us at exactly the right time but it has convinced me that Goldratt is right in Critical Chain. What i really need to do is work out how to manufacture that tight deadline, that stress, so there is a cut-off to each task and i don't continue tweaking for longer than is required.


Ok so the chances of me getting the job are virtually zero, but i would have always wondered 'what if?' if i hadn't applied. The worst that can happen is i don't hear back from them, anything above that is gravy. If they call me i can ask what i could do to develop more, if they interview me i get a free trip to London to the meca of creative consultancies and while it is a million to one shot, i might even get a job out of it.

Thought of the Day - Limitations and Local Optima In Life

The strength of the human race is that we have adapted to survive, but now that survival is not really an issue for a lot of people, should we be questioning whether the adaptations are really the optimum?

The reason i bring this up is that i read an article on the benefits of 'barefoot' walking (see link at bottom), which blamed the 'features' of current shoes for various foot, ankle, leg and back issues. You can understand that in the past having a covering on your foot would be beneficial; less cuts, less chance of infection and a bit of protection. It then became even more critical as we moved to colder climates and didn't want our feet to freeze and fall off. Shoes allowed us to cope with conditions.

Of course it then became important that the sole of the shoe was durable and strong to prevent puncturing, which meant that stiffer, thicker materials had to be used. To make these stiff, thick soles more comfortable we added arch support, padding in the heel and rockered the sole to try to make the gait more natural but all we were doing was accommodating a limitation. Related to my notes on Beyond the Goal [coming soon] it seems that these local optima rules (padding, shaping etc) to accommodate the limitation were made so long ago that people no longer notice the rules or the limitation. With new advanced materials, a puncture-proof durable sole can be much thinner and more flexible, so why aren't they? One simple reason; people are used to what we have at the moment. Most people associate soft foam soles and thick padding with comfort, heightened heels are ubiquitous and hey if they are good enough for Olympic athletes they must be good enough for us, right?

Wrong. There is growing research which indicates that rather than making our feet more comfortable and protecting our joints from damage, that most current shoes actually cause these problems. So what is the solution? As with all good ideas it is very simple; use the millions of years of evolution in the human foot and interfere with it as little as possible. Provide protection without hindering the natural movement of the foot.


Recently i have had similar thoughts about a vegan/raw diet. That humans added cooked foods, dairy and meat so that we could overcome the limitation of seasonal fruits and vegetables. The only way to survive was to get calories any way we could and we adapted. But that adaptation is relatively recent and given that in the modern age we can get fresh fruit and vegetables year round is that adaptation the best decision or is it based on a local optima rule that helped us to survive in the past.


I am no Luddite, i love technology but i think we need to question the rules and assumptions of society to ensure that our choices are the optimum based on the current situation.


Idea from: http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/

Thought of the Day - Layoffs

Two tips if you are involved in layoffs:
1. Do as much pre-work before the day of the layoffs so the inevitable loss of productivity doesn't impact performance.
2. Communicate the date when the layoffs will occur or when the decision will be made and then DON'T change it. It minimises disruption and uncertainty.

Tips brought to you today from Tristan.

Thought of the Day - Learning

I read an interesting article today on Wired, it was about a method to optimize your recall of information. If you are interested in learning facts for training/university or learning a foreign language i strongly suggest you check out the link at the bottom of the page.

The theory is that over time your chance of recalling something gets less and less but the optimum way to learn is to recall the information as long as possible away from when you last thought about it. In other words you first read a fact, then you wait until there is a 90% chance of remembering it before you test yourself again. Then after that test you wait a longer time until you get to a 90% chance of recall before you try to remember it again. You repeat the process until the time between remembering is so long that it is effectively embedded in your mind. The advantage of this method is that you don't just memorize the information for a few weeks or a month like you would with traditional cramming, it stays with you almost forever.

