The gift of criticism, A new management perspective

If nothing bad is ever said, nothing good will ever get done...

I love it when my associate tells me in his direct, to-the-point way that she really doesn't like the project work that I put together. It's sometimes uncomfortable to hear, but I find criticism invaluable -- and worth acknowledging.

When I ask my colleague what he doesn't like about what I have put together for a program, his reasons are solid, helpful and almost always merit making a change. Who needs a "yes" person, when a person who tells you the truth, even if it is uncomfortable to hear, can really make a difference to the achieved results?

"As it seems too often be the case, people in office found some items that they felt needed change. I thought this was wonderful and I was so pleased that they had pointed them out to me. One person pointed out the majority of the changes, and I decided to send him a small present as a token of my appreciation. I also thanked each person who did so. One person in the project remarked that such thanks had not been given previously by any one. I welcomed the comments, as they can only help me improve next time.

" Can you imagine being given a gift for the criticism you deliver to a colleague? I believe this is a rather rare response to such feedback -- too rare. Wouldn't project excellence be much more commonplace and achievable if we all responded similarly?

So let's acknowledge those who tell us the truth -- and make us and what we do better! Their integrity, their commitment to excellence and their unwillingness to shortchange the end result by accepting the mediocre are their gifts to us!

Why I like to be a project manager

I have often been asked in the past about the benefits of working in project management.

Having worked for many businesses in various roles, I have learned that what I like most about project management is the variety of roles and the type of environments I am exposed to.

I was always drawn to the concept of managing, but didn't really want to stay with the same environment or be involved in long-term operational work.

Project management appeals to me because it allows me to:-

Manage teams- Work with different teams on the new projects
- Work in different cultural environments
- Be exposed to various architectures, systems
- Manage my time and efforts against very specific deliverables
- Work in multiple departments or areas, thus being able to gain insight into the ways of managing projects by looking at different angles and listening to different points of view.

The project management cycle is so finite that it creates an opportunity to refine skills a lot faster. As a project manager moves from one stage to another, you get to know the components of project management delivery. Therefore, you have many opportunities to improve how you manage each of them, be it budgeting, generating the scope of work, generating a work breakdown structure or managing the risks.

The opportunity for lifelong learning in project management is also a benefit. While you get to do a complete job with the skills you have -- therefore covering all aspects of the project management -- you also get an opportunity to specialize in a particular area, such as risk management or schedule management.

Optimising project delivery strategy

One element missing in much of the discussion around project management is a focus on the key early decisions that determine the project delivery strategy. At the project level, strategic decision-making focuses on optimizing the way the project will be structured and managed. Choosing between using Agile or Waterfall, pre-fabrication or on-site assembly, won't change the required project deliverables but will have a major influence on how the project is delivered and its likely success. One size does not fit all; simply following previous choices ignores opportunities to enhance the overall probability of the project meeting or exceeding its stakeholders expectations. Some of the key steps in designing a strategy for success include:

• Familiarization with the overall requirements of the project and its stakeholders
• Determining the key elements of value and success for the project
• Outlining the delivery methodology and getting approval from key stakeholders
• Developing the project's strategic plan based on the available know-how, resources and risk appetite of the stakeholders (including the project management team).

The problem with implementing this critical stage of the overall project delivery lifecycle is that it crosses between the project initiators and the project delivery team. Both parties need to be involved in developing a project delivery strategy that optimizes the opportunity for a successful outcome. Unfortunately, the opportunities to engage in discussion and planning for project delivery are difficult to arrange. Frequently contract documents effectively prescribe a delivery process, and/or the client and senior management don't know they need to be engaged at this stage of the project lifecycle.I suggest that project managers and project management offices start focusing more on the project delivery strategy during critical early stages of a project. What has worked or not worked on your projects?

Great depression 1929 vs current crisis

The period 1929-33 was when universal banks were ruptured into separate commercial and investment banks, which led to ascension of big giants like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and more. However the current global turmoil has taken a reverse gear where many of these investment banks are again turned into large commercial banks.

There is a need to take a look at the differences and similarities between the great depression of 1929 and the current global fiasco. Let’s go back and brush ourselves on what exactly was the great depression.

The great depression which originated in 1929 in US and spread world over by 1930’s was characterized by barren business and huge unemployment. The main cause of this depression which took all the nations in its web was crashing of the stock markets in 1929. Thousands of investors lost their money in stock markets, leading to a longest recession which comprised huge layoffs, unemployment , wiping out of business activities , which left millions of people to depend on government or charity for food.

