Innovation vs Quality

Thanks to a friend sharing a link on FB, I chanced upon an interesting post on the VC Circle blog entitled ‘Status Quo Police‘ by Adam Hartung.  The writeup covers many aspects of innovation in large scale enterprise, and the impediments that innovators face.  What particularly interested me was Hartung’s argument on how Quality systems and practices can often become the biggest obstacles to Innovation:

Quality – Who can argue with the need to have quality? Total Quality Management (TQM,) Continuous Improvement (CI,) and Six Sigma programs all have been glorified by companies hoping to improve product or service quality. If you’re trying to fix a broken product, or process, these work pretty well at helping everyone do their job better.

But these programs live with the mantra “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Measure everything that’s important.” If you’re innovating, what do you measure? If you’re in a new technology, or manufacturing process, how do you know what you really need to do right? If you’re in a new market, how do you know the key metric for sales success?

The key to success isn’t to have critical metrics and measure performance on a graph, but rather to learn from everything you do – and usually to change. Quality people hate this, and can only stand in the way of trying anything new because you don’t know what to measure, or what constitutes a “good” measure.

Now, I’ve spent a fair bit of my working life as a Six Sigma / Quality champion, and an even longer tenure developing cutting-edge Technology solutions for organizations.  Given my background, I always viewed Systems and Processes as two sides of the same coin.  In fact, I believed that real success in one depended on success in the other. 

But, Hartung has a point.

If you go by the classical approach, practitioners of Quality typically stick to the “what gets measured, gets improved” argument and, therefore, are unable to get a good grip around ideas that reek of blue-sky thinking and innovation.  How ironic that the champions of Change become obstacles to change itself!

On the other hand, innovators have to contend with uncharted territories and unknown experiences, often-times operating in an environment that does not understand their unique needs.  As Hartung elaborates:

… When you’re innovating, what you don’t know far exceeds what you know. You don’t know the market size, the price that people will pay, the first year’s volume (much less year 5,) the direct cost at various volumes, the indirect cost, the cost of marketing to obtain customer attention, the number of sales calls it will take to land a sale, how many solution revisions will be necessary to finally put out the “right” solution, or how sales will ramp up quarterly from nothing. So to create a business plan, you have to guess.

Everything done to efficiently run the old business is irrelevant when it comes to innovation.

When you think about it, for any organization to succeed, it must achieve a fine balance – between maintaining status quo and forging a new path, between encouraging new ideas and rewarding evolutionary growth, and ultimately, between Quality and Innovation.  Easier said than done, don’t you think?

The Price of Progress

A post by Neeraj pointed me to an interesting NY Times writeup called “The Twitter Trap“.

In it, Bill Keller describes his observations on the wonders of modern Technology, and how they impact our lives… sometimes, not so favourably.

I don’t mean to be a spoilsport, and I don’t think I’m a Luddite. I edit a newspaper that has embraced new media with creative, prizewinning gusto. I get that the Web reaches and engages a vast, global audience, that it invites participation and facilitates — up to a point — newsgathering. But before we succumb to digital idolatry, we should consider that innovation often comes at a price. And sometimes I wonder if the price is a piece of ourselves…

My father, who was trained in engineering at M.I.T. in the slide-rule era, often lamented the way the pocket calculator, for all its convenience, diminished my generation’s math skills. Many of us have discovered that navigating by G.P.S. has undermined our mastery of city streets and perhaps even impaired our innate sense of direction. Typing pretty much killed penmanship. Twitter and YouTube are nibbling away at our attention spans. And what little memory we had not already surrendered to Gutenberg we have relinquished to Google. Why remember what you can look up in seconds?

By day, I lead a team that goes by the name of Business Solutions & Innovation, where we focus on leveraging Technology to improve customer engagement across a diversified range of financial services.  So, I am well acquainted with the benefits that Technology and Innovation offer.  But, I am also acutely aware of the downside.

Keller touches upon my fears in his essay, too: 

Basically, we are outsourcing our brains to the cloud. The upside is that this frees a lot of gray matter for important pursuits like FarmVille and “Real Housewives.” But my inner worrywart wonders whether the new technologies overtaking us may be eroding characteristics that are essentially human: our ability to reflect, our pursuit of meaning, genuine empathy, a sense of community connected by something deeper than snark or political affinity.

The choice of poison differs, but the consequences are the same – Email clients that sync every few minutes; Blackberry devices that show you that all-important (and not-so-important) message as soon as it arrives; Twitter and FB updates that refresh on your preferred screen every few seconds, and of course, every conceivable piece of information that is now just a “Google search” away… 

Increasingly, we are all growing up in a culture of instantly-available, always-on, information-overload. 

