Technology

Should I Stay or Should I Go

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A few days ago I wrote about finding inspiration. It got me thinking about goals and when it’s time to change the destination.

If you read the original post, you’ll notice that I didn’t talk about changing the destination or goal. The purpose of applying disruptive thinking to our strategies is not to come up with a new destination. It’s to find a better way to get there. Often times when you hear about companies pivoting in their strategies, you find that they have still remained true to a higher goal. A disruptive idea may lead to new stops and opportunity along the way. These may become smaller micro-goals, but we’re still driving towards the original destination. It’s tempting to chase shinny objects and there is a seductive force to emerging technologies. You need to be realistic about the reasons your chasing it. Is it something your interested in on your own, or does it contribute to the betterment of your goal. If you have passion for an idea follow it, but don’t fall into the trap of forcing something that doesn’t fit. Worse yet is abandoning a solid strategy for personal reasons.

There will be cases when an idea is divergent from the original goal, but valid for the company. Don’t abandon the idea. Flesh it out so you can come back to it later. It may even be worth a minor expedition to learn more. Remember that those larger goals will change in time. The learnings from that divergent thought may become the seed for the next major destination. Never abandon a good idea. Give it care and let it incubate. Learn to know when it’s the right time, place and problem to hatch it.

There can be a fine line between knowing when to pivot in a new direction and when to keep your eye on the prize. A good strategy with measurable outcomes, will provide clarity and insight for making those decisions.

Expand Your Inspiration

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“Think outside the box.” You hear it all the time, but what does it mean and how do you go about doing it? The first part of the question is the easy bit. We all know fundamentally that it’s encouraging us to apply new methods to an old problem. However; I want to put a finer point on this for my purposes. Thinking outside the box is about disruptive thinking. To change the status quo and move forward in new ways. Sometimes bold and sometimes subtle, we are changing the course to our destination.

So how do we do that? Where do those disruptive ideas come from? You steal them. No, I don’t mean take someone else’s idea and make it your own. I’m talking about what inspires you. The different paths to inspiration are as diverse as there are people. I’m going to discuss two; 1) following an emerging trend, and 2) adapting another discipline.

The first is the one I see the most. It involves looking at your industry, those related and investigating the emerging trends. Looking at how others solve problems can inspire you to do the same. For example, machine learning (ML) can identify sentiment from facial expressions. Then letting that inspire you to use ML to identify stress factors that broke a part from a photo. I refer to this one as standing on the shoulders of giants (to see further than you can on your own.)

The second is one I don’t see as often and wish I did. I’ve always felt the best inspiration comes from disciplines outside of your own. Using machine learning for facial recognition extended from artificial intelligence. But artificial intelligence was inspired by studying the brain. While the AI case is a direct parallel, your inspirations don’t need to be. You can be inspired from anywhere. Examine the process Monet used to paint his water-lilies. Study the migratory patterns of birds and butterflies. Anything. I encourage this method for many reasons. It can lead to truly new ideas and thinking. It gives you a non-technical metaphor to make communication easier. It can inspire others in new ways that make the idea better. It can reignite your passion for your job. And, by studying other disciplines not your own, you improve yourself.

These are only two paths to inspiration, but they paint a wide canvas and tend to be the two I lean on the most. I often find myself mixing the two. Using external disciplines to find new ways to utilize emerging trends.

Regardless of how or where you find your inspiration, find it. Trust it. Evolve it.

Three Laws

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I read an article not too long ago that discussed how everyone is looking for the next Silver Bullet to fix all their problems. “If we just migrate all of our apps to the cloud, we’ll be able to scale as much as we want. Move to the cloud. Deploy to containers. Serverless for the win!” What we don’t talk about is craft. The craft that makes an application scale in the cloud. The craft that ensures your container environment can support your workload. The craft of being cost efficient. And the craft to know the limits of serverless technologies and when not to use them.

Some time ago I developed my own take on the “three laws of robotics” as related to software development. I know it’s been done before, but I like where mine ended up. I’ve had the chance to test these with both developers and product owners and they’ve held up. I’ve even had a product owner surprise me by quoting one of them. Pay close attention to how number three addressing the opening rant.

Three Laws of Development

  1. A developer may not actively jeopardize the long term health of a project, or through inaction, allow the enterprise to come to harm.
  2. A developer must adhere to the user stories created by the product owner, except where such stories would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A developer must further advance the craft of software development as long as such advancement does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.