By 1930’s this depression became a worldwide phenomenon, taking all countries in its grip. This lead to vast downfall in global trade as each country tried to protect its own industries by imposing high tariffs on imported goods.

Causes of great depression:

1. Stock market crash: Failure of stock markets on October 29, 1929, which led to loss of about 40 billion dollars to stakeholders.

2. Bank failures: During the period of 1930’s 9000 banks filed for bankruptcy. Bank deposits were not insured and thus as banks failed people lost their savings. The banks which survived in this turmoil, stopped creating new loans, which in turn led to slowdown in business activities and less expenditure.

3. Cut-back in purchasing power: with the failure of stock markets and fears of further financial fiasco, led to cut – back in purchasing of items from all individual classes. This in turn led to piling up of inventories, which stimulated a cut down in production, leading to layoff of employees. Unemployment reached to a level of 25%, leading to lowering the purchasing power of individuals.

4. Hawley – Smoot Tariff: as businesses were slowing down, to protect its own industries American government created a Hawley-Smoot tariff in 1930, which meant to charge high import tariffs on imports, this led to deterioration in global trade leading to economic retaliation.


Current Scenario:

Before going into comparisons let’s see what current global turmoil looks like: As it’s said truth is bitter, the fact is we are going through a most severe global turmoil since the days of great depression. The similarity between both the crises is that they both originated from USA and now worldwide nations are facing its spillover effects. This financial global turmoil is a combined result of some intermingled financial mistakes. There are some fundamental causes at roots of this depression.

1. Firstly are the conceited norms in USA. USA has always been relishing sustainable economic development, buffered with low inflation rates in last two decades. This led to complete ignorance of business cycle of economy. The signs of this were reflected 20 months ago, when America was combating excess liquidity in the market. That was the plenteous sign of coming of real estate bubble and asset price inflation.

2. Secondly it is the protection enjoyed by these private and investment banks. Booming economic conditions made these banks take higher risks, among which most of the deals of these banks were highly leveraged transactions. However these risks turn out to be evil for these high flying banks as they didn’t get enough capital in support of their high risk investments.

3. Last but not the least reason would be failure of the top tier management to provide guidance to their deal makers. Greed took over and rest is history.
Though today symptoms of current events are similar to that of great depression, but according many economists making their comparison is misleading.
Apart from this the policies of Federal Reserve differ in both the periods. 1930’s policy was "downturn as a force for good". Liquidate labour, stocks, farmers, so that people will work harder and live more moral lives. However in today’s crisis Federal Reserve is making full efforts to increase liquidity in stocks, to farmers and real estate.

It’s true that current crisis is nowhere in comparison to the great depression, but still we need to put a full stop over these ongoing crises, which is hitting the nations worldwide hard. The other difference which can be drawn over these two crises is that in the present day we have President Barack Obama who promises to solve the crisis. The methods which he plans to initiate are to follow policy of creation of jobs and more spending by American people. Apart from this we have seen bailout packages already becoming the breaking news. Therefore it can be said roots of the current crisis are the same but the nature is totally different. We can hope to see a better future.

Black clouds threatening the euro's survival

The biggest victim of the global housing and credit bubble may be the euro — the single currency of 16 European nations. Having just celebrated its 10th birthday in a free-fall, the euro is being exposed for all of its structural weaknesses.

The euro is managed with a common monetary policy. But a fractured fiscal and political structure has left it without a full toolbox to fight hard times. And this chink in the armor is threatening to make the euro's life-span short.

Members of the European Union's monetary system (the single currency) are left frozen in a rigid, inflexible and arguably faulty regime. But lack of flexibility is not even the most dangerous problem the euro member countries are facing. Even more dangerous to the euro's future existence is the death-spiraling plunge of neighboring eastern and central European “non-euro” countries.

I see two black clouds threatening the euro's survival …

Black Cloud #1 — Pressures from Non-Euro Countries.

When the economic engine of your economy stalls (i.e. global demand for your exports evaporates) and the fragility of your financial system is glaring, investors flee and speculators wage an attack on your currency.

And this is precisely what's taking place in the currency markets right now …

Emerging market economies in Europe have been hammered, driving DOWN the value of their currencies and driving UP the value of the foreign-currency denominated debt that consumers and institutions in these countries are holding.