So if you are somewhat astute you will have spotted the obvious problem; how do you know how long to wait before retesting yourself? The duration depends on the person, the type of data you are trying to memorize and how many times you have recalled the information. As you can imagine this would be difficult to work out for one piece of information never mind the hundreds or thousands of pieces of information that you are likely to want to recall. Fortunately Piotr Wozniak has created some software that has an algorithm to automate all of this for you. You can input your own information or you can buy 'Libraries' of pre-compiled factoids.

Your next questions are bound to be; If this method is so great why have i not heard about it? Why is every language, law and medical student not issued with a copy of the software? Why is it not taught in every school? Unfortunately i can't answer those questions but i am sufficiently intrigued to put down the $45 to get the software.

Lastly the thing that i find the most interesting is that the method seems to have benefits beyond simple rote memorization. It is suggested that due to the random nature of the questions it can help you creatively too. Your brain has to be used to jumping between topics and the questions in a random order might help you to see linkages where you did not see any before.


Idea from: http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak

Thought of the Day - Immobilization

What would you do if you were immobilized in a hospital bed for 6 months? Go slowly insane? Get lots of audio books? Do some deep thinking?

I don't know why but was wondering what i would do if i was hospitalized, at first i thought "great i could catch up on reading" but then i wondered what i would do if i either physically or mentally couldn't read, what would i do? Depressing yes, but also instructive, you would have to come up with a really creative solution to stop yourself going totally insane...

Thought of the Day - Power

In a relationship who has the most power? It has been suggested that the person with the most options or the least to loose has the power. I am more inclined to agree with the former.

Whether it be a personal relationship, your relationship with a shop, your relationship with your employer, the side with the most options has the power. But how do you define the most options, more accurately it should be the most good options. If you have more good options than the other side you should always end up better off, even if they don't relaise you have the upper hand.

Book Notes - The 4-Hour Work Week

The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris [2007]

Summary:
Alas not many notes from this book, it is just so different from anything I’ve ever read before I’m not quite sure what to write down. I suspect that some reflection and re-reading will be required before I have full notes.

I kind of feel like I’m being exploited by the book, that the lifestyle it espouses requires you to exploit other people (in this case me), the author highlights an adware pioneer as someone to aspire to after all. But at the same time there is definitely some gold in there and it is thought provoking and eminently quotable.

I think the concepts in this book could help you run any business. While a more morally acceptable product would not be as profitable or easy as the products the author suggests, the methods are applicable.

With all of the above said I think Timothy Ferris is very astute, he is giving away his secrets because he knows people will pay good money for the dream it sells but very few have the courage and determination to see it through. For other examples see Toyota or Eli Goldratt.

Notes:
Page 4: People don’t want to be millionaires, they want the millionaire lifestyle.
Page 77: Three times a day (at set times ask yourself; “Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?”
Page 101: The author suggests batching things (E-mail, phone calls, bills payments), it sounds rather un-lean to me, maybe an alternative self-help book would be how to lean your life. It is a bit strange because a lot of the other things in the book sound very like Theory of Constraints and Lean ...
Page 120: By outsourcing things to other people you will be surprised how many tasks don’t need done if you have to pay for them directly.
Page 192: Offer limited options, while you can charge heftier premiums for customisation it can create more problems than it is worth. Firstly options attract pedantic picky people who are more likely to complain if it is not exactly what they want. Secondly too many options can make customers more indecisive and hence less likely to buy, they worry about the benefits of one product over another etc.
Page 193: Try to avoid high maintenance low profit customers, they will waste the majority of your time and provide the lowest income.

Quotes:
Page 13: “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field” – Niels Bohr
Page 46: “What we fear doing most is normally what we most need to do.”
Page 74: “Parkinson’s law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.”
Page 168: “To get an accurate indicator of commercial validity, don’t ask people if they would buy, ask them to buy.”
Page 220: All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it is impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Develop strength to do bold things not the strength to suffer.” – Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Book Notes - The Empty Raincoat

The Empty Raincoat by Charles Handy [1988]

Summary:
Alas typing this up 2 months after I took the notes so can’t really remember an overarching narrative or point to the book. Note to self: If I read it again think about a synopsis.

