I'm a director that directs a small engineering team to improve products at some range. So planning and directing is my one of main work. And fortunately my company looks to appreciate my work. My boss said my planning is higher accuracy than others so he can leave things to me.
I suppose it's because I usually make a plan by focusing on conditions of failure instead of conditions of success. The most common failure condition I encounter is spending too much before achieving results, and my plan always avoid this condition.
Given we develop a new web typewriter product. It's difficult for me to find sure things to make it succeeded, but I can say conditions of failure. We shouldn't put high cost before evaluating value because it would be failure if the cost higher than gains. We shouldn't repeat discussions without making mockup because it's just a loss if the result of discussion doesn't succeed. We shouldn't build big team at first because it will be debt if we close the project. We shouldn't make detailed wireframe design because it's just a loss if the feature doesn't work for customers.
However, I heard many episodes that planners try huge cost before evaluating product's value. Repeating meetings, making complex presentations. They put cost for things that we don't know if there is value or not. I guess that's one of the reason why they are told as "White-Collars are less performance" in these days.
I like the episode of Super Smash Bros., the game series published by Nintendo. When its director planned the original one in 1999, he and his co-worker made a prototype in their spare time at first, and then he raised the prototype with a first proposal to their bosses. Of course the prototype has a quality to evaluate if the video game is fun or not so core gameplay experience is very well but many parts like graphic, modeling are cheep.
Today we know Super Smash Bros. got smash hit but they didn't know if the idea was actually fun or not before playing it. So they made a prototype with the lowest cost.
It's to avoid absolutely failure way and we should learn the rule, "Continue experiments without fatal risk." I think it's the way to make it succeeded.
I suppose it's because I usually make a plan by focusing on conditions of failure instead of conditions of success. The most common failure condition I encounter is spending too much before achieving results, and my plan always avoid this condition.
Given we develop a new web typewriter product. It's difficult for me to find sure things to make it succeeded, but I can say conditions of failure. We shouldn't put high cost before evaluating value because it would be failure if the cost higher than gains. We shouldn't repeat discussions without making mockup because it's just a loss if the result of discussion doesn't succeed. We shouldn't build big team at first because it will be debt if we close the project. We shouldn't make detailed wireframe design because it's just a loss if the feature doesn't work for customers.
However, I heard many episodes that planners try huge cost before evaluating product's value. Repeating meetings, making complex presentations. They put cost for things that we don't know if there is value or not. I guess that's one of the reason why they are told as "White-Collars are less performance" in these days.
I like the episode of Super Smash Bros., the game series published by Nintendo. When its director planned the original one in 1999, he and his co-worker made a prototype in their spare time at first, and then he raised the prototype with a first proposal to their bosses. Of course the prototype has a quality to evaluate if the video game is fun or not so core gameplay experience is very well but many parts like graphic, modeling are cheep.
Today we know Super Smash Bros. got smash hit but they didn't know if the idea was actually fun or not before playing it. So they made a prototype with the lowest cost.
It's to avoid absolutely failure way and we should learn the rule, "Continue experiments without fatal risk." I think it's the way to make it succeeded.