Black Cloud #2 — Vulnerability of the Euro Concept

Aside from the pressures being cooked up on the periphery, the euro member countries are in trouble for all of the reasons. Milton Friedman, one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, cited prior to the euro's inception 10 years ago.

I'll paraphrase four of Friedman's statements and follow each with what is going on now:

1. A one-size fits all monetary policy doesn't give the member countries the flexibility needed to stimulate their economies.

2. A fractured fiscal policy forced to adhere to rigid EU rules doesn't enable member governments to navigate their country-specific problems, such as deficit spending and public works projects.
3. Nationalism will emerge. Healthier countries will not see fit to spend their hard earned money to bail out their less responsible neighbors.

4. A common currency can act as handcuffs in perilous times. Exchange rates can be used as a tool to revalue debt and improve competitiveness of one's economy.

Under the euro, weak member countries are helpless. Italy has a history of competitive devaluations of the lira during sour times. Now, in the euro regime, its economy is left flapping in the wind.

Milton Friedman predicted that the euro would collapse within 10 years of its inception. As Jack has written in past Money and Markets columns, Milton Friedman saw the vulnerability of this concept coming and predicted the euro's demise within a decade.

Today, the most challenging issue facing the euro might be addressed in this statement:

“Political unity can pave the way for monetary unity. Monetary unity imposed under unfavorable conditions will prove a barrier to the achievement of political unity.”

Germany, the core of the euro and the rich uncle to its euro-member partners, appears increasingly intolerant of the less responsible, less viable partners. Could they make an unexpected departure from the currency union?

If so, how would be the euro existence and its member countries?

Steve Jobs: The story about death

In continuation to the previous 2 blogs here is the third and the last story of Steve Jobs about death in his own words ...

When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everythin g--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possibl e for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully , I am fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else 's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to b ecome. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions . Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Thank you all, very much.

Steve Jobs: The story of Love and Loss

In continuation to the previous blog on Steve Jobs. Here is the second story in his own words ...

I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me . I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance , and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don 't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and l ike any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.

Steve Jobs: The story of connecting dots

Steve Jobs addressing students during the commencement of the gradudation ceremony Stanford, from one of the finest universities in the world. He shared his life stories during the ceremony. The first story is about connecting the dots as told by Steve in his own words ...

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me. My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.

This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one go od meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbl ed into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do thi s. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can 't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beaut iful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in co llege, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwa rds, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.

Foxconn Sees 10th Employee Suicide This Year

Iam really sympathetic to the people that work there. I can only imagine their disgust going to work. Coming every morning in front of this building. Having to work for peanuts, and than cope with the stress of bills. I mean, I am not a wealthy person, but at least I put a smile on my face going to work in the morning. Imagine working for a company that is known to the world for suicides and deaths!

Having to cope with the deaths of your team mates is certainly not an easy thing. There are probably rumors going on all the time. No, I wasn’t there, I don’t know what it feels like. But I hope it gets better for them. Google street view granted me the possibility to see this death building and sympathize with the Foxconn workers.

I dedicate this post to all the dead Foxconn workers. Workers that were imprisoned, and didn’t know what else to do. Workers that were enslaved to feed their family and children, put a roof over their head. To satisfy the basic human needs. I don’t even blame Foxconn, or the companies they work for. I blame the society and the direction it is taking. Do we really want to enjoy the flashy touch screens while some of us are dying to make them?

It seems a lot of people want to inform themselves on the Foxconn situation. So I think it’s a good thing Apple is stepping in and incentivizing (helping). It turns out, that after last calculations were made it will be a 30% increase. Where are the are big players? Shouldn’t they be stepping in too? After all, Foxconn is producing xbox360, Playstation, Wii, and etc...

Evolution of "Tata Nano" over years

Let’s see how “Tata Nano” story evolved over the past 6 years. We will see the remarkable difference between “Rural car” to “Global car” story and how the “open distribution” model took a back-seat after Singur trouble and perhaps the downturn. (source: Tata Nano compiled by Pradeep Thakur).

Four wheel scooter version (2003): Ratan Tata says – The two wheeler image (with the family of four) got me thinking that we needed to create a safer form of transport. My first doodle was to rebuild cars around the scooter, so that those using them could be safer if it fell. Could there be a four-wheel vehicle made of scooter parts? Nikhil Jadhav, an industrial designer part of the initial four member team recalls, “It began as an advanced engineering project. The idea was to create a low cost transportation with four wheels. It was not even defined as a car”.

