Jim Brown

What I Learned: Product Development and Fishing Analogy
July 21, 2008

What I learned this week ... is based on reflecting on fishing with my 3 children on a camping trip this weekend. One of my children said "Daddy, I don't want to go fishing, I want to catch fish." It reminds me of the frustration I hear when executives discuss investing in product development - they want results. I realize this may be a tired analogy, but I am hoping to pass some bit of new perspective if I can (and feel free to add your own.)

Process
I am not good at fishing. I have marveled out how people can tell where, when, and how to fish based on specific scenarios. Likewise, there is a lot of process knowledge that can be applied to product development. It is surprising how many companies don't follow some of the most common best practices:

• Selecting the right projects in a portfolio process
• Balancing projects with resources
• Following a phase-gate or stage-gate process
• Investing in reducing risk and uncertainty up front (tied to stage-gate process)
• Cross-functional teams

Beyond those basics, there is process. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) encompasses a set of processes that manage knowledge capture, sharing, collaboration, and other best practices that can help drive process. But maybe most importantly it can drive a common process across an organization, so the organization can learn and continuously improve based on experience. In fishing, it may be little secrets passed from on fisherman to the next, but in a corporation that word of mouth is not sufficient to develop a winning process.

Location: Go where the Fish Are?
I spoke to a friend last night at the pool and he suggested fishing at the hatchery! When he was young, his family had connections with a private fish hatchery. They would raise the fish there before launching them into a commercial fishing pond. In his experience, fishing was pretty productive! Bait the hook, drop it in, pull out a fish. Talk about a simple process. And no patience required! Maybe not good sport, but productive. But it brings to mind the concept that if you want to fish, go where the fish are. I believe it was Jesse James who, when asked why he robbed banks, said because "that's where they keep the money." A bit profound, really.

How does that apply to product development? I can think of two ways:

• Engineering methodologies like Triz offer up the equivalent of an experienced fisherman. A good fisherman knows that they cast a line in the deep pool or under the overhanging log and came up with a big fish. Triz has captured some of those experiences in a methodology, prompting people to look for those situations by asking questions to prompt innovation.
• Open innovation is based on the concept that there are lot of great solutions and innovations out there, and you just need to tap into them for your needs. P&G is doing a lot in this area, with some great results.

Bait: What's in it for the Fish?
Bait is clearly important to luring a fish. But in product development, I wonder if we are baiting the fish or the fisherman? Rewarding someone for a great catch can help drive performance. My kids would love to catch a fish, but I believe as much as that they would want to have a picture taken. This to me is to remember the moment, but to them I believe would be recognition of accomplishment. The same can go a long way in product development, by offering recognition for new product ideas and successful projects. Challenges work well too, and setting records. I think of the John F. Kennedy putting the challenge forward to put a man on the moon. Likewise, prize money can go a long way to motivate people to fish, and likewise this works in product development.

Commercial Fishing: Is this Good Sport or a Profession?
My final thought as I was pondering this analogy was whether it was useful to compare my family fishing trip to professional product development. Commercial fisherman don't fish (at least primarily) for sport of fun. They fish for a living. Product development is a profession, and it is about making a living. Commercial fisherman apply a lot more than intuition, they apply science and technology to change the odds to their favor. Satellites and sonar are used to track schools of fish, as an example. In the same way, leading companies are applying methodology and technology to product development. When it is a profession, you need to apply the right tools to the job. From my experience, software technology is a big part of the solution for companies looking to improve product development.

So that are my thoughts on how to apply my inability at fishing to your success at product development. I hope you found it interesting. I apologize for an old analogy, if you have a better one please let us all know about it.

Posted by Jim Brown on July 21, 2008 | Comments (0)