garygilliland:

It’s just after Christmas and like a lot of people I’ve spent my fair share of time in toy shops and I’ve been reminded of a goal that I had when I ran a programming team. Everything should be designed like a Tomy toy. I don’t mean child-like but where possible solutions should follow the pattern in toys.

I’ve got a memory like a sieve so I like acronyms hence SERIES

• S imple – nothing wasted
• E ngaging – asks to be used
• R obust – hard to break
• I nteractive – instant feedback
• E lective – you choose how to use it
• S timulating – encourages creativity

Compare this with Word, Photoshop and even web apps like Gmail. How many menus, icons and hidden rules are there to cope with before you can use the things?

Multi-award winning graphic designer Michael Bierut claims he is not creative but more like a doctor who helps sick patients. In this video he distils the knowledge from his career into 5 maxims that are useful not only for designers but for anyone who is starting out on a project.

1. Listen first, then design
2. Don’t avoid the obvious
3. The problem contains the solution
4. Indulge your obsessions
5. Love is the answer

Michael Bierut: 5 Secrets from 86 Notebooks from 99% on Vimeo.

Imagine, your waiting for a meeting. You’re told the person your meeting will be delayed by 15 minutes. Ten minutes later your told to wait another 15 minutes. Then your asked to wait another 15 minutes and so on until you’ve wasted hours.

The project management equivalent is what I call the death by a thousands cuts. That is someone constantly tweaking their budget and timeline upwards. They never ask for anything big. Just another 10%, an extra week, one more person to solve the problem, until the project becomes unrecognisable.

Constant tweaking is caused by one of two things:-

• They are unwilling to present changes as single batch because they’re afraid they will look incompetent.
• They were unable to present changes as a single batch because they are incompetent.

When a project manager does this they damage their reputation,  they hurt other projects in a programme and they strain finance and resources throughout the organisation.

A project manager has to have the ability and courage to prepare and present a plan which encompasses all of the changes within their control. Don’t make people suffer through the death by a thousand cuts, tell them it’s going to cost an arm and leg. You won’t receive a medal but at least you can come out with a reputation for being realistic and honest.

Stuff happens, that’s a fact of life for a project manager. How you react to that stuff is what separates the good from the bad.

“You think your users want to use your software. They do not want to use your software. They want to ‘have used’ your software.”

David Platt

If only more developers would learn that this the truth.

Most software is not an experience to be enjoyed but a tool to be used. Make the tool, simple and efficient so that the job can be completed quickly and painlessly.

Experiments by the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen have shown that people who are lost actually do walk in circles. Jan Souman explains that

“People cannot walk in a straight line if they do not have absolute references, such as a tower or a mountain in the distance, or the Sun or Moon, and often end up walking in circles.”

This seems likes a reasonable metaphor for a project that doesn’t start out with clear goals which the team can work towards.

In their own words Project H Design is

“a charitable organization that supports, creates, and delivers life-improving humanitarian product design solutions. We champion industrial design as a tool to address social issues, a vehicle for global life improvement, and a catalyst for individual and community empowerment”

In Adobe’s Inspire E-zine Emily Pilloton founder of Project H Design, outlines her 5 tenet credo for a revolution in design which drives the work of her organisation. Emily is fortunate, in that her work is focused on more noble, humanitarian goals than most of us. Nevertheless the framework she outlines in the articles provides a basis for projects in the commercial world.

There is no chapter without action

In short, stop talking and start doing.

Design with not for

a process of "co-creation" is an absolutely necessary approach that makes clients not just recipients of services, but partners in the development of solutions that are appropriate and sustainable over time

If we’re sitting next to clients, hashing out details of what’s really important to them, we’ll find ourselves pleasantly surprised when our final, co-created designs, are not just good by our own standards, but great solutions for real people.

