Magic Milestones

So, I’ve recently finished a project where we insisted on prototyping even though it sent the project a wee bit over budget (2 days as I recall). What were the results?

Frankly, it was a good move. By the time we got to the point of UAT the client had only usability suggestions to give. The key to this was constant feedback. He’d seen only a tiny part of the final product very early on in the project but at least he had an idea in his head what the thing he was commissioning was going to look like. The first couple of reviews would have been painful if I’d have approached things from a traditional perspective. Guess what? The client only wanted to change what he saw? “Surely not!” I hear you cry “They aren’t allowed to do that!” But under the agile banner they are and indeed, positively encouraged to do so. Funnily enough, once one accepts this fact, the project actually becomes easier – not harder. So the client makes changes early, based on what he sees and because it’s early, the developers can do it without it adding cost to the project.

UAT was a dream because of this process and there were no nasty surprises. So you see, Prototyping can really be a project manager’s best friend.

Philosophers and Potnapekkas

The first day of the conference started well. The keynote speaker was Pekka Himanen (no relation to Potnapekkas)…

“The Hacker Ethic - what drives human action at it’s best?”

The “Law of Linus” - what makes the unconventional way work?

1. Creative passion
2. Social network
3. Survival

A single innovator is not a revolution. Enrichment comes from interactions between creative people. If you are able to form a community of enthusiasts to belong to, something greater than themselves and they gain recongnition in this community, this is a rewarding process for them. This is what drove the Linux revolution.

There is basic security in a social network and this leads to a collective state of emergency when this collapses. Everyone in the community then feels under threat and becomes competitive rather than trusting. Therefore any innovative community needs:

• Ability of creative people to work in a network
• Recognition which leads to a sense of belonging
• Innovations built of trust

So what do the best creative communities look like?

• Each person wants to help the other
• Enthisiasts reign
• When others succeed individuals and groups are inspired by that

This leads to a chain of enriching interation. This is the image of “extreme creativity”. It’s like a musician in a band jamming. There is something “catching” about it. So a group of innovators should ask themselves, “what kind of band are we?” Are you an apathetic hotel lobby orchestra? - or something more?

The hacker ethic in an educational sense is an individual who doesn’t go by the usual norms. It’s about using the network you have not shunning it. These days education is about what YOU know and YOU know alone. You sit in a room and do an exam and can graduate with a degree without talking to anyone! One gets the impressions that universities feel they would function fine if it weren’t for the students.

Innovation does not thrive within the context of rules and regulations, however companies cannot help setting these. In practice this doesn’t allow free and direct interaction between people. It is easy for companies to use different words and talk about corporate values but it’s what happens on the day to day level that really matters. Freedom for innovation is based on trust.

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