Shipulski On Design

Archive for September, 2023

If you see something that matters, say something.

If you say something and nothing happens, you have a choice – bring it up again, do something, or let it go.

Bring it up again when you think your idea was not understood. And if it’s still not understood after the second try, bring it up a third time.  After three unsuccessful tries, stop bringing it up.

Now your choice is to do something or let it go.

Do something to help people see your idea differently.  If it’s a product or technology, build a prototype and show people.  This makes the concept more real and facilitates discussion that leads to new understanding and perspectives.  If it’s a new value proposition, create a one-page sales tool that defines the new value from the customers’ perspective and show it to several customers.  Make videos of the customers’ reactions and show them to people that matter. The videos let others experience the customers’ reactions first-hand and first-hand customer feedback makes a difference. If is a new solution to a problem, make a prototype of the solution and show it to people that have the problem.  People with problems react well to solutions that solve them.

When people see you invest time to make a prototype or show a concept to customers, they take you and your concept more seriously.

If there’s no real traction after several rounds of doing something, let it go. Letting it go releases you from the idea and enables you to move on to something better.  Letting it go allows you to move on.  Don’t confuse letting it go with doing nothing.  Letting it go is an action that is done overtly.

The number of times to bring things up is up to you.  The number of prototypes to build is up to you.  And the sequence is up to you.  Sometimes it’s right to forgo prototypes and customer visits altogether and simply let it go.

But don’t worry.  Because it matters to you, you’ll figure out the best way to move it forward.  Follow your instincts and don’t look back.

Image credit – Peter Addor

Fascination with the idealized future state isn’t ideal.  Before moving forward, define the current state of things.

Improvement opportunities mean nothing unless they come from a deep understanding of the state of things as they are.  Define things as they are before settling on improvement opportunities.

If you want to converge on a common understanding of how things are, make a map.

In times of uncertainty, there’s no way to know the destination.  Assess your location, look for low-energy paths, and investigate several in parallel.

If you want to understand the situation as it stands, try to make a map.  The gaps in the map define your learning objectives.  And once the map hangs together, show it to someone you trust and refine it.

Before there can be agreement on potential solutions, there must be agreement on the situation as it is.  Take time to make a map of the situation and show it to those who will decide on potential solutions.  Create potential solutions only after everyone agrees on the situation as it stands.

If there’s disagreement on the map of the current state, break the regions of disagreement into finer detail until there is agreement.

It may seem slow and wasteful to make maps and create a common understanding of how things are.  But if you want to know slow and wasteful, look at how long things take when that work isn’t done.

If you want to make progress, make a map.

Image credit — maximilianschiffer

We have growth targets, stretch goals, corporate initiatives, and improvement plans.  If we achieve all this but it comes at the expense of our health, what do we really have?

When we have our health, we can forget we have it and take it for granted.  We forget we can easily get into our car and drive ourselves to work and remember to complain about traffic. We forget that some cannot walk from the car to the office but that it is easy for us.  We forget that not everyone can muster the energy to work a full day but take for granted that we can do it day in and day out.

The most effective way to remember our health is important is to lose it. But losing it for real is no way to go.  So how can we lose it temporarily and in an easily reversible way?  Here’s one way to give it a go.

Buy two wooden yardsticks (1-meter measuring sticks) to use as leg splints and some heavy adhesive tape.  Measure your inseam, subtract 4 inches (100mm), and cut the pieces of wood to length.  Place the splints on the inside and outside of your leg and tape them in place.  The objective is to prevent your knee from bending, so place them accordingly, and don’t be shy with the tape.

With your straight leg, walk to different rooms in your house.  Walk up and down stairs.  Walk down the street or around the block. Walk to your car and try to get in.  If you can get in, try to put your foot on the gas pedal and brake to show yourself how difficult it would be to drive. Try to ride a bicycle.

With the wooden splints still on your leg, go back in the house and spend two hours doing the things you’d normally do – cooking, cleaning, laundry, eating.  After two hours, take off the splints and reflect on the experience.  Ask yourself how you feel about your ability to walk now that you experienced an inability to walk.  Then think about it more abstractly.  Think of your straight leg as a surrogate for the loss of your health.  What would it mean to lose your health?  How do you feel about that?

I hope this little experiment can help you appreciate what you have.  It helped me.

Image credit — toastal

Before a design can be accused of having too much material and labor costs, it must be able to meet its functional specifications.  Before that is accomplished, it’s likely there’s not enough material and labor in the design and more must be added to meet the functional specifications.  In that way, it likely doesn’t cost enough.  If the cost is right but the design doesn’t work, you don’t have a viable offering.

Before the low-cost manufacturing process can be chosen, the design must be able to do what customers need it to do.  If the design does not yet meet its functional specification, it will change and evolve until it can.  And once that is accomplished, low-cost manufacturing processes can be selected that fit with the design.  Sure, the design might be able to be subtly adapted to fit the manufacturing process, but only as much as it preserves the design’s ability to meet its functional requirements. If you have a low-cost manufacturing process but the design doesn’t meet the specifications, you don’t have anything to sell.

Before a product can function robustly over a wide range of operating conditions, the prototype design must be able to meet the functional requirements at nominal operating conditions.  If you’re trying to improve robustness before it has worked the first time, your work is out of sequence.

Before you can predict when the project will be completed, the design must be able to meet its functional requirements.  Before that, there’s no way to predict when the product will launch. If you advertise the project completion date before the design is able to meet the functional requirements, you’re guessing on the date.

When your existing customers buy an upgrade package, it’s because the upgrade functions better.  If the upgrade didn’t work better, customers wouldn’t buy it.

When your existing customers replace the old product they bought from you with the new one you just launched, it’s because the new one works better.  If the new one didn’t work better, customers wouldn’t buy it.

Function first, no exceptions.

Image credit — Mrs Airwolfhound