Notes:
Page 23: Handy sees intelligence as an assets, at least as important as owning a home.
Page 25: We should pursue increasing our intelligence quotient as avidly as we pursue owning a home. In fact the more intelligent the society the less home ownership there is.
Page 33: You should be able to build up a “time bank” annual leave over years.
Page 36: Time is Money. Small businesses trade their time for busy people’s money.
Page 50: Concept of a sigmoid or s-curve, (see TRIZ theories of evolution). This may explain the companies I have worked for, they have all been at the top of the s-curve when I started with them and only those that have found the next curve have prospered.
Page 50: When things are going well it is time to change.
Page 53: You can see s-curves everywhere from personal relationships to empires.
Page 59: The past is a poor predictor of the future.
Page 68: You should strive for a balanced donut in your life: The centre represents your core responsibilities and the outside is discretionary things that you can do. If the centre is too large you get bored, if the outside is too large you never reach a target. There should be a balance of freedom and responsibility.
Page 69: A Type 1 Error in business is getting something wrong and a Type 2 error is missing an opportunity. Think of a way to relate to Goldratt’s DollarDay metric in Beyond the Goal.
Page 76: Ricardo Semler used a donut structure for Semco.
Page 79: The core of the donut is what people rebel against. E.g. Non-smoking offices.
Page 104: “The £5 Note Auction” to illustrate the importance of communication in generating win-win solutions. Pick two people at random from opposite sides of the room and make them bid on 3x £5 notes, they will both end up bidding to around £5 and possibly more on the last of the 3. Exhaust all possible permutations of this to prove that people are stupid. Then pick two people sitting next to each other (preferably who have been talking) and repeat. They should have an agreement that is mutually beneficial to both of them and they will fleece you.
Page 115: Subsidiarity – Reverse delegation, leaving all decisions that can be made locally local. Handy suggests that people have a moral right not to be interfered with.
Page 146: Highlights the J&J Credo as a good model; primary responsibility to customers, then employees, then environment and finally to shareholders. Makes mention of the Tylenol crisis.
Page 172: Head of Nissan UK comparing the different management styles of western and Japanese companies. Western companies have rigid interfaces and departments like facets of a crystal, Japanese companies are more like mud, fluid flowing able to respond.
Page 205: Different types of intelligence: Factual, Analytic, Linguistic, Spatial, Musical, Practical, Physical, Intuitive, Interpersonal.
Page 261: Chapter on “A Sense of Direction”.
Page 262: People want entertainment, too little and they get bored but they also don’t want too much as it becomes harrowing. There is a suggestion that the first world war was caused because the middle classes in Europe were bored but they got more excitement than they really wanted. We have the same problem now, there are no ‘great causes’ that universally inspire a country, most people are content to live their lives amass wealth and possessions and not rock the boat. This is not enough.

Quotes:
Page 19: “There are kings and prophets, I was always told, the kings have the power and the prophets have the principles.” – Tony Benn
Page 26: “If work were so great the rich would have hogged it all long ago” – Mark Twain
Page 27: “Slack always costs money. It is just a matter of who pays for it”
Page 38: “When intelligence is the primary asset, the organisation becomes more like a collection of project groups.”
Page 43: “No-one can do much about the brilliant, they will be miserable anyway.” – Michael Young
Page 59: “The world belongs to the discontented.” – Robert Woodruff [Coca Cola]

Thought of the Day - Sleeping

I previously wrote about wondering what the optimum amount of sleep is and preliminary results after 4 weeks of monitoring how rested i feel seems to suggest that:
If i get less than 10 hours then less is more and 6-7 hours seems optimum.
If i can get 10 hours that results in feeling the most rested.
That waking up earlier results in feeling more rested.
And finally staying up past midnight (regardless of when i get up) is the worst.

Of course my sample size is a bit low and once i get a proper sample size i will statistically analyse it, but so far the results seem quite interesting.

Thought of the Day - Passport

Well i need to renew my passport and realised that my current one (10 years old in June) is depressingly empty.

