What Can Product Teams Learn from Bob Marley?

I once attended a talk by a documentary filmmaker about Bob Marley that described how he and his band The Wailers were able to deliver timeless recordings but also deliver amazing live performances. At the height of Bob Marley's career (before his untimely death) the filmmaker once attended a rehearsal waiting to get an interview with Bob. What he described struck me as both intense and deliberate. The interviewer witnessed the band practice a single song for more than 8 hours. From time to time Bob would stop the rehearsal to discuss his vision for the song and how it could be improved. Periodically Bob would call out "switch" and each band member would move to a different instrument and pick up the song from the top. Flabergasted by what he'd just experienced, when the time was finally granted with Bob he asked about what he had just witnessed. Why would a band rehearse the same song for so long but also learn the instrument of other members of the band? What Bob had to say was telling of his perfectionism but also his dedication to his craft. He described how important it was for each band member to know their parts, but to also have an appreciation for how each instrument worked with their own to become something more. 

What does that have to do with product design?

Software design and development are a team sport.  It starts with vision but requires flawless execution by a team to deliver an exceptional product. I don't feel many organizations recognize how important shared vision and appreciation of each members contributions are. Bob Marley relayed his vision for a song and then he and his band did more than practice to perform their best, each member developed a sound appreciation for what each contributes by learning one another's instruments. I feel software teams can do more to develop a product vision, practice and cultivate an appreciation for what each is contributing.

Vision

A vision is important. It is not a pithy statement about becoming the best, but something bold, meaningful and compelling.  

• A computer in every home... was an early Steve Jobs' vision.
• Putting a man on the moon and return him to earth safely... was John F. Kennedy's vision.
• One laptop for every child.. is Nicholas Negroponte's vision.

 A vision serves to unite people and harness their energy.

What makes a vision? Vision is a product of deep understanding of the state of industry (technology and human values) and a desire to explore what is possible. This is no recipe for creating a compelling vision some would say it's a matter of thinking deeply and systematically removing the limitations for the current state of the industry. A vision is driven by "What if?"  Ask "What if" questions for every limitation your product or industry currently has.  

• What if we could produce computer chips half the size of todays chips?
• What if our software could run twice as fast as it does?
• What if all cellular data packages were unlimited?
• What if a quality laptop could be produced for less than $100?

Perhaps you can see Nicolas Negroponte's vision of One Laptop per Child in the last question?

Practise

How is it possible to practice when you have an aggressive schedule and endless deadlines? The same way other professions do it; make practice part of the schedule. Practice should be scheduled as team building events and should be fun. Fun ideas for practicing skills and techniques might include events like design improv (Interactionary by Scott Berkum) or exercises from the Stanford d.school. An event I helped create at IBM involved developers designing a planned program for Take Your Kid to Work Day. This event put a team of developers in the role of experience designer with mentorship from a seasoned experience designer. It was a fun way for developers to learn about experience design and grow their appreciation for the role. 

Find your own ways get teams involved in one another's work.  Whether that is events like those described or information sharing sessions and job shadowing. I believe a better appreciation for each others skills build better teams and better teams build better products. 

Are your products exceptional?

Is your product team operating at it's potential?

Perhaps it is time to listen to Bob Marley and cultivate your vision and your team?

Design & Failure

<Migrated from ronondesign.com> 

 I was once slated to give a presentation at CHI Camp titled “A complete Failure’s Guide to getting UX Buy-in” Even though I never gave that presentation the importance of failure and what I can learn from it stayed with me.

I have always been a strong advocate of learning from failure. It is one of the most powerful tools I know at motivating people and changing minds, attitudes and behaviors. I can say that unabashed now but it is often not easy to see the learning opportunities when sitting among the rubble of an especially large failure.

I’ve recently been reading a few books by Henry Petroski who has done extensive study about failure in design & engineering.  One book is very interesting:

Success Through Failure – The Paradox of Design

This book chronicles examples of failure and the significance those failures play within a domain.  He cites the the sinking of the Titanic or the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge as exceptional teaching tools in the ship building and civil engineering professions.  Each profession has learned to design against the types of failure presented in each catastrophe respectively. Failure allows for the study of known contributing factors that lead to the failure.  Hmm sounds very logical.  A sensible engineering thing to do.  But the human cost of these “learning” events is very high.

I have also recently read:

Why do People and Organizations Produce the Opposite of What they Intend? by Roger Martin, et al commissioned by the Walkerton Water Enquiry.

Flawed Advice and the Management Trap: How Managers Can Know When They’re Getting Good Advice and When They’re Not - Chris Argyris

It seems there are some very significant characteristics that are built into people and companies that make them failure averse. A bit of a paradox really.  Failure is great motivator and an exceptional teacher (if  expensive at times) – but everyone seems to do everything they can to try to avoid failure.  As Roger Martin points out in his article most often defensive personal values are re-enforced through corporate evaluation mechanisms:

• winning
• staying in control
• avoiding embarrassment

Defensive behaviors drive us all toward unwanted outcomes.  Research by Chris Argyris indicates that how an organization supports or prevents defensive behaviors ultimately can decide an outcome.

Since I am primarily focused on the domain of design I thought I would provide my own observations about failure and what process, communication and cultural changes can be used to create a safe failure environment.

1) Create a safe failure culture and communication

Ensure opportunities for learning are fused into every step of a design process. Use design reviews, critique, and evaluations as learning opportunities for all individuals involved in a design. Ensure each designer is aware and comfortable with their own scope of responsibility and never do anything to diminish that responsibility since lack of trust and diminished self-esteem will trigger defensive behaviors. Never remove anyone one from a design project due to perceived failure, or lack of progress. Safe failure means there cannot be a negative consequence or embarrassment for a poor outcome – only a learning opportunity.

2) Build a  new vocabulary around failure

To know how to handle failure a new set of questions must govern communication.  Instead of ‘how did this happen’ new questions include:

• what can we learn from this?
• how can this outcome be used to our advantage?

3) A process to fail early

It is never too early to start reviewing and evaluating a design. Ideas are fresh and designers have not become fixated on what they feel to be the best approach (what I call designer motherhood). Early failure allows for more possibilities to be explored.  When little effort has gone into fleshing out a design a designer does not have much at stake. Failure is easier to accept.

• with no negative consequences for failure – exploration is open and continuous

4) A process to fail often

By making failure occur earlier with few consequences except learning, designers will explore, innovate and present concepts that might have never been considered.  This will increase the rate of failure but also the opportunity for great success.

• all avenues are explored not just the safe, known routes

While it may not be possible to eliminate defensive behaviors entirely from a design team. I believe my suggestions go a long way to reducing the embarrassment and stigma associated with failure, thereby creating opportunities for accelerated innovation.