A tendência crescente

"The great opportunities in the consumer market will revolve around giving every individual exactly what he wants, when he wants it. It reflects the constant theme in unscaling: scaled-up, mass-market products have long made us conform to them, but unscaled products and services conform to us. They will seem like they are built just for each one of us—customization built with automation. Over the next decade we’ll see innovators transform one kind of product after another, moving them from mass markets to markets of one.
Here are some of the opportunities I see:
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“UNBUNDLING THE GIANTS: Consumer product companies from P&G to Nestlé to Samsung were built on the mass market. A hit product was one that appealed to the greatest number of people—one size fits most. But mass-market products are a compromise for most consumers. They’re not exactly what we might want, but it’s good enough and easily available. And that leaves an opening for small, new companies that can use technology to create products that hold great appeal for narrow slices of the consumer market—consumers who will feel like that product was created especially for them.
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OMNI-CHANNEL STORES: Through the history of civilization people have been drawn to markets. We like to shop. For many people it’s a social and entertainment experience as much as a search for a product. So no matter how much commerce moves online, it’s not likely that retail stores will disappear. But retail will certainly change. Successful retail stores will be part of a complete experience that connects online and offline shopping.
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LOCAL FARMING: Scaled-up farming has fed the world, but it’s also given us “fresh” tomatoes that taste like plastic. A host of technologies, from AI-controlled grow lamps to IoT sensors that can constantly measure nutrients in soil, are making it feasible to profitably grow food indoors near customers—the farming equivalent of distributed manufacturing."

Excerto de: Taneja, Hemant,Maney, Kevin. “Unscaled”. iBooks.

Para reflexão

"Poor preparation is a lousy excuse for a last-minute selfish frenzy. That frenzy distracts us from doing it right the next time.
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If you want to understand where mastery and success come from, take a look at the inputs and the journey, not simply the outputs."

Trecho retirado de "Cold yeast"

Testar rapidamente

"But today’s pop-up is hardly about smashing annual revenue numbers. Much as a Silicon Valley start-up might release a prototype or beta version to study user feedback, many retailers are treating their pop-up stores as a way to test, learn and iterate on new ideas.
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To some, it’s about testing a hypothesis or validating a new concept. To others, it’s about evaluating new markets, studying consumer behaviour or collecting actionable data to inform marketing strategy, R&D and business decisions. But for most, it’s still about building brand recognition, engaging new and loyal customers, and igniting social media and PR buzz."

Trecho retirado de "The Pop-Up Has Grown Up"

"o destino é este constante subir, crescer e, depois, ser suplantado por outros"

"Zara fue pionera en el concepto de moda rápida en la década de 1980. Fue la primera en desarrollar un método de reacción rápida a las tendencias cambiantes, utilizando cadenas de suministro ágiles basadas en la producción de abastecimiento cerca de la sede para acelerar sus "plazos de entrega" que desde el comienzo del proceso de diseño hasta llegar a las tiendas tardaba semanas.
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Pero los nuevos competidores crecen rápidamente, sin presión por la propiedad de las tiendas físicas, acercan la producción a la distribución y a la constante renovación de la mercancía.
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Boohoo.com, fundada en la ciudad británica de Manchester en 2006, opera en un modelo de "prueba y repetición" por el cual produce pequeños lotes y aumenta la producción de los que mejor se venden. Más de la mitad de sus productos se fabrican en Gran Bretaña.
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La compañía, cuyas ventas se duplicaron el año pasado, dijo que tenía plazos de entrega tan cortos como dos semanas. Missguided, que también tiene su sede en Manchester, ha dicho que sus plazos de entrega pueden ser de tan solo una semana."