4 stamps for Canada, 2 green bits of cardboard from America and one rather spiffy whole page sticker for Russia. Ok the last one is rather cool and i have been places in Europe, but clearly i haven't done anything interesting enough or i would have more stamps.

Well hopefully with the next passport; I won't spend more than half of the time in abject poverty as a student (though admittedly that didn't stop some people traveling), I will make some money to enable me to holiday in interesting places and maybe be able to travel interesting places for work.

I'm sure some old business tycoon said one of his rules was; "to always replace a passport before it expired because there was no room left in it", clearly he did all of his traveling before EU countries stopped stamping you passport!

Thought of the Day - Student Syndrome

“Parkinson’s law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.”

Sounds a lot like the 'student syndrome' discussed in Critical Chain. My question is how do you artificially shrink the time you allocate to tasks; do you postpone them until just before the shrunk deadline or do you do them now with a set end time ... Both have motivational issues and it sounds like the Start Early Vs Start Late debate in project management.

Therefore the question becomes; how do you determine the Critical Chain in your life so that it doesn't matter when you start the non-critical tasks?

Thought of the Day - Fear

"What you fear doing most is normally what you most need to do."

Strange maxim but probably true, from making a difficult phone call to deciding what career to take all of these things are highly important but very scary.

So what do i fear most?

Book Notes - Necessary But Not Sufficient

Necessary But Not Sufficient by Eliyahu Goldratt [2000]

Summary:
The inherent conflict in software development is adding features to keep the customers happy Vs keeping the software easy to maintain and use to keep the customers happy. This conflict can be avoided if you focus on adding value to the customer, if they are making bottom line benefits they will not be interested in adding features that do not add value.
To add value you must work out what limitation your software can overcome. Moreover you must work out what rules are in place in the company to accommodate those limitations and then replace those rules with new more suitable rules. Only once the rules that accommodated the limitation are removed will you see benefits.

Notes:
Page 60: Have the client meet the project team before the bid goes in, while it does mean you need to have excess staff it can work very well to motivate the sale. If the client can get a feel for the project team and their competence they are more likely to select that vendor.
Page 61: Companies spent a lot of time making their new tools (ERP systems etc) look like the old tools, the problem is if they looked exactly like the old system then what is the point in upgrading.
Page 114: Refer to these 5 pages for discussion on finite capacity scheduling, along with its pros and cons.
Page 124: The key to finding the where the benefit lies in a new technology is to understand what limitation it overcomes, but moreover work out what rules helped us accommodate the limitation and what we should replace them with.
Page 130: Concept of time buffers as well as material buffers. Also concept of dependant setup times (going from black to white parts in injection moulding). Even more complicated if dependant setup on two machines overlaps and causes the bottleneck to shift between them.
Page 163: To make sure clients don’t focus on stupid little details you need to offer them sufficient value that they don’t care about the little details only the bottom line benefits.
Page 175: TOC can be devastating to a system if you only introduce it to one section at a time. If you introduce it in production and sales can’t keep up you have too much capacity for no reason. If you increase sales but production can’t keep up then you annoy your customer. The same is true of all other dependant functions.
Page 176: Forecasting at a warehouse level and particularly basing Min/Max Replenishment on forecasts is an easy way to build inventory, the solution is not to have a better forecast but to be flexible enough to make product to order.
Page 183: Oral presentation of the conflict between production, distribution and sales, example of presenting a transition tree.
Page 190: Forecast accuracy for various sample sizes like central limit theorem?
Page 192: Have a pull system with each plant holding ~3 weeks (dependant on replenishment time) of inventory of everything and shipping what each warehouse sells on a daily basis. As the shipments are for all sales, not just one product, the transportation should be still be a sensible cost.
Page 198: Measure your pull in throughput dollar days both for inventory and for missed shipments.

