Category: Reflection

I believe that there is a very close connection between failure and success. This belief has been reinforced with the knowledge I have gained through reading the articles. The articles highlight instances of plunders that various companies committed leading to their failure and the lessons that can be drawn from the failures.

From the Doppler lab’s downfall, I learn that money can be a curse and not an indicator that promises success. The 50 million dollars that Doppler lab raised attracted pressure from employees and investors, office furniture, health benefits, and many expectations. Doppler should have taken institutional funding until it attained significant sales in the product and mass production of their products that met customer expectations (Pierce, 2020). Doppler made a plunder by placing the cart before the horse which led to their downfall. Doppler could have made sure that their products sell in the market before capitalizing on the product sales as their main stream of revenue.

I have enriched myself with the knowledge of the size and the market. The market chooses the winner regardless of an organization’s size. For instance, Jawbone, which boosted its classic Bluetooth headsets and speakers, collapsed in 2017 after years of struggling to find its position in the market even with new products and new efforts (“5 Lessons to Learn From the 10 Biggest Startup Failures So Far in 2017”, 2020). The company still struggled even with savvy marketing funded with 1 billion dollars, which put the company closer to the established players in the market.

Having gone through the articles, I now realize that no good marketing can save a faulty product in the market. Of worth to note is the home juice maker called Juicero that was worth $ 400. The company got various funding from Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins that accumulated to $ 118 million. Even with this massive funding with an excellent health-based affluent target marketing, Juicero did not secure marketing for its juice due to hand squeezing of the juice bypassing the costly device.

The most important idea I have learned is for the articles to meet the customer’s production expectations. Money is nothing without a product that can work to meet the expectations of the customers. Gaining customers with a better product is the best strategy in business. Doppler launched a product that could not replace headphones. Its downfall could be attributed partly because of failure to test its products to ensure it works and meets the customers’ expectations before launching it.

I have also learned that speed is the only tool that startups can use to attract significant and high tech companies. Anything small made by startups can be replicated and marketed better by Amazon, Apple, or Google. If these big companies realize they can launch the product before the startups or launch later than the startups but a product with better features, they perfectly play the game to their advantage. The startups have to get their speed right for them to take over the big tech-savvy companies.

Finally, I have known that being the first to market does not guarantee a win in the market. Executing the best product and services leaves the users or consumers remembering the provider.

Product evolution refers to how firms who have the visions not merely seeing a product idea, but how that merchandise will evolve as time move. It’s fundamentally the idea of mapping out, habitually before the first item is even manufactured, what future iterations of a product could be as it grows and improves. The origin of the formula is built on a Russian system called “TRIZ.

Sophisticated designs are typically the effect of design evolution. An unsophisticated first design will generally have been developed from initial sources of information, usually from a basic need. In the lifetime of the first product, data in the form of feedback, better materials and new processes from the merchandise’s use will then offer impetus to develop the design further. The challenging economic weather has made all companies to re-evaluate their marketing and scrutinize methods to segregate their products from their rivals. The design has a central role in sales, and there are abundant examples of enhanced sales reshapes of products and packaging, which lead to improved growth and sales in market share. The product design is not entirely new since other firms who have been operations is facing stiff competition and thus redesign their products to compete effectively.

A prototype is an early model, sample or release of a product made to experiment a concept or process. A prototype is customarily used to assess a new design to heighten precision by the system user and analysts—prototyping assists to give specifications for an existing, working system instead of hypothetical one. Having a prototype makes it easier to comprehend the tasks for every member of the team. It offers them the chance to do the further realistic design of development deadlines and more precisely define the cost of work.  A prototype, in my view, is identical in appearance to the final product.

What is the true meaning of Agile Management? How do you communicate it?  How do you determine whether a unit, a team or the entire organization is Agile? Notably, the ability to clearly and consistently answer these questions is critical in an organization’s successful running. One notable thing is that advocates have disseminated many different flavors of Agile. Though done with the best intentions, presenting these variants may lose sight of Agile’s essential. This resulting cacophony can make it possible for critics to conclude that Agile is perhaps just noise and confusion.

The Forbes article articulates that Agile Management is poorly implemented in an organization; it can give it a bad name. It is, therefore, essential to articulate the minimum viable requirements for true Agile. According to the Agile movement, it means understanding and accepting the twelve principles and four values of the Agile Manifesto of 2001.

