Product Development at the Improv

While buying books for my son's high school summer reading assignment on Amazon.com, I stumbled on Improvisation for the Spirit: Live a More Creative, Spontaneous, and Courageous Life Using the Tools of Improv Comedy by Katie Goodman. Goodman is an improv comedian who has recognized the correlation between skills required for comedic improv -- quick-thinking, collaboration, getting out of your own way, and being in the moment without being a perfectionist -- and skills required to be more effective in working with others in everyday life.

My interest in these skills stems from my comfort zone and my own social style and feedback I've received -- the situations of being uncomfortable without a script, worrying too much about the past and future, and negating someone's idea all sounded too familiar. The book includes exercises, and I found those quite challenging as well. But I'm looking forward to the growth opportunity and the chance to try something new.

Bottom line, I've found the book interesting, useful, and applicable to the product development process. The book opens with the "The First Four Skills of Improv", which are great skills to have in any collaborative situation:

#1 - You Must be Present and Listen Carefully -- "To be creative with others and to brainstorm solutions, you must first understand where everyone is coming from, and to do that, you've go to listen. (And not sneak a peek at your incoming text messages.)"

#2 - Don't Negate -- "Negation is when you deny someone's idea. The classic example actors use to explain negation is this:

One actor says, "Hey, look at the that pink elephant!"
The other actor says, "What are you talking about? There's no pink elephant."
Plop. The first actor is shot down, and there's nowhere to go."

#3 - Affirm and Add -- "You accept what your partner is suggesting, and you add to it."

#4 - Always be Willing to Surrender your Plans -- "In improv, you must be willing to give up your idea if it isn't working or the time to offer it has passed. You might be tempted to negate a new idea simply because you're attached to your original one. But the better approach is to go with flow and alter your course."

Good stuff, and an interesting approach to improving collaboration and team-building.

btw - my fave quote from the book: "Is anal-retentive spelled with or without the hyphen?"

The Power of Personal Metrics

Finally getting caught up on some reading, and came across The Nike Experiment: How the Shoe Giant Unleashed the Power of Personal Metrics by Mark McClusky in the July 2009 issue of Wired. Most of you who know me know I've lost a significant amount of weight over the past two years (~40 lbs.) largely through increased exercise. Although I do not use the Nike+, I do use a Polar heart rate and speed / distance monitor and log my training on the PolarPersonalTrainer website. I've also started to use the MapMyFitness.com and Facebook sites to track my progress and share the results with friends. The results, for me, have been incredible. The tracking of metrics has allowed me to chart progress and identify what works well and what doesn't. And sharing my progress has generated words of encouragement that keep me motivated. Any operations manager will tell you that if you want to improve something, measure it objectively and set goals for improvement. Turns out it works for weekend-warrior athletes as well as olympians and companies.

While your at it, check out Wired's 10 Gadgets We’d Like to Throw Into a Black Hole.

Wisdom for Entrepreurs

In the July/August issue of Inc. Street Smarts columnist Norm Brodsky answers questions from readers on a variety of start-up and growing business issues. Some highlights:

"Entrepreneurs don't make good employees. What's more, they are often crummy managers."

"It's a bad idea to offer ownership in a new business to people who are making no investment but their time."

"In times like these, it is natural to worry about survival [cash flow]. But you need to remember that recessions don't last forever. Just don't make the usual mistakes. Now is not the time to cut back on your marketing and product development. Whatever you do, don't fall into the trap of cutting prices. Offer additional services instead."

Check out the rest of the Norm's column here.

Also, check out Norm's 10 Things Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know. Good stuff.

Managing through Better Questions

I recently discovered the Harvard Business Publishing website -- lots of good (and free!) info on managing and leading here. Found Judith Ross' blog entry How to Ask Better Questions with some great tips on putting leadership into practice. I've always been a supporter of participative leadership, where you focus on collaboration with and delegation to subordinates on finding solutions to problems. Although sometimes frustrating, in the long run it beats being "the answer man" and enables teaching and learning that creates a very healthy and capable organization. Ross has interviewed Michael J. Marquardt, a professor of human resources and international affairs at George Washington University regarding his book Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask (John Wiley & Sons, 2005). Marquart makes the case for asking questions instead of offering solutions, and suggests effective questions have the following characteristics:

1.They create clarity: "Can you explain more about this situation?"

2.They construct better working relations: Instead of "Did you make your sales goal?" ask, "How have sales been going?"

3.They help people think analytically and critically: "What are the consequences of going this route?"

4.They inspire people to reflect and see things in fresh, unpredictable ways: "Why did this work?"

5.They encourage breakthrough thinking: "Can that be done in any other way?"

6.They challenge assumptions: "What do you think you will lose if you start sharing responsibility for the implementation process?"

7.They create ownership of solutions

Check out www.harvardbusiness.org for more great management and leadership information and resource.

Dew We Think Detroit Ready for Next Year's Modules?