Rural car version (2004): A door-less car with a bar as a safety measure, having soft doors in vinyl with plastic windows, a cloth roof, two big doors (stead of four). Conclusion after seeing the concept designs: The market does not want a half-car, it wants a car.

Global car version (Jan 2008): Who might be the buyer of this small car? Ratan Tata articulates three personas (1) If I were to look in the US or Europe, in some garages you would have a Bentley or two Bentleys or a high-end Mercedes, and you may find a Smart also in that same garage because that person thinks it’s a fun extra car to have. He doesn’t need it but he may have it. (2) Then you may have a person who needs utilitarian form of transport. He is not looking for a lot of creature comfort; he wants to get around in a sensible way. (3) Then on the other side, you have someone who aspires for a car which is beyond his reach. He has a two wheeler or a three wheeler and this fills his needs.

Open distribution with toolkit (Jan 2008): In Rata Tata’s words – My aim was that I would produce a certain volume of cars and then I would create a very low-cost, low break-even plant that a young entrepreneur could buy and that a bunch of young entrepreneurs could establish an assembly operation. Then Tata Motors would train their people who would oversee quality assurance and they would become a satellite assembly operation for us. We would produce all the mass items and ship it to them as kits so it’s similar to an SKD or CKD operation. The assembler would also be the dealers for the car and thus we would eliminate one level.

Distribution – latest version (Jul 2009): Ravi Kant says in his interview (ET 10 Jul 2009) – I am afraid we have not made much progress on that (open distribution) front because we got caught in creating a factory in West Bengal. Then we had to move it lock, stock and barrel across the country and I think that took a lot of energy. We are already beginning to look at it, but it’s taken a backseat at the moment.

When an event is difficult to imagine, we tend to underestimate its likelihood

In retrospect, the pattern seems clear. Years before the Deepwater Horizon rig blew, BP was developing a reputation as an oil company that took safety risks to save money. An explosion at a Texas refinery killed 15 workers in 2005, and federal regulators and a panel led by James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, said that cost cutting was partly to blame. The next year, a corroded pipeline in Alaska poured oil into Prudhoe Bay. None other than Joe Barton, a Republican congressman from Texas and a global-warming skeptic, upbraided BP managers for their “seeming indifference to safety and environmental issues.”

Much of this indifference stemmed from an obsession with profits, come what may. But there also appears to have been another factor, one more universally human, at work. The people running BP did a dreadful job of estimating the true chances of events that seemed unlikely — and may even have been unlikely — but that would bring enormous costs.

Perhaps the easiest way to see this is to consider what BP executives must be thinking today. Surely, given the expense of the clean-up and the hit to BP’s reputation, the executives wish they could go back and spend the extra money to make Deepwater Horizon safer. That they did not suggests that they figured the rig would be fine as it was.

For all the criticism BP executives may deserve, they are far from the only people to struggle with such low-probability, high-cost events. Nearly everyone does. “These are precisely the kinds of events that are hard for us as humans to get our hands around and react to rationally,” Robert N. Stavins, an environmental economist at Harvard, says. We make two basic — and opposite — types of mistakes. When an event is difficult to imagine, we tend to underestimate its likelihood. This is the proverbial black swan. Most of the people running Deepwater Horizon probably never had a rig explode on them. So they assumed it would not happen, at least not to them.

When the stakes are high enough, it falls to government to help its citizens avoid these entirely human errors. The market, left to its own devices, often cannot do so. Yet in the case of Deepwater Horizon, government policy actually went the other way. It encouraged BP to underestimate the odds of a catastrophe.

Michael Greenstone, an M.I.T. economist who runs the Hamilton Project in Washington, says the law fundamentally distorts a company’s decision making. Without the cap, executives would have to weigh the possible revenue from a well against the cost of drilling there and the risk of damage. With the cap, they can largely ignore the potential damage beyond cleanup costs. So they end up drilling wells even in places where the damage can be horrific, like close to a shoreline. To put it another way, human frailty helped BP’s executives underestimate the chance of a low-probability, high-cost event. Federal law helped them underestimate the costs.

Courtesy: New York Times Magazine.

What are you doing to avoid procrastination ?

The Swiss philosopher Henri Frederic Amiel said, "The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides."