Esta é a beleza da história da evolução da vida na Terra. Quando os governos não protegem os incumbentes, o destino é este constante subir, crescer e, depois, ser suplantado por outros:


Trecho retirado de "Así utiliza Zara la tecnología para mantenerse líder en la industria de la moda"

Pobres gigantes... não vão ter qualquer hipótese

“The power of the unscale dynamic can be seen as Warby Parker developed its business model by renting scale instead of building and owning it and, in a flash, competed against Luxottica for a slice of the entrenched company’s global market. The company can rent computing power on cloud services like AWS and Microsoft Azure, rent manufacturing from contract factories in Asia, rent access to consumers via the internet and social media, rent distribution from delivery companies like UPS and the US Postal Service. Warby today can succeed against an entrenched player with fewer than eight hundred employees. The company as I write this is worth well north of $1 billion and has become a fixture in the market for hip eyeglasses.
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Warby is also part of a trend that is changing consumers’ relationships with brands. Brands were created to convey information about products at a time when it was hard for consumers to get information. But our hypernetworked and data-engorged era is killing the very reason for mass-market branding. We can find out everything about some gadget or shirt or hockey stick from a maker we never heard of. We can read reviews, Google the company, ask about it on social networks. As we get better information about small-scale products, people feel safe seeking out the unique, the undiscovered, the unbrands—giving a company like Warby an opening against a Luxottica.
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We used to want the brands everybody else had. But now we’re moving toward mass individualism, wanting stuff “nobody else has. This leaves big brands vulnerable to hordes of quirky little unbrands.
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All the dynamics of mass-market consumerism reinforced one another. For instance, big producers could claim more shelf space at big outlets, making it difficult for niche products to reach consumers. And economies of scale ruled. The bigger the retailer, the harder it could bargain for lower prices and the more efficiently it could operate. Walmart especially gained an advantage in this way. The bigger the consumer product maker, the more it could spend on advertising while gaining efficiencies from mass production and massive distribution. Here, P&G took the lead ahead of other manufacturers.
But when you think about it, the mass-market consumer companies made each of us conform to the experience that was best for them, not us.
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On top of that, the products we wind up with probably don’t conform to our specific taste. We’re often buying a compromise product—Budweiser beer, Levi’s jeans—designed to appeal to as many people as possible. The experience most of us really want is to easily find exactly the product we’re looking for, no matter where we are at the moment, and “have it delivered into our hands within a couple of hours. That’s an unscaled consumer experience.”

Pobres gigantes... não vão ter qualquer hipótese... a menos que os políticos, com medo das alterações a nível da sociedade entrem em campo e reforcem o apoio que já dão aos incumbentes.

Excerto de: Taneja, Hemant,Maney, Kevin. “Unscaled”.

As quatro estratégias-base para o retalho (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

“2. Lead on Experiential: Offer Enhanced Customer ExperienceRetailers in the Experiential quadrant offer a physical customer experience that provides more pleasure, more excitement, and more fun than other retailers can provide.
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Here, the customer journey is more experiential, and is seen as a lifestyle choice, not a chore. This is a high-touch, social experience.
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excitement and discovery in-store.
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Other retailers augment the customer experience in-store by becoming community centers and hosting events such as book readings, celebrity talks, and community get-togethers. Lifestyle brands often offer aerobic classes, rock climbing walls, and basketball courts. Pop-up stores within stores offer excitement, “newness,” and innovation.
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3. Lead on Low Price: Offer Operational Excellence, Lowest-Cost EfficienciesRetailers in the Low Price quadrant provide reliable products or services at the lowest prices, and therefore offer customers the best savings. Retailers who can consistently offer the lowest prices have developed operating models that can efficiently manage inventory, keep overhead costs down, eliminate unnecessary intermediary steps, and reduce transaction costs at every step.
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are companies that look for creative ways to minimize overhead costs and to eliminate unnecessary transaction costs. They also offer reliability and efficiency, excellent customer service, and strong customer-focused policies for returns. These retailers build their entire business models around these goals.
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4. Lead on Frictionless: Offer Comprehensive Customer Understanding and Total ConvenienceRetailers in the Frictionless quadrant prioritize providing a frictionless customer experience that eliminates all pain points and offers the customer the easiest and most convenient way to shop. The key deliverable here is a simple, seamless integration of the shopping experience across all touchpoints. This requires the collection, capture, and analysis of all available customer data. Constantly analyzing the data allows for customization and personalization.
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In order to succeed here, retailers must identify the current pain points in the shopping experience.”