Quotes:
Page 4: “To be paranoid you must constantly assess the impact of your actions on the global picture. Which means that first you must relentlessly search for a deep understanding of the global picture.”
Page 62: “The customer is not always right but they are always the customer.”
Page 124: “We expect that a new technology will bring benefits when and only when, the new technology surpasses an existing limitation.”
Page 224: “As long as the end customer in the supply chain didn’t buy, nobody in the supply chain has sold.”
Page 226: “Trust is nice as long as there are measurements that serve as a watchdog.”

Thought of the Day - Simple Solutions

I have a problem ... all of my best solutions are too simple.

When i start working on a problem the solutions are not obvious at all and in many cases the company's plan is to do completely the opposite of what i end up suggesting, but sure enough by the end of the project the dissent has started. The suggestions that the solution was obvious, that the company would have come up with it without me, what have i been doing the last few months etc etc. It is really frustrating that the best solutions always seem obvious in hindsight and it does make it particularly difficult to get the credit you deserve. As Einstein once said; "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.", add to that spending money on things a company doesn't really need and you have the essence of my philosophy.

Which leaves me with a dilemma; should i make my solutions appear more complicated than they really are or can i somehow make the people involved realise how completely counter-intuitive my solution was to start with? The latter is definitely preferable but without knowing the solution how do you know what to record to prove the solution was not obvious at the time? More to the point how do you record the information so that it is undeniable and impossible to rationalise away when you present it?

Maybe i just screw myself by presenting potential solutions too early in the project. In one way you want the leadership to know that you have a plan, a goal an idea of what to do but in another you want them to see you struggle and then have that light bulb moment after the work has been done.

Thought of the Day - Speed Vs Velocity

The physics definition of 'speed' is what most people understand as speed, it is a scalar measure it only takes account of the magnitude of the motion. In physics 'velocity' is something different, it is a vector measure taking account of both the magnitude and direction of the motion.

At the moment in my career i think i have speed but not velocity, i am moving very quickly (in terms of responsibility, training and money) but in an unknown direction. To be both happy and succesful i really need to find a direction, the question is how do i find that direction?

I was kind of hoping that the above question might give me some ideas but i think i need to give it some more thought. Hey at least i have identified the problem.

Thought of the Day - Random Thoughts

Thought 1 - Only The Good Die Young
A lot of the best TV shows don't seem to last more than a season; Is it because they are so niche that most people don't get them? Is it because they are ahead of their time? Is it because the networks are just plain stupid?
For a long time i was pissed off when great shows got canned and thought that i would rather they had not been made at all so they couldn't be taken away prematurely. Now i'm just glad they were made at all, shows like; jPod, Dead Like Me, Firefly, Jericho, Odyssey 5 etc have really changed my outlook on things, made me think in different ways and i would be different without them. Sure i would have liked them to continue on for longer but when is enough is enough, at what point would they have jumped the shark? For me a TV show should have an endgame, maybe not a prescribed number of seasons but the writer should have and idea of where things are going and how they will progress. It is good to know that Lost isn't going to continue asking questions forever (though i'm not sure we will ever get all the answers) and i think limiting it to 7 seasons might be a blessing, you know where you stand.
If you look at other media; films, books, albums, theatre, they all have an ending obvious to the reader/listener, maybe TV should be that way too. I suppose the big difference is that a book is less likely to get cancelled mid-read due to bad ratings.

Thought 2 - Coding As Art
Douglas Coupland mentioned that he thought coding (computer programming) was art. I totally agree but it raises an interesting question, is the code itself the art or is it the program at the end that is art?
If it is the former it is the ultimate elitist art, firstly 99% of people will never see the code and even if they did 99.999997% of people wouldn't even know what they were looking at.
If it is the latter then a lot of the creativity is lost, the end user is never going to know that the programmer came up with a really eloquent way to achieve their goals. They will never know what could have been, although at least they should appreciate the end product.
Thinking about it coding really is art; hundreds of thousands of people dabble in it, you can go to school to learn the basics, people do it for fun, very few people ever stand out though. Where i think it differs from traditional 'art' is that it can be so immensely complex, to the point where even experts in the field might not understand it, but can still be successful and people appreciate the outcome. That and the fact you can make a decent living as a fairly poor programmer but would be out on the street if you were a similarly poor painter ;-)
I'm sure there are programmers out there who are some of the most creative people on the planet, coming up with solutions so simple and elegant that other coders are in awe. But for every Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Larry Page and Sergey Brin there are tens of thousands labouring in obscurity. At least they can comfort themselves with cash and the knowledge that they are helping people.

