A "Quality" Fable...

Let us start with a very blustery night a few months back; the winds were so strong they literally snapped fence posts bringing down large panels of fence. It was quite a storm to say the least, but should not have been that devastating. Fast forward to a couple of days ago; a crew arrived to reset the fence posts and put the fence back up - The stage is now set.

For those of you who not familiar with how fence posts are set, it goes something like this: 

• You dig a hole that is a meter or so deep and a third of a meter wide.
• A circular tube, called a sonotube (which acts as a concrete form) is placed on the hole.
• The fence post is placed into the sonotube and the tube is filled with concrete.
• The post is then squared up to ensure it's perpendicular to the ground and braced with temporary supports.
• A couple of days later, the concrete has cured enough that you can put the remainder of the fence up.   

At this point, it is important to note that when you fill the sonotube with concrete it needs to be levelled to "grade" (level with the ground); if this is not done, water will be able to pool and over time the wooden post rots. And when the wood rots, it just isn't strong enough to stand up to a spring storm. 

So the result of not ensuring the original fence posts were "sunk" properly are as follows...

• A day to dig around the old fence post footings so they could be removed.
• A long day to remove 600 pound concrete footings by hand from holes that are a meter deep and two thirds of a meter wide. (This particular crew had limited access to tools and got very creative with levers to remove the old concrete. It was a reminder to always bring the right tools.)
• Two days to reset the new posts and let the concrete cure.
• A day to put the fence back up.

So there you have it... the story of high winds, a fence, and what happens when someone does not put in the effort to ensure the job was done correctly in the first place.

As I watched this unfold in front of me, I was struck with how the efforts of someone you may never know, can, and will affect you down the road; creating quality foundations can have a profound effect - It is the same with the effort and quality in what you do, as it too will effect someone down the road.

So, put the best effort into everything you do! And in turn, hope someone else is doing the same   because we all know every once in a while it gets very windy. 

And there you have it, a Quality Fable*

gpe

* Technically speaking fables include cuddly animals as the characters, but we all know a rabbit or a squirrel couldn't lift 600 pounds of concrete... so I took some artistic license.

Do you recall the last time you just watched?

The following is the original and the rewrite can be found by clicking here.

I was early for a meeting and had the opportunity to sit quietly; just watching the world go by. The venue was a modern “Innovation Centre” that brought scientific research together with business and government to explore business opportunities... businessmen in their suites (some stylish and others not so much), doctors in their scrubs, researchers with their security tags, young women carrying thick binders and so on… some alone and others in groups; all with a purpose in mind. It was the everyday hustle and bustle of life.

I should clarify that when I say I was watching, it is not a passive event where I also read email, surfed the web and checked stock reports, but rather a very conscious activity -  Watching for how a person looked and acted, what they are doing, how they interact and react with their environment, etc. This is a thinly veiled segue into how with business and most other activities for that matter, there is nothing more important than knowing your customer*... how they act, what they need, how to interact with them, and how they are changing in a rapidly changing world... all that market research is just a sophisticated form of watching. 

Circling back to my active watching moment, I had quickly focused on a series of five large photographs** on display for people to view as they made their way through the Innovation Centre - And guess what? Not a single person stopped to look at them, and of the hundreds of people who walked by, less than a handful even glanced at them. I will wager that somewhere, someone is saying something along these lines, " Look what we have done, we are highlighting this local photographer, connecting with the community and enhancing the environment of the Innovation Centre!"

I will argue that since no one is even looking at the photographs, none of this is happening... it is as if the photographs were not even there. It looks "great on paper" as they say! Some thoughts quickly come to mind: 

• The photographs simply weren't engaging for the demographic. 
• The location just wasn't suitable for someone who is "on the go"... expecting them to stop and look at the photographs was not realistic.
• There was no "call to action" or context for the photographs that would engage a person... such as a sign.
• The same people may frequent the Innovation Centre, so they had seen the pictures many times and had become just part of the familiar landscape.