I have observed that this is true of most project-based work. The inability (or unwillingness) to make decisions has proven to be the downfall of many projects. Project management software won't make decisions for you, at best it can only provide you with the information you need to make project decisions. The ability to absorb information and make decisions is a critical "must have" skill for project managers.

It's been said that good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions. Although I don't entirely agree—oftentimes any kind of decision (even a bad decision) is better than no decision. I've observed that sometimes in the heat of battle, as circumstances change, some managers procrastinate making decisions for fear that they might make a bad decision. With that in mind, I think planning for procrastination the same way we plan the allocation of resources, project return, and risk might provide an answer.

By "planning for procrastination" I mean, making as many decisions up front as possible—reducing the need for spontaneous decision-making when it's crunch time. That doesn't mean there's no room for making decisions as situations change, but it does eliminate the need to make decisions about the things that could easily be made in advance. Thomas Edison said, "Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets planning." I think inventing the light-bulb was a pretty successful project.

Another option is to pre-establish the criteria for making decisions in any given circumstance. Of course you can't anticipate everything, but you can plan ahead for many of the common challenges and situations that might occur.

With that in mind, we need to remember the words of humorist Will Rogers, "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."With any project-based work, the ramifications of procrastination are serious. There are project management tools that will make it easier to plan, communicate with team members, and evaluate success, but ultimately someone needs to be responsible for making decisions.

What are you doing to avoid procrastination?

Patents from Inda

· The number of patents granted between 1995 and 2008 is about eleven times that between 1976 and 1994.

· MNCs accounted for a little over half the patents in both periods. However, MNC patenting in the earlier period was largely (71% of MNC patents) in Chemistry related areas (primarily pharmaceuticals) while it was primarily in IT related areas (69% of MNC patents) in the later period.

· Indian companies accounted for just 7.5% of all patents in the earlier period but account for 16% in the later period. Indian corporate patenting has been primarily in the Chemistry-related areas (82% of all patents awarded to Indian companies in the later period).

· Indian research and academic institutions accounted for a little over 10% in the earlier period, but for as much as 22% in the later period. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is the top holder of US patents from India with about 990 patents granted between 1995 and 2008. The Indian company with the maximum number of patents has only one-tenth as many as CSIR. CSIR has received more patents than all the top 20 Indian corporate patenters together.

· Top 10 MNCs patenters from India for 1995-2008 period are General Electric (359), Texas Instruments (309), IBM (246), ST Micro (119), Cisco (76), Symantec (74), Intel (73), HP (57), Broadcom (55), Honewell (51)

· Top 10 Indian corporate awardees of US patents for 1995-2008 are Dr. Reddy’s Lab (98), Ranbaxy (83), Dabur (37), Indian Oil (33), Biocon (28), Orchid (28), Lupin (22), Sasken (21), Wockhardt (19), Reliance (19).

Innovations in the industrial sector of India: A Ratan Tata perspective

In the past 35 years industrial sector in India has been missing in action as far as technology development is concerned. Why? Perhaps Ratan Tata’s interview in Economic Times on Jan 11th 2008 may give us some clue. Ratan Tata was asked following question: What does it take for industrial corporations like Tata Motors to innovate in a knowledge era? This is what Ratan Tata answered:

I think one thing that needs to happen is challenges need to be given to the organization. Let’s discuss about Tata Motors. In developing the small car, we have filed 40 patents in relation to the small car. Tata Motors since last year has filed some 200 patents; the year before we filed 30 patents. And probably if I go back, then for three years we didn’t file any.

[Traditionally] know-how came from somewhere, we produced the product, we badged it ourselves or we put the foreign badges, put it into the market and in some cases, Indian companies were free to enhance that product, while in other cases they had no right to touch that product from what it was.

I think that reduced the challenges to just meeting cost challenges in manufacturing etc. And therefore in manufacturing, we learnt from systems that foreign partners brought, we learnt from techniques that existed and we added some in India. We never really, except in the pharma area, tried to venture out on our own. And I think, many of our companies changed that. You know normally, if you want to do something, the normal reaction from the Indian manufacturer is who are the people doing this? See if I can get a JV with them and come to India.