Quote: "Always remember you are writing for someone to read."
Douglas Coupland - CBC Podcast

Thought of the Day - TOC For Traffic Management

I must have TOC on the brain after reading the two books because while driving on the motorway today i wondered how you could apply TOC to traffic management.

How could you apply Drum Buffer Rope to cars? Could you convince people who like to speed and people who like to drive slowly that really they should all go at the same speed (drum) so that everyone arrives quicker. How could you keep the cars the same distance apart (buffer) and stop the whole queue of cars being disrupted if one car stops or slows down (rope)... More to the point what is the constraint; is it the slowest driver? or is it the speed limit?

Probably a pipe dream until all the cars are connected in a mesh network and can synchronize with each other though.

Thought of the Day - TOC For R&D

While reading It's Not Luck (see notes below) it occurred to me that Goldratt has tackled a lot of topics; Production, Marketing, Project Management and ERP systems. He has probably tackled even more in his ancillary books, but to my knowledge he has never applied TOC (Theory of Constraints) to R&D (Research and Development) or NPD (New Product Development).

You could argue that the marketing covered in It's Not Luck is all about NPD. You are devising new offerings for the market, but it's scope is restricted by the assumptions that: a) There is no money to make physical changes to the product and b) Provided you modify the existing offer to suit the customer that you can fulfil their requirements. What about situations where the existing product, regardless of how the offer is packaged does not sufficiently satisfy the customer?

I suspect there is an answer somewhere in his books and i can see how you could relax the constraints on the methods to construct 'unrefusable offers' to create 'unrefusable products' but i wonder if that is sufficient to cover the full spectrum of R&D. While i'm sure it would help you with re-engineering of existing products to better meet customer requirements and could even enable you to create new products from the ground up to optimally meet these needs, i fear it lacks the potential to imagine new products to meet needs customers do not even know they have.

In other words is there a way to apply TOC to the creative process and is it possibly linked with TRIZ? It might just be a coincidence but both are obsessed with conflicts, breaking assumptions and in love with simple solutions ...

Book Notes - It's Not Luck

It’s Not Luck by Eliyahu Goldratt [1994]

Summary:
To develop unrefusable offers in marketing:
1. Understand the Undesirable effects of your customers and link them together in a logical Current Reality Tree.
2. From the Current Reality Tree understand the Core Problem, the Core Problem is normally expressed as a conflict in a Conflict Resolution Diagram.
3. Once you have identified the conflict look for injections to break the conflict and then use these injections to construct a Future Reality Tree.
4. To bring your future reality tree down to earth insert Negative Branch reservations which you can trim so that the solution is workable.
5. Next construct a Transition Tree to plan how you will move from the current to future states.
6. If required use a Prerequisites Tree to understand what specific steps are required to reach a specific goal.
7. Implement the above.

General Notes:
Most companies understand their UDE’s but not their Core Problems, if you can understand the Core Problem in you or your clients businesses you can offer real value.

Definitions:
CRT = Current Reality Tree = Logical diagram of undesirable effects used to surface root causes.
UDE = Undesirable Effect = Symptoms of the root cause problems.
RC = Root Cause = The cause of a number of related UDE’s.
CP = Core Problem = There are normally only 1 or 2 core problems for all of the undesirable effects and root causes and by solving the problems all UDE’s are eliminated.
CRD = Conflict Resolution Diagram = Also known as the “evaporating cloud” logical diagram of the conflict between necessary conditions.
FRT = Future Reality Tree = The opposite of the UDE’s in the current reality tree, the future state of where you want to go.
NBR = Negative Branch Reservation = Branches added to the Future reality tree that outline any potential problems with the FRT. Similar to Murphy’s Analysis.
TT = Transition Tree = A how to guide to go from the present to the desired future.
PRT = Prerequisites Tree = What steps are required to achieve a certain objective.

