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Oblique Strategies

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obliqueI am a big believer in Edison’s “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration”. At Micrex, we eschew creativity enhancement programs, inspiration tools and their ilk.

Problem solving, however, is not without rules. We run trials of one kind or another almost every day. Failure is a big part of our world, and learning from these failures is how we capture value from the activity. As we have found many wrong ways to run trials, we have developed techniques for when things are not going well.

This summer I was introduced to a very special deck of cards, Oblique Strategy cards. These were developed by two artists (Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt) in 1975 to facilitate what is called lateral thinking. Education teaches us to problem solve by digging deeper into a subject. Lateral thinking, or a lateral strategy, is one that basically picks one up and suggests a new start. Each card has a thought or concept that is designed to move our thinking – laterally.

The first card I pulled from the deck was, “Do we need holes?” For what I was working on at the time – the concept was break-through. Use the links above to learn more.

The Theory and Practice of Good Enough

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One of my favorite and often used aphorisms is, “Perfection is the enemy of good.”

Very often the essence of a promising development is obscured by added features or over-refining of an idea.

This concept is usually attributed to Voltaire. Business leaders have nuanced it: Edward de Castro, one of the founders of Data General, said, “Not everything worth doing is worth doing well”.

This philosophy was wonderfully chronicled in Tracy Kidder’s “The Soul of a New Machine”.

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Case in point: the concept of the “minimum viable product” practiced thirty five years before the term.

Get the product in front of the customer now!

The One Best Way (Part 2) The Grand Strategy:

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I admire leaders who are able to create a Grand Strategy. My admiration is boundless for those who actually succeed. By definition, it is very difficult to see how you are doing on a Grand Strategy until you are well along the path toward implementation. The path is full of doubt, questioning, and also requires a steadfast commitment by top management to stay-the-course.

Lou Gerstner IBM CEO

Louis Gerstner did this successfully at IBM in the 1990’s.

Unfortunately few managers are as gifted as Gerstner.

How many times have we seen companies destroyed by rigorously implementing the wrong plan? Management that bets-the-company on a strategy that would need years to determine success or failure are taking a huge, and in my mind, unnecessary risk.

Photo: “Lou Gerstner IBM CEO 1995” by Kenneth C. Zirkel – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The One Best Way (Part 1)

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Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856 – 1915) was one of the founders of scientific management and probably the first modern management consultant. He believed that all tasks could be reduced to “one best way”.

Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny (perhaps not one of literature’s great managers) said, “There are four ways of doing things on my ship. The right way, the wrong way, the Navy way, and my way. Do things my way and we will get along.”

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The next few posts will outline different approaches to new product development.

My question for the reader: do you think there is one best way, and if so what is it?