Start locally, scale globally

… scalability represents a new approach to mass production—by building in adaptability to our single solutions, we ensure replication that is both large in scale and personal to each of our end users

Document, share, and measure

To document, share, and measure means to diligently document every step of your design process (so that it can be improved and replicated), to measure its impact both quantitatively and qualitatively, and to share those solutions (along with the documentation and metrics) with other designers and users. The credo reads: "We keep a record of all work as a means to measure, and ask for feedback as a means to constantly improve. Our designs are never "done." We share practices between chapters so that we never have to start from zero.

Design systems, not stuff

“designing systems that can be adapted, replicated, and implemented, by users, in sustainable and infinitely relevant ways.”

"Systems over stuff" means not designing a bridge, but finding a way to cross a river—looking at the root problem rather than a quick fix, and thinking beyond the material

Take the time to read the full article and see what impact the framework has on your thinking for your next project.

“PowerPoint has clearly decreased the quality of the information provided to the decision-maker, but the damage doesn’t end there. It has also changed the culture of decision-making.”

“Because the PowerPoint culture allows decision-makers to schedule more briefs per day, many type-A personalities seek to do so. Most organizations don’t need more decisions made at higher levels.”

“… it creates a belief that complex issues can, and should, be reduced to bullets.”

“… most of the people who actually see the brief get an incomplete picture of the ideas presented.”

Essay: Dumb-dumb bullets – July 2009 – Armed Forces Journal – Military Strategy, Global Defense Strategy

I was lucky enough to hear the chairman of a large pharma company speak about the company’s innovation strategy. The most important thing he said was that the company was a jumbo jet flying on 4 large engines but those engines were failing. Changes in regulation, markets and limits in science mean that to survive the company needs become a jumbo with 100 smaller engines.

This reflects the changes in the pharmaceutical industry where until recently the mega corps relied on a few blockbuster products for between 80% and 90% of sales. Previously the company rejected smaller potential products as they were considered to be too niche. These products were often sold off to small and medium sized pharma companies who made a very nice living from them but mega corp considered inconsequential.

The change in thinking from a few blockbusters to a portfolio which embraces more niche products across a range of areas is an acknowledgement not only that science has reached limits but that wider portfolio reduces risk. 

There is lesson we could all learn here. How many times have you dropped an idea simply because it wasn’t world changing enough or because it was in the wrong niche for your organisation? This type of thinking is stopping organisations maximising the ideas that exist within the organisation.

• We live a global economy where niches that were impractical because we could only service them locally are now accessible globally.
• Companies with a diverse portfolio are more resilient to political, economic, social and technological changes. Not only does a diverse portfolio improve resiliency but it actually increases opportunities for innovation because of the matrix / network effect of combining ideas from multiple areas.

I know that I’m changing the metaphor from the start but fishing with a single line may occasionally bring you the kudos of landing 600lb marlin but a net will catch 1000 herring everyday. Which would you rely on to feed your family?

I’ve been both a requestor and an approver of ideas so over the years I’ve seen and done good and bad things. Regardless of whether your audience is the internal management team, customers or finance people the basics of getting your idea across are the same. You need to consider and combine four elements: Timing, Positioning, Tactics and  Psychology.

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In 2001 General Motors appointed Robert Lutz as vice chairman in charge of all products. Lutz soon distributed a memo outlining his Strongly Held Beliefs on how GM could change it ways.

Written specifically for GM and focused on the motor industry it still manages to provide inspiration which can be used in most projects, innovation efforts and design thinking.

The complete memo is below but for me the most salient elements of the memo highlight the need to think differently but still need to meet the customers’ needs.

Steven Spielberg does not research in moviegoer needs segments.

There are no significant unfilled "Consumer Needs" in the U.S. car and truck market (except in the commercial arena). There are "consumer turn-ons" that research alone won’t find.

What focus groups say they would "really like in their next car" is not reliable, because they are, in the research, not really paying for it.

A salesman cannot say to the customer, "It takes a bit of getting used to, I admit, but did you know that it satisfies 100 percent of GM’s internal criteria?"

Errors of commission are less damaging to us than errors of omission. In our business, taking no risk is to accept the certainty of long-term failure.

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