Notes:
Page 8: Similar negotiating technique to Getting To Yes.
Page 9: Negotiating steps:
1. As soon as you identify that you are in a negotiating situation that does not have an acceptable compromise, immediately stop the dialogue.
2. Set the right frame of mind, accept that it is not the other person to be blamed but the situation.
3. Write the cloud; a) What do I want, b) what do they want, c) what need is the cause for what I want, d) what need is the reason for what they want, e) what is the common goal of both parties.
4. Examine the assumptions that lead you to believe there is a conflict and attempt to break the assumptions.
Page 41: Forecast accuracy increases with the square root of the number of locations being delivered to, e.g. the forecast for 4 shops is twice as accurate as 1 and 25 shops is 5 times as accurate as 1 shop. It therefore makes much more sense to keep as much stock centrally as possible so that you can supply what is needed to the locations it is required without cross shipments.
Page 43: Buffer the customer like you would a physical constraint in a plant; expected production (sales) by replenishment time (shipping time).
Page 94: Except in simple situations you should construct a Current Reality Tree BEFORE you construct your cloud to make sure that you are tackling the root cause of the conflict and not merely a symptom.
Page 112: How to construct a CRT:
1. Identify ~15 UDE’s.
2. Find a cause and effect relationship between at least 2 of your UDE’s.
3. If the gap between these steps is large try finding an intermediate step.
4. Add ‘injections’ to bridge any insufficiencies in the logic.
5. Once you are happy with the connection between the first two UDE’s add another UDE that logically fits in.
6. Keep expanding the tree with new injections and UDE’s until all UDE’s are included in the tree.
7. Identify your root cause by tracing back the arrows in the logical diagram to the one or two UDE’s/Injections common to all branches.
8. Express this Root Cause in the form of a Conflict Resolution Diagram and examine the assumptions behind the arrows.
Page 142: Market segmentation is the key to coming up with unrefusable offers.
Page 162: If you can break the conflict arrow in an Evaporating Cloud that usually results in the most powerful solutions to your problems.
Page 173: Once you have the Future Reality Tree canvas for ‘reservations’ and add them as negative logical branches on the tree. Some will not be big issues and ignored and those that are a big risk should be trimmed.
Page 175: To cause market segmentation develop one CRT for the overall market and then add additional UDE’s for each client or sector, develop a core offer, then have modules that can be added to solve the additional UDE’s.
Page 179: How to construct an FRT:
1. Start at the top of the page with your goals.
2. At the bottom put an injection that helped you break the core problem in the Current Reality Tree.
3. Attempt to reach the objectives from the original injection by adding further injections and statements.
4. Start again but add Negative Branch Reservations to trim the fantasy elements of the tree.
5. If you have problems thinking of NBR’s look back at the CRT for ideas.
6. Using the NBR’s generate new more practical injections and re-write the FRT using these new injections.
Page 183: Negative Branch Reservations are what change a future reality tree from fantasy to something that should be practical.
Page 186: Most companies know their UDE’s but not their core problems, use CRT’s to identify the companies core problems and solve them, these are the most powerful solutions.
Page 197: Problem solving technique of weighing positives and negatives and trimming the negatives, starts at bottom of page.
Page 207: Involve the client in the sale, present a negative branch and have them help you trim it.
Page 207: Try something different, instead of pressuring the client into the sale offer to give them time to go away and consider the offer. If they ask you to proceed present a list of the usual obstacles to closing the sale, by this stage they are bought in and should help you trim these obstacles too.
Page 211: You can select who your customer is, it can be your direct customer or the end customer or any customer in between.
Page 220: Often people don’t trim a negative branch because they think that the injection required causes more trouble than it is worth. However this is normally not the case, often although the injection causes more negative branches they can be trimmed more easily than the initial branch.
Page 235: How to construct a Prerequisites Tree:
1. Start with an objective.
2. Raise obstacles about why the objective cannot be accomplished.
3. Work out Intermediate Objectives to overcome all of the objectives.
4. Organise Intermediate objectives into a logical tree, working out which parts must be done in series and which can be done in parallel. (Like a project management network diagram)
Page 273: Three necessary conditions for companies:
1. Make money now as well as in the future.
2. Provide a secure and satisfying environment for employees now as well as in the future.
3. Provide satisfaction to the market now as well as in the future.
Page 282: Strategy principles:
1. Segment your workforce across segmented markets.
2. Even if you are dominant in a market, do not take the whole market.
3. Only enter segments where there is a low risk that they will drop at the same time.
If you do the above you can ride the s-curves, as one or many market drops you can move your people to new more lucrative markets that you have not yet fully exploited, that way you will not have to layoff employees.

