From project inputs to the story of digging wells

A friend of mine complained to me when the project encountered problems, referring to the early stage of the project with research and prototype discussion are a large number of deficiencies, is the enthusiasm of the mentality with the project manager to explain the problem, and the project manager's reply but let him feel chilling. What impressed him most was the phrase: "The company is going to make a product worth hundreds of thousands of by investing 1 million." Your idea is good but impractical. ”

This sentence reminds me of three digging wells story:

Story One: There are two strong young people, a clumsy and skillful, was ordered to dig the same piece of the ground to find water, and soon both dug two meters deep, but there is no sign of water. The humble continue to dig deep in situ, and the skillful will make new attempts to change places. Finally, the humble people through unremitting efforts to find the fountain, and the Qiao did nothing.

The young man listens, if has the realization place nods: "I understood, the personhood should persevere, cannot loose, the superficial, otherwise will eventually accomplish nothing." ”

Story two: Or these two people, the artful after several attempts, finally found in a place of water signs. So he dug deep and finally found the water. And the humble always in situ, as always, work hard, dig deeper, although paid a lot of efforts, but always failed to find water.

"This ..." the young man hesitated, "I think perhaps people should continue to sum up experience, try the most suitable for their own living environment, and should not be able to keep the dogma, but not bigotry." ”

The story of three: two of people although all do their best, but no matter how hard the bad dig deep, and no matter how many places the artful find, two people can not find water.

"Why?" The young man wondered: "Do you have a rule?"

"Because there is no water in that place. "The master calmly said," In fact, this is the case, life is not the same as the norm, everything to rely on their own to explore and experience. ”

The end of the story has been changing, only the outcome can prove that the bad and the artful which values are correct, but most of the case managers are basically choose to do the second story of the "Qiao."

If we compare this well to the product we are doing, I would like to write something that I have seen, and to give a general statement of my position:

1. Let's assume that the early stage of the project with research and prototyping discussions cost a lot of money and slow down the progress of the project, omitted this link, the team became a "Qiao", and constantly try to explore the new project profitability and breakthrough direction. But this is not a market that can be won by business models. Many people preach the story of agility and speed, but do not know that there is a heap of rotten products behind the light of success, and do not realize that their team is simply not agile enough. A qualified product has at least three elements:

The lack of user model products, even if a short period of time to achieve a certain achievement, but also by some well-known companies without any effort to replace or acquire. In such a competitive market, is the water really so easy to find? I'd like to use a word to describe such a team: busy.

2. Does it really cost a lot of time and money to use research and prototyping discussions? Many teams are unwilling to spend too much time in the conceptual phase, instead spending more time on the iteration, which costs more and slows down. If the iteration is based on rigid requirements and data, it is a dig curve to find the water. But what's true is that the idea of individual decision-makers pushes the version of the iteration, just like buying a lottery ticket.

So this is a false proposition, project input and the use of research, prototype discussion is not necessary, just some excuses. The real reason is that the team does not have the ability to discard this link, will be useful research useless discussion.