Agile’s other approach focuses more on the software development aspect of Agile Management. The other distinguishing factor is that the concept further subdivides Agile Management and development into two significant disciplines; Scrum and Kanban. The idea of the two approaches is based on the Agile manifesto.

Agile’s Forbes approach is that the successful implementation of rigid principles and values in any organization is not necessarily a software development business. This means that the methodologies can evolve with time to cater to the changes in the business world.

The second approach defines Agile software development as a group of methodologies based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams. The two methods that are widely accepted in Agile Management and development are Scrum and Kanban. Agile management promotes a disciplined project management process that encourages frequent inspection and adaptation. This approach encourages leadership philosophy, teamwork, self-organization, and accountability. Successful implementation of these methodologies aligns software delivery and development in business with customer needs and company goals.  When an organization fully and successfully embraces Agile management, its benefits make the software more manageable and economically viable. This is possible because there is increased responsiveness to requests, and the features will be quicker with short cycles. The development teams also enjoy the development of more valued work with reduced non-productive work.

Forbes’s approach to Agile management mainly focuses on lifting the employees’ spirits and maximizing labor utilization. Division of labor is key in ensuring that these sub-divisions successfully implement the principles and values as stipulated in the Agile manifesto to the organization’s advantage.

The second approach insists on the sub-division of the development processes in software development to increase efficiency. This creates opportunities for regular inspection and adaptation of this high-quality software while aligning the development with customer needs and goals.

From the above representations, we can rule out that these two approaches are similar in many ways. Still, the difference is also visible in the implementation stage of the strategy. These approaches have to improvise to keep up with the competitive business world that has dramatically embraced technological development and social media. The Agile Manifesto was drafted in 2001, and from that time, major technological advancements have been incorporated in the running and management of organizations.

The conversation took place when I went fishing with my dad at Hudson River last Sunday night.

I asked my dad questions at different moments.

Few questions I asked when my dad tried to set the hook and the fishing bite fallen into the river. I heard my dad whispered: “Again？drop again?”  At this moment I asked my dad: “Does the fishing bell often fall into the sea?” My dad replied: “Yes, it is easy to fall off when I set the hook.” “Have you tried to find a way to make it firmly stick on the pole?” I continue asked. “I was thinking to stick it with glue, but I found it is inconvenience to remove.” answered my dad.

Other moment I asked questions was when my dad missed the fishing bite because he did not hear the sound from the rod where was placed far from him. I asked my dad: “Do you feel the sound was hard to be heard?” My dad said: “The sound was not loud enough especially for my age.” “Will the fish scared away if the sound become louder?” I asked. My dad laughed and said: “the sound does not travel well between air and water, the loud sound will be barely noticeable to the fish underwater.”

Another moment I asked my dad questions was when two bells rang at the same time and my dad could not recognize which two rods had fish bites in the dark, until he got really close to see which two bell were shaking. My dad was disappointed because when he spent time on finding out the rod with fish bites, the fish already bit and ran away. I asked my dad: “do you feel the shaking bell is not easy to be seen?” My dad replied: “It is hard to be seen them shaking during the day, to say nothing of the night.

“Do you think the fishing bite bell needs improvement?” I asked. My dad replied without thinking: “Of course it needs to be improved in one day. As you can see, how many time I have missed the fish bites tonight. I bet some others have the same problems as me. Everything in this world are improving, because we all try to make life easier and convenient. I believe this fishing bell will be improved one day by designers.

Through the conversation with my dad, I believed I did find out what the real problem was. I could felt my dad really wanted this fishing bite bell got improved. I also believed my design: fishing alarm with all in one integrated: sound, light and firmly secured would best fit my dad’s needs.

The design thinking approach refers to a practical process in which design processes are developed. In the modern business world, design thinking is one of the important processes which is used by most of the organization to resolve different kinds of issues. Design thinking utilizes elements from the designer’s toolkit like empathy and experimentation to arrive at innovative solutions.

            In my opinion, design thinking is actually a solution-based approach to resolve many issues. I feel that design thinking tools are useful; it integrates creative and critical thinking processes to resolve problems through which it is possible to generate ideas methodically.