E para terminar esta introdução:

“A company’s choice in strategy will depend upon that retailers’ inherent strengths and the culture of the organization, and ultimately will set priorities for future allocation of resources. Customers are attracted to different retailers depending upon their own needs, so the choice of strategy will inevitably attract specific customer segments—and, by extension, inevitably turn away others.”

Excerto de: Barbara E. Kahn. “The Shopping Revolution”

A dispersão de desempenho intra-sectorial a explodir

Costumo usar esta figura para ilustrar a evolução que acredito ter acontecido desde meados do século XX até aos nossos dias.

O século XX valorizava a uniformização para tirar partido da vantagem da escala. Assim, basicamente havia uma estratégia única para o sucesso, crescer mais depressa que os outros e via escala e eficiência conquistar os clientes e aumentar a quota de mercado. Mongo, terra de tribos apaixonadas, permite a coexistência de cada vez mais estratégias. Recordar McArthur:

Esta narrativa pode ser traduzida numericamente a:

"Corporate strategy is increasingly challenging for today’s leaders. Business environments are becoming more and more varied, which requires companies to actively choose strategic approaches that match their own specific situations. External forces such as political pressures, social expectations and macroeconomic circumstances are having greater impacts, adding to the complexity of strategy. And the increasing pace of change means that strategic assumptions must be re-evaluated constantly.
At the same time, corporate strategy is also becoming more important. With aggregate growth trending downward globally and new competitors presenting a constant threat of disruption, companies can no longer count on merely extending and exploiting historical strategies over the long term. This means that strategy has become a more important source of differentiation between firms: Within a given industry, the average dispersion of performance has doubled since the 1980s."

Trecho e imagens retirados de "The Board’s Role in Strategy in a Changing Environment"

As quatro estratégias-base para o retalho (parte II)

Parte I.

"“1. Lead on Brand: Offer Branded Product SuperiorityRetailers in the Product Brand quadrant offer branded products that provide more differentiation, more value, more pleasure, and ultimately more confidence to a particular customer segment, as compared to other products on the market. Here I am specifically referring to the value that comes from branded product. It is the product’s brand equity that brings the customer into the store.
There are several ways retailers can leverage the value offered through products that have strong brand equity. First, there are multibrand retailers who carry multiple lines of strong branded products that “pull” the customer into the store.
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Other retailers in this quadrant will include high-quality brands that are sold directly to the end user. These are known as vertical brands and the product brand name is the same as the retailer’s brand name. Examples include luxury brands like Louis Vuitton or Hermès, specialty retailers such as Lululemon or Zara, or the newer digitally native vertical brands such as Warby Parker or Glossier.
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In all of these cases, these brands have developed deep emotional connections with consumers and a strong narrative; their customers frequently become brand advocates. In the luxury markets, these brands have heritage, exclusivity, and prestige. For the nonluxury brands, they have strong identity and values that resonate with their devotees.
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Retailers in this quadrant also excel in design and style. ... Finally, leaders in this quadrant may also compete on state-of-the art technology. All in all, the leaders here succeed in developing an innovative culture where new ideas are embraced and commercialized quickly.”

Excerto de: Barbara E. Kahn. “The Shopping Revolution”

"formulate clear problem statements" (parte VI)

Parte I, parte II, parte III e parte IV.

Em "The Most Underrated Skill in Management" propõe-se o uso do A3 como forma de sistematizar o desenvolvimento de uma acção de melhoria:

"To track problem-solving projects, we have modified the A3, a famous form developed by Toyota, to better enable its use for tracking problem- solving in settings other than manufacturing. The A3 form divides the structured problem-solving process into four main steps, represented by the big quadrants, and each big step has smaller subphases, captured by the portions below the dotted lines.