Personally, I believe that the photographs were in the wrong place, as this was a high traffic area and people were heading somewhere, with no interest or opportunity to stop. This was probably compounded by the lack of context regarding why the photographs were there. But, then again I would have to ask those people who "walked on by".

And this comes to the point and something that was re-enforced for me as I watched - We are busy (or make ourselves so) doing things, "making it happen" and "driving action", and if we are not truly watching what we do, as well as why we do it, our efforts will be misaligned and ultimately ineffective.

And of course everything is always changing, so active watching needs to be ever present.

gpe

* Business governance probably is a close second as a poorly run business inevitable goes down in a ball of flames. In the end however, if you are not intimate with your customer you will perish... guaranteed

** In my humble opinion the photographs were beautiful cityscapes and the work of a very talented photographer.

Ideas, prototypes and Murphy's law...

The following is the original and the rewrite can be found by clicking here.

To this day I remember this short engagement between a sales professional and a "hardened" General Manager (hGM)... it went something like this - 

Sales Professional: "I think we need to do this... I would do it this way... It would be great for the company and I know people who could help us get it done."

hGM: "Great idea... You have my support to do it. Let me know if you need anything."

Sales Professional: "Really? Great... I'm going to do it."

There was some more enthusiastic discussion about the idea and then the sales professional moved off to another discussion.

hGM: "He will never do it you know"

I looked at the hardened General Manager and sipped my wine. He was right, the sales professional never did what he was so enthusiastic about. His idea never happened... either because he had no intention to do more than talk about it (as the hGM surmised) or maybe, he simply didn't know how to bring it to life. 

An idea, in the end, is just "cocktail conversation with a hGM" until you are able to bring action or tangibility to it and make it physically real. So what does it take to bring an idea to life?

Well in my experience you need...

a Time and Event Schedule To Make IT Happen (TESTMITH): This is a detailed calendar of events broken into weekly blocks that outline all the activities needed to progressively build your idea and make something tangible with it. It usually starts with a completion date in mind and then you work backwards identifying all the activities needed to develop something real. The order of these activities need to be reviewed as some activities build upon others, and so forth; my experience is bringing ideas to life is an iterative process. There is an important mechanism that comes with the TESTMITH - A weekly review, as well as creating a simple dashboard using GREEN for complete, YELLOW for in progress and RED for not started. This makes it easy to map your progress, communicate and identify future roadblocks. Plus it's very colourful.

To build a Prototype: Prototypes are exciting for a number of reasons!

• Your idea is now real... you can touch it, you can see it, and more importantly, so can others. 
• You have insight into what is needed to build it, the challenges, and what will be needed to build more (aspects of scale up).
• You now have the first iteration that all other improved versions will be build from.  
• They help show progress, as some prototypes are needed for the next activity in your TESTMITH.

Resources: Approach all of this with the assumption that resources are slim; more often than not it will be you, and if lucky, a trusted few to make it happen. And you will have you roll up your own sleeves, as there is not much opportunity to delegate here; people and processes are not used to making small quantities or "one offs". More often than not you will have to be creative with material and the resources needed to "build it". It is even tougher when money is in short supply -  Creativity, inventiveness and resourcefulness come in handy.

And this brings it us to Murphy's law, which states, and I quote, "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." 

No mater how well you have planned, reviewed and controlled, something inevitably comes along and throws a wrench in your plans. Just imagine working on 20 prototype kits, where each prototype has over 50 pieces and each needs a label... now imagine, spending a day hand labelling all those pieces just to come back the following day to find a majority of the labels were peeling away. Five days later, more labelling and testing, it turns out the room was much too dry to let the glue on the label cure properly. Who would have thought? I sure hadn't when I started.  

Business literature is filled with characteristics of the human condition that help us deal with Murphy's Law and make our ideas real - Persistence, resilience, courage, conviction, determination, belief, sacrifice, etc. It is here that all ideas become real, and everything else is just "process".

So when Murphy's law strikes and the labels fall off, dig deep into the human condition.

gpe