• A Django site. •
• •
July 21, 2008

Peter Abilla
no nic
shmula
» Maintain Forward Tension

One principle in Wing Chun is the maintaining of forward tension.  To explain, I’ll draw the distinction between Tension and Energy and show how this principle in Wing Chun can be applied to Change Management.

Tension is a type of Energy

A Wing Chun maxim goes as follows:

soft and relaxed strength will put your opponent in jeopardy

That maxim means that forward tension is not necessarily using force, or forcing through a barrier or “pushing through”.  But, there is soft force, or tension, such that when a gap presents itself, then the hand or arm shoots forward like a spring.  The “shooting forward” is not done with force, but is an unleashing of potential energy.

Using that definition, then, Forward Tension is much different than the overly-used business term “Breakthrough.”  In the context of Forward Tension, the notion of “breakthrough” is ridiculous, because it connotes a forcing of oneself or of one’s ideas.  Forcing anything only invites resistance and rebellion, not conversion.

So, in sum, tension is really potential energy and when a gap presents itself, that potential energy becomes kinetic energy.  Forward Tension works with the current context in such a way that does not invite rebellion or resistance or eventual back-biting.  It is open, but straightforward.

Application to Change Management

Don’t force things on people.  The most humane approach to change management is to treat those involved in the change as human beings; this means having a dialogue — listen, speak, listen some more, argue a little, and steadily deposit goodwill.

As much as I like love data, I also fully understand that data does not soften hearts or change people’s minds: true change happens when people feel heard, have given their opinion, are willing to try something new, and are part of the change.  The challenge in change management is largely an emotional one; a psychological one; a relational one.

Hold The Tension

Without forcing or pushing of people, maintaining the tension encourages discussion, debate, and invites people to inquire and become curious about the topic of change.  That is the key: behave in such a way that it invites people to learn, argue, debate, and eventually try it out.

Tension in Wing Chun

The video below shows Sifu Grados in Chi Sao (Sticky Hands).  This sensitivity exercise demonstrates the principle of holding the tension and visually explains the principle of transformation of potential energy to kinetic energy very well.

NOTE: none of the movements are rehearsed.  What is taught and practiced are the principles and how those principles are applied during Chi Sao depends on the situation.

Articles on Ethnography and Design:

  1. Feature? What Feature?
  2. Simplify The Product
  3. Ask Aza Raskin
  4. Aza Raskin on Poka-Yoke & The Humane Interface
  5. Aza Raskin on Quasimodal Design and The ATM
  6. Aza on Feature-Bloat and Site Clutter
  7. Aza on Google Search Results Page
  8. Aza on Cooperation and Team Size
  9. Design Thinking in Medicine
  10. On Designing a Watering Can for Little Hands
  11. Queueing Theory and Visual Management
  12. An Interview with the Inventor of “Clocky”
  13. Bad Breath but Good Design
  14. What is Ethnography

Articles on Leadership:

  1. Overmanaged and Underled
  2. Colin Powell on Leadership
  3. Team or Staff?
  4. Tipping-Point Leadership
  5. Abraham Lincoln on Leadership
  6. How to transform an Organization: Chime-in Before Buy-in

Articles on Queueing Theory:

Articles on Operations, lean and six sigma:

by psabilla at 7:36 AM under 5s , a3 report , bullwhip effect , business , change management , click-to-ship , complexity , customer obsession , customer service , design thinking , drum-buffer-rope , dynamic systems , efficiency , ethnography , featuritis , gemba , genchi genbutsu , general , heijunka , ishikawa , it at toyota , kanban , leadership , lean , lean consumption maps , metrics , muda , obeya , operations , pareto principle , poka-yoke , process measures , productivity , quality , root cause analysis , six sigma , statistical process control , strategy , supply chain , takt time , the beer distribution game , theory of constraints , the profit tree , the visual factory , toyota , variation , visual management , waste , wing chun , zero defects (Comments)
April 15, 2008

Peter Abilla
no nic
shmula
» On Customer Obsession

I’d venture to say that most products and services are bloated with features that customers most likely don’t care for;  I’ve been part of product development teams where the focus is on features, with an implicit goal to stuffing as many features as possible — in consumer packaged goods and in software.   This is the wrong approach to developing memorable and sticky products.