I think Rata Tata has aptly summarized the ethos that has been part of India’s industrial sector for several decades. Of course, it is changing today. We are not only thinking “products” but also thinking “platforms”. Alfred Chandler Jr., the father of business history as a discipline, would call it Economies of scale (How many million Nanos do you manufacture a year?) and scope (In how many models do you re-use the Nano platform?). While the concept of “scale” is not new to us, the concept of “scope” is. When Maruti announced that they are consolidating their platforms from 8 to 3 last year, the Economic Times article defined what a platform is: A platform is a common architecture for multiple car models that covers design, engineering, production and major components. For example, Alto, WagonR and Estilo are based on the same platform.

Let’s hope that companies like Tata Motors and Maruti lead the innovation movement in the industrial sector of India and make it globally competitive.

Warren Buffett and Disruptive innovation

From time to time I turn to Warren Buffett and always come out refreshed. I find his letters to shareholders piercing and at the same time a sheer joy to read. In every letter, Warren delves deeper into one or more his favorite topics such as inflation & tax (1980), acquisition behaviour (1981) etc. In his 2007 letter, Warren goes into length to explain what he believes is “truly great business”

According to Warren, A truly great business must have an enduring “moat” that protects excellent returns on invested capital.

What is a “moat”? Warren explains later in this report, moat is a metaphor for the superiorities businesses possess that make life difficult for their competitors.

And what does “enduring” involve? Warren likes cost-leaders like Walmart and world-wide brand leaders like Coca-cola whose “moat” may last several decades.

Warren elaborates on what “enduring moat” precludes: Our criterion of “enduring” causes us to rule out companies in industries prone to rapid and continuous change. Though capitalism’s creative destruction is highly beneficial for society, it precludes investment certainty. A moat that must be continuously rebuilt will eventually be no moat at all.

Classic example of this is Motorola. During 2004-2005, Motorola’s RAZR was synonymous with “innovation”. Ed Zander was the “innovation” hero. If you look at market share numbers, a drop by 2% or 3% may seem harmless for a giant like Motorola. But looks like it is enough for it to go into tailspin. Even after pumping in several billion dollars, it could not bring out another “disruptive innovation”.

It is interesting to see that something like “disruptive innovation” is cool from a technologist’s and strategist's perspective and the same thing is totally “uncool” from wise investor like Buffett’s perspective. Buffett is right, society needs all kinds of people.

Story of BYD, manufacturer of automobiles and rechargeable batteries

I got interested in BYD when I read about Reva promoter & CEO Chetan Maini mentioning about Warren Buffett’s investment in an EV company. Maini recently sold Reva to M&M because he sees market is getting ready for electric cars and Reva needed a father with deeper pockets and farther reach. I thought, “Why would Buffett, who is so averse to investing in technology innovation, invest in an electric car company? What is so special about this company that it has managed to do to Buffett what Intel, Microsoft and Google couldn’t do?” As I started browsing through the Net, a few answers started presenting themselves. Let’s start with the company: BYD.

Interestingly, BYD was started around the same time as Reva Motors, in 1995. Reva has put around 3500 cars on the road so far since 2001. In contrast, BYD’s F3, a 4-door compact car that retails for about $9300, has sold 448,397 units in 2009 alone (just for comparison Nano has put 35000 cars on the road since July 2009). But BYD didn’t start as a car maker. Wang Chuan-Fu, a chemist and a government researcher, started BYD in Shenzhen to manufacture rechargeable batteries to compete with imports from Sony and Sanyo. He raised $300,000 from relatives and rented 2000 square meters of space. By 2000, BYD had become one of the world’s largest makers of cellphone batteries. BYD’s customers included Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericosson and Samsung (was anyone else there?). Today BYD makes about 80% of Motorola's RAZR handsets, as well as batteries for iPods and iPhones and low-cost computers. Revenue, which has grown by about 45% annually during the past five years, has reached $4 billion in 2008.

Wang entered the automobile business in 2003 by buying a Chinese state-owned car company that was all but defunct. He knew very little about making cars but proved to be a quick study. In October 2009 BYD’s F3 became the bestselling sedan in China, topping well-known brands like the Volkswagen Jetta and Toyota Corolla. Today BYD employs 130,000 people in 11 factories, eight in China and one each in India, Hungary, and Romania. Essentially Wang is doing to electric vehicles what Henry Ford did to automobiles – making it a product affordable to mass market.

