ThomasCantrell.com Tech Blog

This morning I’m pondering the power of inefficiency. Do we always need to be the most efficient? Or sometimes does it really not matter?

I started thinking about this after my recent FedEx shipment:

Map of recent FedEx Shipment

This is a map of a recent FedEx package I shipped. This document was shipped from my office in Santa Barbara, California to the nearby suburb of Goleta, California. It was shipped overnight and was delivered on time at 9:41am the next day. From a perspective of shear performance, FedEx did quite well. However, the irony is that in night time hours my package took a journey around the state of California.

My package went as follows:

• From my office in Santa Barbara to the Goleta sorting center via truck [10 miles]
• From the Goleta sorting center to Oakland, California via truck [325 miles]
• From Oakland to Ontario, California via plane [425 miles]
• From Ontario to the Goleta sorting center via truck [150 miles]
• From the Goleta sorting center to my bank in Goleta via truck [5 miles]

The package traveled a total of 915 miles. The odd thing is the place I was sending the shipment was only 10 miles away!  Weirder still, the package traveled through the Goleta sorting center twice. This was clearly inefficient.

However, when I get off my logistical high horse I realize the most important fact: my package was delivered early. Although it’s funny to watch, actually I don’t at the end of the day care how it was done, just that at 9:41am my package was at it’s destination, my bank. That’s all I care about, the fact that my package visited the whole state of California in the waking hours ultimately doesn’t bother me that much.

In life and in business I think we put too much effort on doing things in the most efficient manner. However, this week FedEx reminded me that sometimes efficiency isn’t the most important thing. Sometimes I need to do what I know works and work hard at it. I may not be the  most efficient, but I will get the job done relatively efficiently and ahead of schedule.

Food for thought.

I enjoy this clip of Rod Blagojevich on The Celebrity Apprentice:

On the one hand I can understand how Rob has had administrative assistants who have handled technology for him, I still think this does reflect badly on him. In stark contrast is Barack Obama who refused to give up his BlackBerry when he was made President of the United States. Rob’s computer blunders illustrate a greater problem: there are important skills that our jobs specifically don’t require us to do.

For example, to be a software engineer is to live, breath, and sleep code. Anything that’s not code is auxiliary. Therefore we need not to know the business or political side of the organization. However we live in the organization. The success of our code is a commerical equation consisting of marketing, sales, accounting, and executive decisions. If we just keep to our job description we’ll find ourselves affected by these forces.

Anyway, I think I’m going to go off and review my company’s financials….

In software development it’s often more important to figure out what people actually want, rather than how best to “engineer it.” According to Drucker:

There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.

…

Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two – and only these two – base functions: marketing and innovation.   (p. 19, The Essential Drucker)

Although, I suspect Drucker could easily be accused of over-simplification, I love the simplicity. There are only two things, not twelve or twenty things as might be found in other business best-sellers. There are simply two functions: marketing and innovation.

Drucker does define these functions differently than one might think:

• Marketing: “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or services fits him and sells itself.” Marketing in Drucker’s definition has little to do with advertising, but rather focuses more on understanding the market.
• Innovation: Drucker does not just mean just research and development, but also innovation in how the product is built, advertised, and sold. Innovation, therefore, is not just a term for engineering, but it also what the rest of the organization does to built a product efficiently and run the very same organization efficiently.

As an software engineer, it is easy to concentrate on innovation. After all, making the whole process computerized and optimized is second nature to engineers. However, we have to remember that there is this other function: understanding the needs and desires of the market.

Marketing is important, but is not trivial. It is challenging. Sometimes customers and sales people can offer substantial amount of information about market demands. This information is extremely important, but it is not enough. Customers and their salespeople are often blinded by their own current perception of needs. It is like Ford’s famous quote: “if I asked the customer what he wanted, he would have said a faster horse.” We need to anticipate beyond the customer’s stated needs rather than simply looking at feature lists and requests.

I blogged a few times about downturn silence. However, I was thinking about managers not talking less to directs. Manager Tools’ Podcast has a facinating podcast on the other direction, directs talking less to managers. From the summary:

During economic downturns, directs communicate less to us, their bosses. They’re more afraid to disagree, they’re more afraid to suggest different ways of doing things. This is a natural human response to the known and unknown stresses both internal and external. Look, if someone fears the changes they don’t know are coming . . . they’re not going to introduce MORE change into their portion of the universe. They’re going to hunker down or panic, frankly, in our experience.

The audio is here and is around thirty minutes in length. I think it’s good to remember that the downturn silence can go both ways and we should try to keep communication paths open.

Wise business advice from a friend’s, Roy Goble’s, father:

…. And that’s when I received some of the best management advice I ever heard. He said, “Remember, this is not a popularity contest. There is nothing wrong with being a friend with customers or employees. Look at me and Rocky Malvini — he’s been a customer of mine for 30-years and we’re fast friends. Nothing wrong with trusting employees or believing they’ll fulfill their commitments. You don’t want to become paranoid and bitter about the people you work with. But you also do not want to be driven by your desire to be popular. That will get you into trouble. Eventually, you have to make tough decisions about some people, and if those decisions are driven by your desire to be liked, you’ll create a lot of pain for yourself and do nothing to help the people around you.”

Yesterday one of my co-workers was chatting with a member of the sales force about product schedules. While I like our sales force, I always have to worry that things like the following happen:

I really appreciate it when managers are honest about layoffs, instead of simply blaming it on economic conditions. Dilbert explains:

As I wrote about earlier, there is a risk that reports will hyper-analyze their manager’s non-verbals in a bad economy. Dilbert explains:

From the Soundview Summary of A Sence of Urgency:

An inwardly focused organization inevitably missed new opportunities and
hazards coming from competitors, customers, or changes in the regulatory
environment. When you don’t see opportunities or hazards, your sense of urgency
drops. With less urgency, you are less inclined to look outside for the new
possibilities and problems. Complacency grows.

In these economic times, it seems far to easy to “play the victim” and
complain about the economic hardship. However, having economic adversity
urgency which in turn creates the potential for meaningful change. These days
have a real opportunity. As Dead Poet’s Society would remind us,
“sieze the day.”