The above statement might be best described by Kathy Sierra’s Featuritis Curve:

In my own personal venture in product and package design (a side project), I employ ethnography — the science of watching people do stuff; of learning about unarticulated customer needs, which is otherwise known as ethnography; Toyota calls it Genchi Genbutsu.

A.G. Lafley, the CEO of Procter and Gamble, understands this well:

JANUARY 28, 2005, Business Week

I wanted to get after what we call unarticulated consumer needs. What she wants that she can’t tell us about. And there are lots of techniques we have developed or are developing to do that. And two, I wanted to focus more on the consumer experiences as much as on the product and technology.

People remember experiences. They don’t remember attributes or benefits or features.  We talk a lot about how you create a delightful experience.  Now, when you’re dealing with underarm deodorants and cleaning dirty floors, you have to work real hard to try and deliver a less unpleasant experience.

The key phrase here is this:

People remember experiences. They don’t remember attributes or benefits or features.

What a simple, yet profound statement that still many, many companies fail to understand.

+++++

Please find originally-written articles on Queueing Theory below:

For a few articles on Operations, lean and six sigma, please visit the links below:

ShareThis

by psabilla at 6:53 PM under amazon , business , customer obsession , ethnography , featuritis , genchi genbutsu (Comments)
November 19, 2007

Peter Abilla
no nic
shmula
» Featuritis and the Customer Experience

The more I learn and practice ethnography and design-thinking, the more I notice subtle but incredibly frustrating experiences.  For example, I had a frustrating experience with a faucet that was in the hospital room where our adopted baby girl, Mylie, was born.  This faucet is an automated one — with a sensor.  So, whenever an object passes the sensor, the faucet would turn on even if the intention of the human was not to use the faucet.    

A few facts about this faucet: this faucet was in the corner of the room, against the wall.  It is a faucet that has a sensor, whereby an object would cross the sensor and then a signal would be sent for the faucet to expel water.  I imagine the designers of this faucet designed this hospital faucet this way to encourage bacteria-free habits — that is, the sensor eliminated the need for a knob that both turns-on and turns-off the water.  That is a good and charitable thought — but totally wrong.  Here is a picture of the hospital faucet:

And another picture of the faucet:

Notice the faucet head with the sensor at the base.  To the right of the base, notice the knob?  What does the knob do, you ask.  Answer: nothing.  Whenever the faucet turned on, my first reaction was to turn the only-available knob, only to find out that the knob does nothing.  Very frustrating.

Root Cause Analysis on "Why did the Faucet Turn on Unintentionally?"

Following Taiichi Ohno’s 5-Why’s, it is important to understand why the faucet turned-on when that was not the intention:

  1. Why did the faucet turn on unintentionally?
  2. Because whenever an arm or hand passed across the sensor photo-eye, the faucet would turn on. 
  3. Why would an arm or hand pass the sensor photo-eye?
  4. Because we need to put or get our camera, jackets, or other belongings.
  5. Why did we need to put or get our camera, jackets, or other belongings?
  6. Because the only available counter in the room to place anything was beside the faucet. 

So, we see from this quick and effective excercise that the root cause of unintentionally-turning-on-of-the faucet was that the only available counter-space was next to the faucet.   Hence, whenever we needed to put or get our stuff, our hand or arm would cross the sensor and then the faucet would turn-on. 

Practical Solutions

There are several practical solutions to the verified root cause.  One simple and very practical one is to create more counter space, preferably away from the faucet and simultaneously eliminating the available counter-space to the right and left the faucet.  Another practical solution is to revert back to the good ‘ol faucet with a knob that actually works.  One variant of this "knob" is that it could be a foot pedal, thereby encouraging sanitized hands. 

There are several that, I’m sure, you can think of.  These are just a few that I came up with. 

The True Tragedy of Featuritis

The real tragedy of poor usability of devices and products is that the user feels stupid.  For a discussion, below is Kathy Sierra’s Featuritis Curve

As one walks the curve to the right, the user hits an inflection point where there is an equilibrium between the number of features and the user’s happiness.  As the user continues that walk to the right, the user eventually gets to the point of what I call "user resignation" — where the user gives up, calls it quits, and blames self. 

To some degree, I felt this way about the hospital faucet.  Although the faucet didn’t have the complexity of features, it still behaved that way and I felt dumb that the "knob" wasn’t working like I expected it to work.  Moreover, I felt dumb everytime the faucet turned on when I didn’t mean for it to turn on.   The real tragedy of featuritis is that the user is burdened with feelings of self-loathing and self-blame.  From a businesses perspective, this means that users are unhappy and will abandon the product or service. 