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Though the form may often have supporting documentation, restricting the project summary to a single page forces the user to be very clear in his or her thinking. The A3 divides the structured problem-solving process into four main steps, represented by the big quadrants, and each big step has smaller subphases, captured by the portions below the dotted lines. The first step (represented by the box at the upper left) is to formulate a clear problem statement. [Moi ici: 1.1 Qual é o problema que temos de resolver] In the Background section (in the bottom part of the Problem Statement box), you should provide enough information to clearly link the problem statement to the organization’s larger mission and objectives. [Moi ici: 1.2 Porque temos de trabalhar neste projecto? Qual o contexto. Qual a importância deste projecto. Que objectivo queremos atingir?] The Background section gives you the opportunity to articulate the why for your problem-solving effort."

2.1 - Como é que que funciona o processo actual? Qual o fluxograma? Que resultados temos? Que segmentação é possível fazer? Pareto(s)? Histograma(s)?

2.1 - Que suspeitas? Que hipóteses de causas mais prováveis? Que análises/testes devem ser feitos para despistar hipóteses irrelevantes? Espinha-de-peixe? Diagramas de correlação? 5 Porquês

"asking the “5 whys,” meaning that for each observed problem, the investigator should ask “why” five times in the hope that five levels of inquiry will reveal a problem’s true cause. Later, Kaoru Ishikawa developed the “fishbone” diagram to provide a visual representation of the multiple chains of inquiry that might be required to dig into the fundamental cause of a problem.
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The purpose of all root-cause approaches is to help the user understand how the observed problem is rooted in the existing design of the work system. Unfortunately, this type of systems thinking does not come naturally. When we see a problem (again, thanks to pattern matching) we have a strong tendency to attribute it to an easily identifiable, proximate cause. This might be the person closest to the problem or the most obvious technical cause, such as a broken bracket. Our brains are far less likely to see that there is an underlying system that generated that poorly trained individual or the broken bracket. Solving the immediate problem will do nothing to prevent future manifestations unless we address the system-level cause.
A good root-cause analysis should build on your investigation to show how the work system you are analyzing generates the problem you are studying as a part of normal operations."

3.1 - Que acções vão ser implementadas? Que processo futuro vai ser implementado?

"to propose an updated system to address the problem. Often the necessary changes will be simple. In the Target Design section, you should map out the structure of an updated work system that will function more effectively. ... The needed changes will rarely be an entirely new program or initiative. Instead, they should be specific, targeted modifications emerging from the root-cause analysis. Don’t try to solve everything at once; propose the minimum set of changes that will help you make rapid progress toward your goal.

3.2 - Que resultados pretendemos atingir?

"First, create an improvement goal — a prediction about how much improvement your proposed changes will generate. A good goal statement builds directly from the problem statement by predicting both how much of the gap you are going to close and how long it will take you to do it. If your problem is “24% of our service interactions do not generate a positive response from our customers, greatly exceeding our target of 5% or less,” then an improvement goal might be “reduce the number of negative service interactions by 50% in 60 days.” Clear goals are highly motivating, and articulating a prediction facilitates effective learning.
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Finally, set the leadership guidelines. Guidelines are the “guardrails” for executing the project; they represent boundaries or constraints that cannot be violated. For example, the leadership guidelines for a project focused on cost reduction might specify that the project should identify an innovation that reduces cost without making trade-offs in quality."

4.1 - Qual o plano de implementação?

"lay out a plan for implementing your proposed design. Be sure that the plan is broken into a set of clear and distinct activities (for example, have the invoice form reprinted with the general ledger code or hold a daily meeting to review quality issues) and that each activity has both an owner and a delivery date.
Now execute your plan and meet your target. But, even as you start executing, you are not done engaging in conscious learning."

4.2 - Resultados atingidos? Projecto eficaz? O que se aprendeu? Qual o próximo desafio?

As quatro estratégias-base para o retalho

“Most classic frameworks of retail strategy are missing a critical dimension: the customer perspective. It is a significant and startling omission.
After all, when customers go shopping, they want to buy something they value (product benefits) from someone they trust (customer experience). Whether customers buy these products offline or online is a function of where they are, who they are with, and how much time they have.
A related insight that many retail strategies seemingly forget is that today, more than ever, customers have lots of choices and they gravitate to the retailers who offer them the best value on the dimensions they care about. In other words, retailers have to provide some kind of superior competitive advantage beyond what is being offered by the competition. This superior value can be delivered either by providing more pleasure and benefits for their customers or by removing pain and inconvenience from the retail experience.”
...

