Weeknotes #225
What I did this week:
Scope
Defining scope is hard. Because you don’t know what you don’t know. We’ve been trying to reach a base-lined definition of what we should deliver in our current project. Writing a list of things is easy. Feeling confident you haven’t missed anything is not so easy.
Study
Qualitative interviews and transnational innovation. As with most things, the more you look the more you see. I thought qualitative interviews would be easy after the statistics lectures (and they are, statistics is still the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to learn) but of course there is lots to learn about how to make them successful. Transnational innovation is about companies moving into other countries, not to access another geographic region, but in order to leverage the innovation and learning potential that doesn’t exist in their home country. This is based on the underlying thinking that strategic success for companies in the 21st Century comes from developing and leveraging knowledge rather than capital resources.
Wipeout
I bought a wipeboard. The note-taking cult on the Internet says you should write everything down. Connect those ideas. Build on them. Don’t loose anything. I wonder if letting go of ideas might be ok. I’ve also been thinking about all the things I want to do, products I want to build, all those projects on my roadmap, and I wonder if the world really needs more poorly implemented digital products. Probably not. I’m becoming more essentialist in my thinking.
Thought about:
What is product management?
I think the product management function in an organisation serves three purposes: interface between the customer and the organisation, vertical integration between hierarchical levels in an organisation and horizontal integration between teams, and feedback loops between all of those. When organisations learn to organise in ways that achieve this without a facilitating function/role then Product Managers won’t be necessary.
BPAAS vs. SAAS
What’s the difference between Business Process As A Service models and Software As A Service models? I think the key difference is that BPAAS model requires inputs from the organisation using the service, whereas SAAS doesn’t it is just used. I think BPAAS has an advantage over SAAS, it has two opportunities for learning. It has the same feedback loop that SAAS has where the usage of the service is used to improve the service, but it also can help the customers improve their inputs and so get better outputs.
Ramblechats
I’ve been thinking about making videos. This might be driven by three intersecting things: My ramblechat with Bobi Robson, upgrading my phone package to give me unlimited data, and spending most of my time on work and study meaning I don’t have time to write blog posts. I thought I might go for a walk and talk to myself about some of my ideas, having a ramblechat with myself whilst rambling. It might be a quicker way to explore ideas in a non-precious way whilst pushing me outside my introvert comfort zone.
Reading and tweeting this week:
Inputs
I normally have lots of inputs. It’s part of my synchronicity of ideas. I listen to podcasts, read newsletters, scroll through Twitter, add interesting articles to my website, and write notes about all the inputs I have. This week I’ve hardly consumed anything other than what was on my reading list for lectures. At the other end of the process, my outputs are drastically reduced at the moment too. Lots of work and study means I’m not participating in the digital charity or maker communities I’m part of, not working on any of my side-projects. I’d like to structure my time better to make sure I get some time each day for this kind of stuff but its hard to justify when exams are only a few weeks away.
Reframe the challenges
Not feeling bad about failure is an important factor in trying things more times and so increasing learning.