Who’s Fault is it Really and The Customer Experience

Here’s what my good friend and fellow University of Chicago Alum, Aza Raskin, son of Jef Raskin (inventor of the Macintosh) says regarding Humane Design:

The main thing you have to remember—and please remember this, because it could be vital to your sanity—is that any problems you have with an interface are not your fault. If you have trouble using your microwave, it’s not because you’re "not good with technology", it’s because the people in charge of designing the interface for that microwave didn’t do their job right. User interface design is incredibly hard, and carries with it a great deal of responsibility; this is something that’s taken quite seriously when it comes life-critical systems such as flight control software.  But in today’s consumer culture, what should be blamed on bad interface design is instead blamed on the "incompetence" of users. Just remember that it’s not your fault.

A Crappy Faucet and A Cute Baby

The hospital is still there, probably with the same crappy faucet.  But, I take with me a few things:

  1. Mylie is healthy and is home.  Mylie’s birth parents are also home now.  I am thankful to them for choosing us to be Mylie’s parents. 
  2. The way interfaces, products, and services are designed have a profound impact on all of our lives. 
  3. Simple is best — Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) — this is a true principle.
  4. There is still a lot of opportunity to do good in the world of products and services. 
  5. There is still a lot of opportunity to do good in the world.

+++++

Articles on Ethnography and Design:

  1. People Remember Experiences, Not Features
  2. Simplify The Product
  3. Ask Aza Raskin
  4. Aza Raskin on Poka-Yoke & The Humane Interface
  5. Aza Raskin on Quasimodal Design and The ATM
  6. Aza on Feature-Bloat and Site Clutter
  7. Aza on Google Search Results Page
  8. Aza on Cooperation and Team Size
  9. Design Thinking in Medicine
  10. On Designing a Watering Can for Little Hands
  11. Queueing Theory and Visual Management
  12. An Interview with the Inventor of "Clocky"
  13. Bad Breath but Good Design
  14. What is Ethnography

Please find originally-written articles on Queueing Theory below:

For a few articles on Operations, lean and six sigma, please visit the links below:

Share This

by psabilla at 6:54 AM under aza raskin , business , complexity , drum-buffer-rope , dynamic systems , ethnography , featuritis , gemba , genchi genbutsu , heijunka , it at toyota , kanban , leadership , lean , lean consumption maps , muda , obeya , operations , pareto principle , product development , quality , root cause analysis , simplicity principle , six sigma , statistical process control , strategy , variation , waste (Comments)
November 12, 2007

Peter Abilla
no nic
shmula
» Ask Mary Poppendieck Anything!

In August 2006, Mary Poppendieck was nice enough to entertain questions from my readers on the topic of Lean for Software.  Some great questions were submitted and Mary answered them. 

Well, she’s willing to do that again, so please submit your questions for Mary and she will answer some of those questions.  I will then post her responses on future posts.  Here’s the process:

  1. Submit your questions on Lean for Software or Agile in the comments below.
  2. I will close comments on November 25.
  3. I will begin posting Mary’s answers after November 25, 2007.

Here is Mary’s Biography:

Mary Poppendieck has been in the Information Technology industry for thirty years.  She has managed solutions in software development, supply chain management, manufacturing operations, and new product development.

A popular writer and speaker, Mary’s classes apply lean principles to Software Development problems and offer a fresh perspective on software development processes.  She is the author of Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers (Paperback) and Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash (Paperback).

Please ask your tough questions — Mary will most likely have something to teach us all.

+++++

Please find originally-written articles on Queueing Theory below:

For a few articles on Operations, lean and six sigma, please visit the links below:

Share This

by psabilla at 6:03 AM under 5s , agile , business , drum-buffer-rope , featuritis , gemba , genchi genbutsu , heijunka , ishikawa , it at toyota , kanban , leadership , lean , mary poppendieck , muda , obeya , pareto principle , root cause analysis , software , toyota , variation , waste (Comments)
November 7, 2007

Peter Abilla
no nic
shmula
» Aza Raskin on Google Search Results

In a previous post on Ethnography, I invited Aza Raskin, founder of Humanized and son of Jef Raskin, the inventor of the Macintosh and author of The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems — to possibly answer reader’s questions about design, visual management, ethnography, genchi genbutsu, man-machine interactions, or anything related.  Several readers responded with interesting questions for Aza.  In today’s post, Aza Raskin responds to a reader’s question about Google Search Results page and how messy it is.