The “shelf life” of most of the stuff we encounter in today’s day and age is abysmally low – sometimes as low as a few seconds (a la Twitter).  And, by and large, we seem to be “okay” with that.  But, it’s leading to shorter (as in really, really short) attention spans, which demands even faster turnaround times from such mechanisms, further fuelling the viscious cycle!  And, it’s leaving us little time to digest much of the content we consume, which means that few of us are really “processing” any of the stuff we come across, let alone synthesize it with our own learnings and world views.

How would this affect how we view relationships?  How would we define “long-term” in the years to come?  How would this impact creativity – the art of creating something new by combining two seemingly-unrelated entities?  Will we lose all understanding of “delayed gratification”?  What would “learning” be like, in the next decade or two – when all information would literally be at our fingertips?!

I am convinced that if this continues – and it probably will – it will have long-lasting effects on the human race.  Like Keller, I also fear that we may be losing our most essential human qualities in the bargain.  And, that would be too high a price to pay for progress.

Bombay to Goa!

I’ve been driving for more than 15 years.  There were years when the office commute itself was a 50 km/day affair (in Mumbai’s traffic that’s quite a distance to cover).  There were also the occassional trips to Pune via the Expressway, but even on a same-day-return journey, that added up to just about 380 kms in a day.  I have always harboured the desire to drive coast-to-coast across the US, and also explore India by road.  But, hadn’t attempted a really “long drive”… until last week.

We had planned to do a Bombay-to-Goa with both our kids, and I’m happy to report that we all made it back in one piece, and are raring to go again!

The distance is about 650 kms, each way.  And, to get the full experience of a long drive, we decided to do it in one stretch.  The planned drive time was about 14 hours, each way, but we ended up clocking nearly 17 hours!  It was a memorable trip, and I was really pleased that, in spite of a back operation a few years ago, I was able to do this.  We chose the superb NH4 route instead of the usual NH17 one, and it was a fantastic experience…

Here’s what I learned from my first long drive:

- Start by 5 am for a >12-hour road trip; A half-hour in the morning is worth two by evening
- If travelling with kids, carry enough food in the cabin (not in the boot), in case you’re stranded
- On a long road trip, the journey is as important as the destination; Don’t be in a hurry to “reach”
- Wear comfortable attire and shoes – whatever you’re most comfortable in, including floaters
- Plan your route in advance and key-in important via points into your GPS – it will do wonders!
- Don’t start with six options and assume that you’ll decide on the way; Re read above point
- Carry enough water and consume it as frequently as possible; Car ACs dehydrate you
- Don’t take a new car / new pair of shoes / new camera on a long road trip; I didn’t
- Don’t forget to pack your sense of humour with you – no one likes a cabin full of grump
- Know a little about the kind of food you’ll encounter en route e.g. Kolhapur = Spice
- There are at least 20 people in Goa who run at 5.30 am; Watch out for them when you drive!

For the record, the best way to go from Bombay to Goa is from Mumbai to Pune via the expressway and then onto NH4 (buttery-smooth six-lane ribbon of tar!) past Satara – Kolhapur – Nipani (right turn) – Ajara – Amboli (ghats) – Sawantwadi – joining NH17 and then onto Mapusa/Panjim/Madgaon.  Also for the record, the worst way to cross the ghats (mountainous region) is via Anmod.

For those of you who’re interested in our particular travel log, here’s what happened:

(All distances from Powai) Started at 5.15 am. McDonalds @ 6.12 am, 42km. Hit NH4 near Baner (Pune) @ 7.45 am, 145k.  Khed tollbooth @ 8.45 am, 180k. Passed thru Khandala ghats (before Satara) @ 9.30 am, 225k. Next tollbooth @ 249k. Break for lunch @ 1.15 in McDonald’s (opp. side) at 384k. Past Hattari SEZ @ 3.15 pm, 460k.  Entered Belgaum city @ 4.30 pm.  Went via Khanapur road (NH4A) upto Anmod ghats.  Took a few wrong turns trying to follow a “shortcut”, and got lost in the wilderness of a 133 sq. km nature reserve with no sign of civilisation until about 9 pm, when we hit NH4 again near Ponda.  (This last part is entirely optional, and I don’t suggest you try it.)  Then, hit the road to Madgaon and reached Colva @ 10 pm.

(All distances from Colva) Started @ 5.30am. Sawantwadi @ 92k, 7.45am. Amboli ghats end  (Kamat’s hotel) @ 8.55 am. Hotel Minerva @ 2km before Ajara @ 10:15 am, 152k - very clean loo.  Hit NH4 @ 12PM, 192k.  No decent place to eat except McD @ Kolhapur and Sai Food Court @ 265k and some more options @ 285k.  Taswade tollplaza @ 2.35p, 315k. Asal Satara has great food on the opp. side via service road @ 355 k. Last tollbooth on Mum-Pun expressway @ 8pm, 540k. Expressway ends @McDonald’s @ 8.20pm, 570k.  Then, pray that the city traffic does not take all the joy out of your long drive (as it did to our’s).

