Shipulski On Design

Archive for June, 2022

Since resources are expensive, it can be helpful to see the environment around your product as a source of inexpensive resources that can be modified to perform useful functions.  Here are some examples.

Gravity is a force you can use to do your bidding. Since gravity is always oriented toward the center of the earth, if you change the orientation of an object, you change the direction gravity exerts itself relative to the object. If you flip the object upside down, gravity will push instead of pull.

And it’s the same for buoyancy but in reverse.  If you submerge an object of interest in water and add air (bubbles) from below, the bubbles will rise and push in areas where the bubbles collect.  If you flip over the object, the bubbles will collect in different areas and push in the opposite direction relative to the object.

And if you have water and bubbles, you have a delivery system.  Add a special substance to the air which will collect at the interface between the water and air and the bubbles will deliver it northward.

If you have motion, you also have wind resistance or drag force (but not in deep space).  To create more force, increase speed or increase the area that interacts with the moving air. To change the direction of the force relative to the object, change the orientation of the object relative to the direction of motion.

If you have water, you can also have ice.  If you need a solid substance look to the water.  Flow water over the surface of interest and pull out heat (cool) where you want the ice to form. With this method, you can create a protective coating that can regrow as it gets worn off.

If you have water, you can make ice to create force.  Drill a blind hole in a piece of a brittle material (granite), fill the hole with water, and freeze the water by cooling the granite (or leave it outside in the winter).  When the water freezes it will expand, push on the granite and break it.

These are some contrived examples, but I hope they help you see a whole new set of free resources you can use to make your magic.

Thank you, VF.

Image credit – audi_insperation

If you want to improve the work, ask the people who do the work.  They know the tools and templates. They know the ins and outs of the process. They know when and how to circumvent the process. And they know what will break if you try to change the process. And what breaks is the behavior of the people that use the process.

When a process changes, people’s behavior does not. Once people learn the process, they want to continue to work that way.  It’s like their bodies know what to do without even thinking about it.  But on the other hand, when a process doesn’t meet the need, people naturally modify their behavior to address the shortcomings of the process.  And in this case, people’s behavior doesn’t match the process yet they standardize their behavior on circumventing the process.  Both of these realities – people like to do what they did last time and people modify their behavior to address shortcomings of the process – make it difficult for people to change their behavior when the process changes.

When the process doesn’t work but the modified behavior does, change the process to match the modified behavior.  When that’s not possible, ask the people why they modified their behavior and ask them to come up with a process that is respectful of their on-the-fly improvements and respectful of the company’s minimum requirements for their processes.

When the process doesn’t work but the people are following it anyway, ask them to come up with ways to improve the process and listen to their ideas.  Then, run a pilot of their new process on the smallest scale and see what happens.  If it makes things better, adopt the process on a larger scale and standardize on the new way to work.  If it makes things worse, stop the pilot and try another improvement suggested by the team, again on a small scale.   Repeat this process until the process performs satisfactorily.

When the people responsible for doing the work are given the opportunity to change their processes for the better, there’s a good chance the broader population that uses the process will ultimately align their behavior to the new process.  But the change will not be immediate and there may be some backsliding.  But, because the keepers of the process feel ownership of the new process and benefit from the change, they will continue to reinforce the new behavior until it becomes new behavior.  And if it turns out the new process needs to be modified further, the keepers of the process will make those changes and slowly align the behavior to match the process.

When the new process is better than the old one, people will ultimately follow the new process.  And the best way to make the new process better than the old one is to ask the people who do the work.

Image credit — Old Photo Profile

Clearing a logjam is not about increasing the force of the water.  It’s about moving one log out of the way, watching what happens, and choosing the next log to move.

Crossing a raging river is not about pushing against the current.  It’s about seeing what’s missing and using logs to build a raft.

Trekking across the tundra after crossing the raging river is not about holding onto the logs that helped you cross. It’s about seeing what’s not needed and leaving the raft by the river.

The trick is to know when to move the logs, when to use them to build a raft, and when to leave them behind.

Image credit: “Log Jam Mural _ Stillwater MN” by Kathleen Tyler Conklin is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

One of the best problems to solve for your customers is the problem they don’t know they have.  If you can pull it off, you will create an entirely new value proposition for them and enable them to do things they cannot do today. But the problem is they can’t ask you to solve it because they don’t know they have it.

To identify problems customs can’t see, you’ve got to watch them go about their business.  You’ve got to watch all aspects of their work and understand what they do and why they do it that way.  And it’s their why that helps you find the transparent problems.  When they tell you their why, they tell you the things they think cannot change and the things they consider fundamental constraints.  Their whys tell you what they think is unchangeable.  And from their perspective, they’re right.  These things are unchangeable because they don’t know what’s possible with new technologies.

Once you know their unchangeable constraints, choose one to work on and turn it into a tight problem statement.  Then use your best tools and methods to solve it.  Once solved, you’ve got to make a functional prototype and show them in person.  Without going back to them with a demonstration of a functional prototype, they won’t believe you.  Remember, you did something they didn’t think was possible and changed the unchangeable.

When demonstrating the prototype to the customer, just show it in action.  Don’t describe it, just show them and let them ask questions.  Listen to their questions so you can see the prototype through their eyes.  And to avoid leading the witness, limit yourself to questions that help you understand why they see the prototype as they do.  The way they see the prototype will be different than your expectations, and that difference is called learning.  And if you find yourself disagreeing with them, you’re doing it wrong.

This first prototype won’t hit the mark exactly, but it will impress the customer and it will build trust with them.  And because they watched the prototype in action, they will be able to tell you how to improve it.  Or better yet, with their newfound understanding of what’s possible, they might be able to see a more meaningful transparent problem that, once solved, could revolutionize their industry.

Customers know their work and you know what’s possible.  And prototypes are a great way to create the future together.

“Transparent” by Rene Mensen is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

If you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, you can try to remember why you started the whole thing or you can do something else.  Either can remedy things, but how do you choose between them? If you’ve forgotten your “why”, maybe it’s worth forgetting or maybe something else temporarily came up that pushed your still-important why underground for a short time.  If it’s worth forgetting, maybe it’s time for something else.  And if it’s worth remembering, maybe it’s time to double down.  Only you can choose.

If you still remember why you’re doing what you’re doing, you can ask yourself if your why is still worth its salt or if something changed, either inside you or in your circumstances, that has twisted your why to something beyond salvage. If your why is still as salty as ever, maybe it’s right to stay the course.  But if it’s still as salty as ever but you now think it’s distasteful, maybe it’s time for a change.

When you do what you did last time, are you more efficient or more dissatisfied, or both?  And if you imagine yourself doing it again, do you look forward to more efficiency or predict more dissatisfaction? These questions can help you decide whether to keep things as they are or change them.

What have you learned over the last year?  Whether your list is long or if it’s short, it’s a good barometer to inform your next chapter.

What new skills have you mastered over the last year? Is the list long or short? If you don’t want to grow your mastery, keep things as they are.

Do the people you work with inspire you or bring you down? Are you energized or depleted by them? If you’re into depletion, there’s no need to change anything.

Do you have more autonomy than last year? And how do you feel about that? Let your answers guide your future.

What is the purpose behind what you do? Is it aligned with your internal compass? These two questions can bring clarity.

You’re the only one who can ask yourself these questions; you’re the only one who can decide if you like the answers; and you’re the only one who is responsible for what you do next.  What you do next is up to you.

“Fork in the road” by Kai Hendry is licensed under CC BY 2.0.