Quotes:
Page 169: “In order to drastically change the perception in the eyes of the market, [you] don’t have to upgrade the physical product. [You] can change the periphery, the section of the offer that is not the product itself. And this my friends can be done with almost no investment and very quickly.”
Page 185: “A product that relieves the prospects problems brings benefits – the more and bigger the problems the greater the benefits.”
Page 186: “If we want a marketing solution for our company, we shouldn’t analyze our company, we should analyse our company’s markets.”
Page 272: “You can fool a few customers for a long time. You can mislead many customers for a long time. But you cannot mislead many, for long.”
Page 275: “We shouldn’t ever build a strategy based on a market forecast.”

Thought of the Day - Trends

Just had a quick read back through my blog posts so far and significant proportion concentrate on purpose; what i want to do for a living, what my ideal job is, how i can use my strengths to uniquely tackle problems etc. It seems like something i really need to work out and i think i now have plenty of tools to attack this problem, i think i just need to set aside some time to look at it until i find an answer.

It just occurred to me that some of the things i am doing at the moment (looking for jobs, updating my WebCV) might be rendered moot or at least changed significantly depending on the outcome.

Might be a good opportunity to try out 'journaling' for the first time too.

Thought of the Day - The Grass Is Always Greener

"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence"
So true of so many situations, but in my current situation it applies to jobs, or more particularly my perception of jobs. Reading a job spec i always imagine the good things, make the spec fit what i am looking for, then at the interview i steer the interviewers to tell me what i want to hear, then i start the job and it is never quite right. I think i have gotten better at checking my optimism and having a more realistic view of jobs but it is still difficult. The biggest problem is that you never know what a job will be like until you do it and by the time you find out if it is good or not you are kinda committed.


Idea From: Caroline "The grass is always greener on the other side of the golf-field"

Thought of the Day - IT Departments are the new Typing Pools

Something i have been saying since i joined the world of work almost 4 years ago is that in the near future IT Departments are going to become as much of an anachronism as the Typing Pool. I don't think we are there yet but three things are converging that are accelerating the process: 1) The IT skill level is increasing exponentially as the 'millennial' generation join the workforce, these people will be able to support older users and should be much more used to solving their own problems. 2) Increased automation of IT processes make the system administration simpler. 3) Increased outsourcing of high level IT infrastructure, if you don't need people to support servers and bespoke programs it isn't really worth keeping them around to support stupid user issues.

They are surprisingly similar to the things that caused the demise of the typing pool. 1) Most employees were using computers and became used to typing (people). 2) Printing technology meant you could type something once but producesubtly different versions with minimal effort (technology). 3) It was possible to retain secretaries for specific people for whom typing was not the best use of their time (outsourcing high level tasks).

Idea From: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/02/14FE-user-managed-pc_1.html

Thought of the Day - Slow Down Time

What is the best way to slow your perception of the passage of time?

Some articles suggest that the best way is to do a lot of different things and avoid routine because that stops days merging into each other. Unfortunately i have found that if i have too much variety and am too busy time goes just as fast because i don't have time to reflect and assimilate all the experiences. I wonder what the optimum balance of activity and reflection is for maximum time perception ...


Edit Found the link that this idea came from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6926500.stm