Happy journey…

P.S. Thanks for all the help, DM.

Read Also: Bombay to Goa – Part Two

Personal Truths

A good friend – Neeraj – posted another good entry on his blog, this time on the issues concerning how much we reveal of ourselves online, and what that means for relationships.  Naturally, it made for an interesting read.  Here is a brief excerpt…

A (Twitter) timeline that follows 150 people or more moves fast… Sometimes I try to put those thoughts together into a coherent picture of the individual and I fail. It reminds me of a Salman Rushdie novel I’d read where a man isn’t allowed to see his prospective wife, but only parts of her through a veil. He sees the eyes, nose, hands, chin, feet and is smitten. When he sees her after the wedding, the whole is decidedly less than the sum of the parts. This is what worries me about online friendships.

Over the past year that I’ve spent on this medium (Twitter) I’ve been fascinated by some of the people I follow. I think I know them, I think I relate but I don’t know if they’ve really let me into the most private realms of their world. A privilege few extend and fewer deserve.

Until I meet them I can only continue to build my edifice of thoughts, letting a chosen few enter in the hope they extend the same faith.

See what I mean?  Thought-provoking, it certainly was.  And, I found myself responding…

My take is that it differs from person to person. If you’re the sort who doesn’t care much for “what people may think” and are true to your identity, you’ll behave online how you really are.  But, others could just as easily create an elaborate exercise of projecting the kind of impression they want to project.  To make matters worse, both types may post about only a limited range of topics, and almost certainly not include the thoughts they consider “personal” to them.

So, I guess, I’d agree with him for the most part – you can’t really tell how someone truly is unless you’ve met them. And, then too, you can only build up a picture from what they allow themselves to reveal…

That said, every once in a while, you come across someone who you immediately connect with. Your wavelengths match, your ideas resonate and your discussions make sense… And, you’re pretty sure that if they lived in your neighborhood, you’d be good friends, and hang out as much as possible.

And, somewhere deep down, you believe that it’s not just a “persona” – it’s all true!

Doing More With Your Mac

I know, I know.  You’ve got yourself a Mac, and you’re never going back.  In all probability, you’re wasting no opportunity to tell your friends & family how uber-cool it is, and how everything just works better (and looks better!) on a Mac.  Which it does. 

But, there’s always room for improvment.  And, I’m going to share a couple of tips with you that will let you take a great computing environment and make it even better!

#1 Time Machine – Backup your Mac

First and foremost, backup your Mac.  Yes, Apple computers are built to the highest standards of quality.  But, shit happens.  And, when it does, you’re not going to have too much fun unless your Mac (and your data) is there when you need it the most. 

I’ve evaluated dozens of backup tools and cloning utilities (both, freeware and paid) for Windows and Mac OS.   And, if you have a Mac, it really doesn’t get better than Apple’s built-in utility – Time Machine.  It’s the simplest, most comprehensive, automated (and gorgeous looking) backup tool you’ll ever lay your hands on… and it’s free! 

All you need is a portable hard disk that’s at least the size of your main hard disk, left permanently connected to your Mac computer.  Fire up System Preferences, find the Time Machine icon, and toggle the switch from Off to On.  That’s it.  It automagically records a copy of everything you do, every hour, without lifting a finger.  And, you can go back to your data, star-trek style, whenever you need to!!!

#2 TotalFinder – Finder on Steroids

The “Finder” file explorer that comes with your Mac has a few nifty improvements over Windows Explorer, but leaves a lot to be desired in other respects.  For one, there isn’t an easy way to “cut” files/folders, only “copy”!  For another, it defaults to a weird sort order of your contents such that folders don’t automatically get displayed at the top. 

Bottom line is that if you manage a lot of files on your Mac, Finder is nowhere near adequate for your needs.  Sure, there are freeware tools like XShelf that let you pause your drag-and-drop, or cross-functional file browsers like MuCommander that let you do more at the cost of speed.  But, what you really need is a Finder replacement that works like it was meant to live on a Mac, and addresses all the limitations of Finder!

TotalFinder is just such a tool.  A beautifully-designed Finder replacement that offers tabbed browsing of your files, dual pane file management, folders sorted on top, cut/copy/paste, and more… A small fee is payable, but it goes a long way in making your Mac experience smoother and creamier.

#3 Bonus – Caffeine

Ever wondered if there was an easy way to tell your Mac not to go to sleep or screen saver mode or dim the screen or any such thing, while your DVD burning or Photoshop editing was on?  Caffeine is what you need.  Period.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t do without any of these on my Mac.  Go and give it a try… you can thank me later.

Read Also: Moving to Mac: Essential Guide

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