Charles C. Mann writes in the June 2009 issue of Wired about the need for fundamental change in how Detroit manages technological innovation and the explosion in automotive related start-ups. Venture capital supplied roughly $300 million to fund auto-related companies in 2008, a 3,750% increase from the $8 million invested in 2003. New enterprises like California-based Tesla Motors and Transonic Combustion are bringing new innovation and a garage-shop, Mountain Dew and pizza-fueled entrepreneurial excitement to an industry that's been mostly hostile to outside innovation.

Mann writes...

If a domestic auto industry is to survive, it will have to incorporate and encourage breakthroughs from outsiders....Automakers will need to transition from a vertical, proprietary, hierarchical model to an open, modular, collaborative one, becoming central nodes in an entrepreneurial ecosystem. In other words, the industry will need to undergo much the same wrenching transformation that the US computer business did some three decades ago, when the minicomputer gave way to the personal computer.

By shifting away from vertical integration, [the American car makers] will inherently play a smaller role in the overall industry. As system architects, they would lay down the framework in which independent developers work, communicating and enforcing those standards with would-be suppliers.

...[I]n seeking a model for outsourcing in a heavily regulated industry, automakers might look to pharmaceutical companies, which also operate under severe regulatory, legal, and safety constraints. Manufacturing is simpler for drug companies, but the process of testing new products with clinical trials is nightmarishly complex and costly. Yet this has not prevented drug firms from relying on outsiders; they routinely buy startups and test out their technology. Many or most of the acquisitions prove unusable, but the successes pay for failures. Managing and using outside innovation is difficult, but it has helped keep the US drug industry alive in a climate of unforgiving competition.

Mann makes a strong case, but there hardly seems to be support for this revolutionary approach to innovation within the industry. Although hit hard by the economy, Toyota and Honda still rely on internal and their traditional suppliers for innovation and have made no attempts (at least publicly) towards using the pharmaceutical model for new innovation. Ford, the most likely of the Detroit 3 to survive without bankruptcy protection, or Fiat, who will soon control Chrysler, are not publicly signaling such a radical shift in their engineering innovation processes. Perhaps the remnants of GM will bite, but it sure seems like a long shot to get Detroit to give up percolated coffee for Mountain Dew as the innovation beverage of choice. The very interesting thing is -- it might not matter what GM, Ford, Chrysler/Fiat, Toyota or Honda do, as their ability to dominate an industry has been severely compromised.

Reid Hoffman and Greenspace

Another great read in the May 2009 issue of Inc. magazine, the "How I Did It" section features the story of Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn. I'm a huge fan of LinkedIn -- I'd say it's the most relevant and useful of all the social networking sites. You'll notice my LinkedIn profile link on the right-hand column of this blog, and you can also find my profile by clicking here.

At Stanford University Hoffman studied symbolic systems, which he describes as the combination of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. He worked at Apple and Fujitsu Software before launching Socialnet in 1997. He left Socialnet in 1999 to join Paypal before it was acquired by eBay, and then launched LinkedIn in 2002.

ON LAUNCHING A COMPANY:

"The trick to doing well with these things is to be in a place where people are saying, Hey, that's a crazy idea. If you're right, there's the opportunity to produce something really big. You
want to be one to three years early. You want to start before others think it's an easy idea. It's much harder to be successful when 10 similar things are being financed."

There's analogy to this philosophy in coaching soccer. To get the team to advance the ball to the goal, often the best opportunity is the play the ball to an open area -- "Greenspace" -- where your attackers can gain possession of the ball and continue the attack with many more options for creative play. Unfortunately, many inexperienced players will play at the nearest available option -- whatever appears safe, because the player in control of the ball can visualize the next steps. It's often not particularly productive, because your opponent sees the same scenario and can react accordingly. That's why trust and confidence in your teammates is so important in sports -- you want to be able to exploit the skill and creativity of your teammates to go somewhere and do something the other guys didn't think was possible.

Why Circuit City Can't Blame the Economy

In the May 2009 issues of Inc., Joel Spolsky writes about the demise of Circuit City. Spolsky notes that everyone, from Circuit City's CEO to the Associated Press blamed "poor economic conditions" for the end of one of the nations largest retailers. Yet somehow Best Buy, Apple, and independent electronics retailers like B&H Photo seem to thrive in these conditions -- folks literally line-up on weekends to make purchases. Poke a little into the Circuit City business model, and you'll find the real reason for the failure: COMPELLING THE CUSTOMER TO SHOP ELSEWHERE...

• Aggressively unknowledgeable salespeople, caused by firing anybody who knew anything about electronics.
• Aging mechandise, including offering "Y2K Ready" laptops in 2007
• A frustrating experience once the customer decided to buy
• Uncompetitive pricing, including raising prices for the liquidation "sale"

Yuck! No tears shed here. It's how capitalism is supposed to work -- treat your customers poorly, and you will fail.