The Google search box is simple, clean, and intuitive. BUT, the search results, from what customers tell us is confusing and messy as hell. How do you suggest we clean up the natural search and the paid search results?  Is there a more intuitive way of doing it?  Thanks — A Googler

Ironically, one of the fundamental goal of interaction designers is to reduce interaction.  When we do our jobs perfectly, few people ever notice (except when comparing your solution to other products).

In this light, I would make one suggestion: remove the pagination from the Google search results.  At best, its somewhat annoying to click through the pages, and at worst its aggravating trying to remember which page had the result you are looking for. One of Google’s magics is the extremely fast loading times, and I understand that loading long pages takes a long time. The solution is a good implementation of an non-intrusive infinite scroll.

As a side note, playful touches make a great interface into home-run products (as long as playful doesn’t become annoying). I like the elongation of "Goooooooogle". That’s a great playful touch. That should be kept in some form.

Other articles in the "Ask Aza Raskin" Series:

  1. Ask Aza Raskin
  2. Aza Raskin on Poka-Yoke & The Humane Interface
  3. Aza Raskin on Quasimodal Design and The ATM
  4. Aza on Feature-Bloat and Site Clutter
  5. Aza on Google Search Results Page

+++++

Articles on Queueing Theory

+++++

For articles on Operations, lean and six sigma, please visit the links below:

Share This

by psabilla at 3:55 AM under aza raskin , business , complexity , customer obsession , ethnography , featuritis , simplicity principle (Comments)
November 4, 2007

Peter Abilla
no nic
shmula
» Root Cause, Genchi Genbutsu, & Design Thinking

One Pillar of the Toyota Production System is "Respect for the Human" or, more commonly known outside of Toyota as "Respect for People."  That Pillar has given rise to an approach to improvement that is uniquely Toyota’s and is starkly different than the Taylorist approach proposed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, which fails to see the individual and under-appreciates the physical and psychological differences in people and in how people prefer to work.  The Toyota Production System, I argue, appreciates the individual and empowers the individual to improve her work within the System; by doing so, a firm can increase its ratio of problem-solvers to problem-finders.   But, this article is not about Taylorism versus The Toyota Production System — ignoring my propensity towards tangents for a moment — this article is about Root Cause Analysis, Genchi Genbutsu, and Human-Centered Design — all elements I found in the book Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, by Atul Gawande.

I recently read a short excerpt from the book Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, by Atul Gawande, which is an excellent example illustrating the relationship between Root Cause Analysis, Genchi Genbutsu, and Design.   The book is a series of essays that explain, with heart-felt candor, how difficult it is to be a physician and also points out the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the system, the physicians, and its impact on the rest of us. 

Eye Injuries & Poor Design

In the excerpt that I read today, battlefield physicians noticed that soldiers and marines were getting a lot of eye injuries.  They physicians asked the patients why they weren’t wearing their protective eye coverings.  The answer? — The soldiers didn’t want to look like dorks!  This point may seem subtle, but is a critically important one: These are soldiers on the front-lines, facing death everyday.  Any amount of humanity — even vanity — that they can hold on to is important to them.  Part of good, human-centered design is that the product must be elegant — in it’s design and functionality.  So, the goggles were redesigned to look like cool sunglasses, and the eye injury rate went down.  This is also a great example of why you need to ask users about problems with products. 

Amazon.com Widgets

Conclusion

In conclusion, we see the physicians quickly arriving at the Root Cause of eye injuries.  They "went and saw" for themselves by asking the patients themselves why they weren’t wearing the protective goggles.  Then, the practical solution was to redesign the goggles to make them more attractive.  The result? — reduced battlefield eye injuries and cooler-looking sunglasses.

I’ve already ordered the book.  I can’t wait to read it.

+++++

Articles on Queueing Theory

+++++

For articles on Operations, lean and six sigma, please visit the links below:

Share This

by psabilla at 4:39 AM under business , design thinking , drum-buffer-rope , ethnography , featuritis , gemba , genchi genbutsu , heijunka , ishikawa , it at toyota , kanban , leadership , lean , lean consumption maps , muda , obeya , operations , pareto principle , product development , root cause analysis , six sigma , statistical process control , toyota , variation , waste (Comments)