Biz Bytes

S2.E5: Is following the process more important than accomplishing the mission

March 09, 2021 The IT Psychiatrist / Travis Jacobs Season 2 Episode 5
Biz Bytes
S2.E5: Is following the process more important than accomplishing the mission
Show Notes

What do the TV series Band of Brothers and the movie Saving Private Ryan have in common with decision making in business?

They both highlight the value of communication, training and teamwork to achieve an outcome.

And they show it in the most VUCA of situations

That's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.

In today's episode I catch up with Military Buff and Engineer Travis "Grizzly" Jacobs about why rigidly following the process can lead to big mistakes.

Travis Grizzly is a Colorado-based product engineer. In 16 years of product development, he's come to realise there are 3 things that make a successful product"

Desirability: Does The Customer want it?
Feasibility: Can we build it?
Viability: Can we sustain it & make money?

The strategy he focuses on is to fail fast, fail cheap, fail small. By using small, cheap & fast experiments we can determine if this product is something the customer wants.

In other words, first fire bullets, then cannonballs.