1. Product innovation, whereby a new product or service is brought to market or a current one improved;
2. Process innovation, whereby processes and procedures are modified to make them more efficient
3. Positioning innovation, whereby a product or service stays fundamentally the same but is sold to a different market or as a different proposition
4. Paradigm innovation, whereby an innovation is effectively disruptive and facilitates some form of fundamental change

This is an interesting way of looking at the possible innovations available, especially since it is likely that one company might be pursuing more than one of these approaches at the same time. On reflection, however, I found it more interesting to consider where one type of innovation is purported to be another type. It is clear that this happens in the IT industry on a regular basis. The release of Windows 7 is an example, whereby the change is quite clearly a Product innovation in that it has changed the way Windows works internally. The product, however, is still Windows. Looking at the Advertising of the launch, however, one might be forgiven for suggesting that Microsoft is trying to position the change as a Paradigm shift. I believe that this allows them to “spin up” the perceived value of the new Windows version to users. I would suggest that some of the “Green IT” initiatives (c.f. “Green wash”) are similarly positioning pre-existing products as environmentally friendly initiatives.

Is it also possible, however, to position a change the other way? If you have a change that fundamentally changes the way that a business works then might there be value is positioning it as a simpler product or process innovation? In doing so the threat that the change poses to stakeholders might be downplayed and so allow a change into the environment that would otherwise meet excessive resistance. I can see that there might be good reasons for doing this, but would this be unethical? That is a difficult challenge that I suspect would need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I don’t believe that the process has to be inherently unethical unless you really are getting an organisation to take on more cost and risk than it would otherwise be willing to do. This, in the final analysis, is the ethical challenge of any form of spin. When does “spin” spill over into out and out lies?

In more practical terms, it may be worth considering this as a checklist when introducing a change which is innovative, and in IT most of our significant projects are effectively innovative change to someone.  Once the innovative direction is considered then there will be consequential considerations that need to be taken into account. In the case of process innovation, for example, there will be a need to focus on the people who will be receiving the change and engaging them as early as possible. In a product innovation scenario, however, it is much more likely that simple communication about the changes will be necessary.

If you wish to read the article it is: “Francis, D. and Bessant, J. (2005), ‘Targeting innovation and implications for capability development’, Technovation, 25.”

The field of business strategy has looked at this issue of an uncertain future and come up with a number of approaches for managing considering it. One of these is called “Scenario Planning”, and basically consists of building a set of different future scenarios which are considered plausible. They are not attempts at predicting the future, only of painting plausible futures. It is then possible to consider how these scenarios may play out according to the decisions you are taking now. This allows a form of sensitivity analysis on the decisions that you are making.

A process for approaching this would be to:

1. State the architecture decisions that need to be made.

2. Identify the major environmental forces that impact on the architecture.

3. Build four scenarios based on the principal forces.

4. With the scenarios in hand, identify architecture opportunities within each scenario.

5. Examine the implications of the decisions across the range of scenarios.

As an example, lets assume that you need to decide between two architecture design patterns, A and B. For the example “A” provides a highly resilient and fault tolerant solution but involves significant additional hardware, operational administration and development costs over “B”. The decision that needs to be made is whether the extra capability of “A” is justified. If this is a new system then it may not initially require large processing volumes, and may be able to accept a system outage. The scenarios, however, could be used to examine under what circumstances the additional capability would be justified. If the system catches on, for example, how long might it take for the system to become business critical? Would you have time to re-engineer it? This may lead you to decide the additional capability is justified now, or would allow you to understand what changes in the environment might lead to the additional capability being needed.

In terms of the Architecture Roadmap then, the Scenarios developed and decisions taken may then be included in the roadmap. With this in mind a Planning Scenario is chosen. This defines the assumption set on which the roadmap has been built. In doing so, however, the other scenarios are not discounted but used as alternatives to which to architecture should be resilient. Where the architecture isn’t resilient to a scenario, then the roadmap will be able to indicate symptoms that will indicate that the architecture needs to be revisited. These then become business risks that must be managed based on the selected architecture.

All of this seems relatively complicated, so why bother? The answer is that architecture decisions are taken on a regular basis under the in the knowledge that the requirements of the system are known and understood. This may be true of the explicit requirements elicited from users, but these are based on assumptions about the future. In reality the future is generally much more surprising than we would like to believe, and so taking the time to consider what this might mean for the decisions you are taking can be worthwhile. An exercise like this can be considered surprisingly quickly, and may significantly help decision making.

In summary an example creative problem solving approach may consist of stages, such as:

1. Exploring the problem by opening up consideration of the problem space.
2. Narrowing down the problem again by defining it based on the new understanding.
3. Opening up to a set of ideas for possible solutions.
4. Narrowing back down by selecting a subset of the possible solutions.
5. Opening up to the potential approaches to solution implementation.
6. Narrowing this down to an implementation plan.