Let’s come back to Buffett. Well, it turns out that the investment idea didn’t originate with Buffett. So it’s not as though Buffett suddenly started understanding technology at the ripe age of 78. The idea came from Buffett’s friend and longtime partner 85-year old Charlie Munger. Apparently Munger seems to have sold the man behind technology harder. Munger says, “This guy [Wang] is a combination of Thomas Edison and Jack Welch”. A master problem solver and a master executor – a deadly combination. Buffett sent another trusted partner David Sokol, chairman of a Berkshire-owned utility company called MidAmerican Energy, to travel to China and take a closer look at BYD.

“I don't know a thing about cellphones or batteries," Buffett admits. "And I don't know how cars work." But, he adds, "Charlie Munger and Dave Sokol are smart guys, and they do understand it. And there's no question that what's been accomplished since 1995 at BYD is extraordinary." BYD investment has already given Buffett’s Berkshire a 500% returns in less than 1 year. Yesterday Daimler announced its partnership with BYD and an investment of $88 million for product development. In 2010, BusinessWeek ranked BYD the 8th most innovative company in the world, ahead of Ford; Volkswagen and BMW.

Sources: Warren Buffett takes charge from CNNMoney.com, Buffett’s BYD soars by Lauren Cooper, BYD CEO Wang’s interview on YouTube.

A low-cost experiment that crystallized Deccan Aviation's vision

Experimentation is at the heart of systematic innovation. We can imagine building prototypes when it comes to new products such as iPod or Nano. But what kinds of experiments are involved when you are launching a new service? Well, one dimension where you need to experiment is called “customer experience”. How does an experiment for a service look like? Let’s see one such experiment that crystallized the vision for Deccan Aviation – a pioneer in low-cost airline business in India.

Deccan Aviation was registered in Bangalore in May 1995 by Captain Gopinath and his friend Sam with a vision of, “Getting a helicopter easier than finding a taxi”. There were a number of questions yet to be answered. Can helicopter be brought to the sphere of public use? Could we make it possible for just about anyone to fly – and at a short notice? Gopinath soon got a chance to verify this assumption.

One day an old army friend Capt. Vishnu called Gopinath. Vishnu was nick named “Flying saucer” because of his passion for flying. After 15-20 years of service typical pilots do 1,500 to 2,000 hours of flying. Vishnu had done 6,000. He had quit the army and joined the UP government as a helicopter pilot. Vishnu was in Bangalore to fly a UP government helicopter that had been brought to HAL for routine maintenance. He was to take off the following day and offered Gopinath a joy-ride. Gopinath asked him which route he was taking to go back. Vishnu said he would be doing a zig-zag detour – Mangalore, Goa, Pune, Nagpur and on to Lucknow. Gopinath realized that the route is going over his village near Hassan. Gopinath requested if Vishnu could drop him to his farm-house on the way and whether he could get his wife Bhargavi and as well as his friend Jayanth and his wife Ponnu with them. Vishnu happily agreed.

In preparation for the landing on the farm, Vishnu asked for a field to be cleared and a fire lit up to help him locate the smoke and find the landing spot as also the direction of the wind. Gopinath called his village friend Raju in Javagal and asked him to make the necessary preparations for their arrival the following morning. They all took off at 9:30 am in Chetak, a helicopter made by HAL under French license and offering 180 degrees aerial view. Vishnu asked Gopinath to sit next to him in the cockpit to help with micro-navigation when they approach Javagal. He sat with his map spread out on his lap.

Within fifty minutes the helicopter reached the farm-house. Raju had lit a fire in a nearby ragi patch from which smoke was visible. A host of neighbors and many others in the village were crowded around the patch. It was the first time in their life they were going to watch a helicopter from such a close distance. As soon as they alighted Raju brought them tender coconut to drink.
Vishnu left after a short break and a meal. Gopinath and the rest headed back to Bangalore in Gopinath’s Tata Mobile pick-up truck. The journey back took six hours. Gopinath recalls, “I knew after the aerial journey in the helicopter that there was no going back.”

What happened here? First one is that an opportunity landed on Gopinath’s feet for a joy-ride, a lucky break. But what Gopinath did was to convert the opportunity into an experience that will validate his assumption about “flying to a small village on a short notice”. This was no ordinary experiment. For a person dreaming about starting a helicopter charter service, it was an ultra-low cost experiment. Low cost experiments like these are extremely important in systematic innovation because they help you validate various assumptions about your idea. They help you course-correct and they enable you to fail and learn from the failures.

source: Simply fly by Capt. Gopinath