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“The “Retail Proposition,” the horizontal axis of this 2 × 2 matrix, represents the first principle: Customers want to “buy something they want (product benefits) from someone they trust (customer experience). “Superior Competitive Advantage,” the vertical axis, represents the second principle: In order to win customers, retailers must offer products and experiences that are better than the competition’s.
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This matrix spells out four basic strategies. The first two strategies, illustrated on the top row, differentiate themselves by offering more pleasure and more benefits; the second two strategies, illustrated on the bottom row, differentiate by eliminating pain points.”

Excerto de: Barbara E. Kahn. “The Shopping Revolution”. iBooks.

Matéria-prima para ...

Ontem estive numa empresa de calçado que recentemente adquiriu uma máquina para classificar e preparar pele e outra para a cortar.

A empresa agora anda a ver como pode avaliar o antes versus o depois para ver qual o retorno efectivo das máquinas. O que me meteu impressão foi a postura tão arcaica do vendedor da máquina: venderam a máquina, instalaram-na, deram umas horitas de formação e adieu.

Se eu fosse vendedor da máquina era o primeiro interessado em fazer o que a SKF faz tão bem: calcular o Total Cost of Ownership:

Matéria-prima para justificar um preço superior, por causa da redução do custo total na vida do comprador.

Matéria-prima para ajudar o próximo cliente a decidir com mais segurança:

Mongo é sintonizar e responder rapidamente (Parte II)

Parte I.

“One of the keys to both Amazon’s success now and Walmart’s success in disrupting retail in the mid-nineties is a fierce understanding of what customers want. Winning retailers have to be completely customer-centric. This means they need to be mindful not only of what products customers want, but also of the importance of convenience—of removing the pain of shopping.” (1)

Saber claramente quem é o cliente-alvo e ter uma oferta desenhada para ele. Parece simples:

"Five Below sells items for $5 and under. Adults may be unfamiliar with the brand but the youth-focused discount chain has emerged as one of the brightest stars in the retail sector over the past 12 months.
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Unlike traditional discounters Dollar General or Dollar Tree, which sell cheap staples such as bread, soda and cleaning products to budget conscious households, Five Below chases pocket-money. It peddles $3 slime and $5 giant unicorn pool floaties to teens and pre-teens. This has turned out to be something of a retail sweet spot. A bet on fidget spinners helped Five Below deliver a 28 per cent rise in sales during its most recent fiscal year. Same-store sales were up 6.5 per cent — a feat few were able to match in the bombed out US retail sector.
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Five Below’s merchandise mix, one-third of which are in-house exclusives, helps protect its sales from Amazon." (2)

O complicado é o sacrificio de ter de considerar a blasfémia de chamar a uma parte do mercado não-clientes. Pois, o teste do algodão na estratégia ... todos querem ser simultaneamente ricos e com saúde.

(1) Excerto de: Barbara E. Kahn. “The Shopping Revolution”
(2) Trecho retirado de "Five Below/US retail: slime of the times"

"formulate clear problem statements" (parte V)

Parte I, parte II, parte III e parte IV.

"3. Lack of a Clear GapA third common mistake is failing to articulate a clear gap. These problem statements sound like “We need to improve our brand” or “Sales have to go up.” The lack of a clear gap means that people are not engaging in clear mental contrasting and creates two related problems. First, people don’t know when they have achieved the goal, making it difficult for them to feel good about their efforts. Second, when people address poorly formulated problems, they tend to do so with large, one-size-fits-all solutions that rarely produce the desired results.
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4. The Problem Is Too BigMany problem statements are too big. Broadly scoped problem formulations lead to large, costly, and slow initiatives; problem statements focused on an acute and specific manifestation lead to quick results, increasing both learning and confidence."

Como nascem as decisões de melhoria nas empresas? Que ferramentas são usadas para clarificar os problemas e que ferramentas são usadas para focar o âmbito dos problemas?

Quantas empresas usam gráficos e vez de tabelas?
Quantas usam cartas de controlo, diagramas de Pareto e histogramas?