The creativity techniques can then be used to apply many people’s minds to each of the stages. The most commonly know approach is brainstorming in step 3. There are many such techniques, however, all with different properties and needs. It is the application of many minds to the problem in a way that isn’t often achieved in traditional meetings that really gives this value for IT. Choosing the people to bring into the problem at each stage carefully will allow a much better problem solving approach. It will also mean that they will tend to buy into the solution that is eventually chosen, which can help when it comes to implementation.

So next time you have an IT problem, and most of us have many on a regular basis, consider whether a way to apply moiré creativity to it might help. If the answer is “Yes” then consider how that might be achieved – even if you can’t get out the finger paints. If, of course, you need help in doing so then feel free to contact me at sales@sarquol.com or call +44 7887 536083. The ideas can be surprisingly effective when applied appropriately.

The CMMi has been developed and integrated with other approaches and become the CMMi. This process has increased its apparent complexity, as well as its flexibility. The information on the SEI web site (link) has split into either detailed manuals of CMMi and presentations that primarily seem to say “Why you need to buy in our consultants…” The CMMi has been adopted by large players and so there is a strong consultancy market surrounding it, including training and appraisal of your organisational level. The manuals are reference material and not intended to be a thrilling read. The presentations do well at selling CMMi benefits but don’t offer much in the way of a “how to guide”.

The best links that I found to describe the CMMi to allow a quick “Is this for me assessment were:

Tutorials point:

http://www.tutorialspoint.com/cmmi/cmmi-process-areas.htm

Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_area_(CMMI)

These sites provide an overview of CMMi at a level more suitable for someone who needs simply to understand the core nuggets of wisdom contained in the CMMi. The still are quite long though, so here is a quick summary of the summary…

CMMi is structured to allow consideration of how an organisation does things, for simplicity I will assume it is software development that is being performed. The CMMi assumes that the road to improvement means ending up with a standardised approach for doing this which can be measured, optimised and customised to the situation in a controlled fashion. It has this in common with many “Quality” processes including the international quality standards. It asserts that there 5 levels of maturity:

• Level 0 – Incomplete – We can get there, we’re sure we can. Not sure how though, and sometimes it don’t quite work right.
• Level 1 – Performed – We can do it as long as it is about the same as the last time.
• Level 2 – Managed – We can do it, and we can manage the process.
• Level 3 – Defined – We can do it, and have a definition of how.
• Level 4 – Quantitatively Managed – We can do it, and can provide numbers about how well. After all what you don’t measure you can’t manage!
• Level 5 – Optimising – We can use the numbers as a basis for continual improvement of how well we do it.

The idea of CMMi is to move up between the levels, and the way to do this is to develop various process areas in your organisation at each level. The areas form a structure, so it is very hard to fully benefit from a higher level process until the lower level ones have been addressed.

The processes organised by level are:

Level 2:

• Requirements Management
• Project Planning
• Project Monitoring and Control
• Supplier Agreement Management
• Measurement and Analysis
• Process and Product Quality Assurance
• Configuration Management

Level 3:

• Requirements Development
• Technical Solution
• Product Integration
• Verification
• Validation
• Organizational Process Focus
• Organizational Process Definition
• Organizational Training
• Integrated Project Management
• Risk Management
• Decision Analysis and Resolution

Level 4:

• Organizational Process Performance
• Quantitative Project Management

Level 5:

• Organizational Innovation and Deployment
• Causal Analysis and Resolution

It is likely that if you are having quality or delivery problems that by looking at these process areas in turn and considering whether you “Do that” you can start to gradually improve. The CMMi manuals have a lot to say that can support you, or you can start looking on Google etc. for ideas that might help you improve.  If you need help then seek outside help – it can be value for money. If you need to be certified to a certain level then the game is very different and outside input becomes a necessity.

What Garner have done it to convert this trend into a pseudo-scientific analysis method, and then to look at various technology areas in this light. The result is a set of reports that looks at areas of technology and state where on the curve the various technologies are, and predict how long it will take before the technology gains mainstream adoption. The reports make for interesting reading, but should people use Gartner’s opinion within them in order to develop their strategy. To say the least the idea of the hype-cycle has its negative side, as illustrated by this article.

The challenge is that the hype cycle is basically a Gartner opinion about the future, and any opinion about the future is likely to be wrong. This needs to be borne in mind if you are planning to develop a strategy based on the hype-cycle. So what could this hype-cycle be used for? My own though is that it is reasonable to use it to consider which technologies are most likely to be of use to you in the future. That is, to prioritise the application of you own analysis.

The reports contain a summary of each technology, and this can be used to consider whether it would be applicable to you if worked fully.  The position in the hype-cycle and the length of time Gartner predicts to full acceptance, however, should be considered in the light of the potential benefit of the technology to you. To make a decision, if the technology has sufficient potential value then it is worth trying to build a serious case for whether it is worth being on the bleeding edge of this one. In doing so, however, be aware that working on the bleeding edge has its own management challenges that need to be considered and mitigated.

So why isn’t this being done, especially by smaller companies? The main reasons I have come across are:

• The implementation investment is too high.
• The introduction of standardisation will damage current delivery.
• All our projects are different, so the value is low.
• Lack of management buy-in.
• Cost-benefit isn’t proven yet.
• We don’t have many project failures, so why would we change.

Given time each of these arguments can be deconstructed, and usually the result is that the benefits from standardisation of process can far outweigh the investment.  The main issue is the perception that the process standardisation must be a massive task with everything defined in a single process manual written and signed off at the beginning. If that is the approach taken then the result is likely to be a problem.

Agile development is quite common in software development. The same principles can be applied to the process development. Start small and iterate; then prioritise the development and implementation based on need. The CMMI approach may be too heavy weight for your organisation in its entirety, but it does identify process priorities with well reasoned arguments for why each area is a priority. (There is a link to it on the Sarquol web site if you would like to know more.)

If you would like to discuss an appropriate approach for your organisation then please feel free to contact me at dh@sarquol.com, or call on +44 7887 536083.

The following outlines a generic approach to rational problem solving that has been adapted to the situation:

1. State the problem
2. Collect evidence
3. Identify possible causes, and check they are consistent with the evidence gathered. Consider testing or gathering new evidence to prove the cause is present.
4. Look for evidence to identify the relative impact of each cause.
5. Restate the problem with causes, level of impact and confidence in the conclusion.
6. For the causes with the most significant impact decide on a set of solution options, and work out the associated costs and potential benefits of each.
7. Examine in detail potential dependencies between solutions, some will be reinforcing and others at odds. Some solutions may also have functional impact or benefits, and need to be considered beyond the performance arena.
8. Recommend the most appropriate selection of solutions, and gain acceptance of this. Remember to include obtaining the necessary budget, which may require a business case.
9. Develop, test and implement the chosen selection of solutions. Check throughout that the expected benefits will be realised.
10. Monitor the results to check the problem has been resolved to the degree expected.

This process may seem self evident to you, or it may seem un-necessarily complex and long winded. I would strongly recommend, however, the adoption of an approach that is: a) standardised; b) evidence based; c) concentrates on predicting a level of benefit; and d) proves that the level is achieved. There are few organisations with complex applications and infrastructures who have never implemented a performance solution only to find little end user benefit. A structured approach can reduce the incidence of such expensive problems.

If you would like to discuss an appropriate approach for your organisation then please feel free to contact me at dh@sarquol.com, or call on +44 7887 536083.

The difficulty is that early on in a project there is little that is well defined and known. The management of capacity and performance is considered to be a scientific discipline and so needs to be concerned with correct, hard and provable data. If the input information is anything less than ideal then the output result is incorrect – from a “garbage in, garbage out” principle.

My assertion is that this is analogous to stating that an organisation’s balance sheet must only contain correct data. The fact is that accountants use judgement to provide the figures on an organisation’s balance sheet. There are different methods, techniques and approaches to doing this – and the approach used needs to be “true and fair”. The figures do not represent an absolute truth, however, only a model. Modern organisations could not function effectively without these judgements.

Thus, my suggestion is that it is necessary to use appropriate judgement to build and calibrate a performance model early in a project. This judgement will turn out to be incorrect and so the assumptions, logic and estimates the model is built on should be documented. Thus, the process and results are open to scrutiny and discussion – which can be an opportunity for learning itself. Done well the resultant modelling should amply demonstrate its value during the course of a system’s lifecycle. If you need more detail please feel free to contact me at dh@sarquol.com, or call on +44 7887 536083.

I have been left wondering why this should be so in a number of organisations who are all highly professional in every respect. An explanation that depends on short sightedness or lack of strategic thinking is insufficient, as the organisations in question succeed in highly competitive and complex environments.

My belief is that it relates to the stakeholders within the different parts of an organisation and their input to the development process. It is very difficult to deliver a business change programme, and the time scale is always as short as possible. Most organisations roll-out new software technology in an incremental fashion, and so they believe that they will buy time to fix any performance issues as they occur. The project delivery is primarily driven by stakeholders who wish to drive the change as quickly as possible with as low a schedule risk as possible.

When the system is in production there is usually a warranty period, and then the system transitions to an operational state. In the operational state the stakeholder drivers are to minimise maintenance costs. Thus fixing the issues that haven’t appeared yet will not be a high priority – especially since there are usually plenty of issues that are a high priority to work on.

So what is the answer? Unfortunately it depends on the organisation and their culture. In a highly structured and procedural culture the answer would be to make sure that there are identified procedures for following through the need to complete performance assurance. In a less structured culture the answer would be to make sure the operational stakeholders have sufficient power and understanding to put in place protective measures. If you need advice please feel free to contact me at dh@sarquol.com, or call on +44 7887 536083.