Mongo é sintonizar e responder rapidamente

O século XX foi o século da concentração e da escala, assim que Mongo arrasa e fecha com os dinossauros logo aparecem as pequenas e ágeis criaturas que tornam, o que parecia ser um cemitério, num campo de experimentação e diversidade

"It looks like the bankruptcy of RadioShack has actually been good for independently-owned stores, who are now able to open in new locations partly by focusing on the DIY/maker movement (or young robotics enthusiasts). One store owner admits that on some supplies they’re actually getting cheaper prices than they got from RadioShack, while another points out that RadioShack’s bankruptcy has finally removed restrictions on where they could be located. (“The corporate store had all of the big towns… Now they’ve encouraged the ma and pop stores to take over in those areas.”)
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These locally-owned RadioShack stores now actually hope to compete with Amazon, which has sucked up 90% of the growth in all consumer electronics sales, by offering personal (and in-person) customer service on electronics. “The world will always need somebody that will help them with a question…” Vern says philosophically. “I don’t think anybody will ever get rich off it again — I think those days are gone. But I think there will always be a spot for someone who can solder a wire or just answer a question, put a battery in a cordless phone for somebody who’s elderly, a battery for a key fob in a car…”" (1)

"In the last three years, RadioShack has filed for bankruptcy twice and closed nearly all of its corporate stores. But in the wake of the former retail giant’s death, independently owned franchise versions of the store have reinvented the brand and are actually doing pretty well—they’re even expanding.
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Rather than focusing on landline phones and remote-control toys that lined the shelves of RadioShack’s past, many of the independently-owned stores have shifted focus to offer supplies for makers and DIY enthusiasts. [Moi ici: Lojas que têm de obedecer a um centro que supostamente cria valor comprando bem, comprando barato por causa do volume, não conseguem influenciar e mostrar o quanto o mercado está a mudar. Loja dependente do centro é um instrumento para despachar, vomitar mercadoria. Loja independente está centrada na procura e cria valor quando vai ao encontro dessa procura, responde e muda muito mais rapidamente] As maker and hacker culture has expanded, along with the right-to-repair movement, more average consumers are interested in buying esoteric parts like tiny screws and solder. As our editor-in-chief noted back in 2014, RadioShack can actually compete with online retailers like Amazon on this front because of the immediacy (you don’t want to wait days to get that final part you need to finish your project) and the collaborative nature of maker culture. [Moi ici: E imagino a quantidade de eventos que podem ser animados para criar/reforçar o espírito de comunidade com estes geeks] “Do-it-yourself — that’s a big part of what Radio Shack is now,” Thad Teel, the owner of a Radio Shack in Claremore, Ohio that opened in April, told the Claremore Daily Progress. “Someone who tinkers in building or repairing anything electronic will find us an invaluable resource for parts and tools.”" (2)

BTW, muitas vezes acho que os liberais são os maiores inimigos do liberalismo porque falam de querer amanhã o que só poderá ser obtido ao fim de um processo. Imagino o que aconteceria ao fim de pouco tempo se acabasse a escola pública como a conhecemos, independente da procura e dependente de um centro mais preocupado em vómito, política e custo.

Fonte 1 - Can Locally-Owned Stores Save RadioShack?
Fonte 2 - The DIY Movement Is Bringing RadioShack Back From the Dead

"formulate clear problem statements" (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

"1. Failing to Formulate the ProblemThe most common mistake is skipping problem formulation altogether. People often assume that they all already agree on the problem and should just get busy solving it. Unfortunately, such clarity and commonality rarely exist.
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2. Problem Statement as Diagnosis or SolutionAnother frequent mistake is formulating a problem statement that presupposes either the diagnosis or the solution. A problem statement that presumes the diagnosis will often sound like “The problem is we lack the right IT capabilities,” and one that presumes a solution will sound like “The problem is that we haven’t spent the money to upgrade our IT system.”
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Allowing diagnoses or proposed solutions to creep into problem statements means that you have skipped one or more steps in the logical chain and therefore missed an opportunity to engage in conscious cognitive processing."

Este ponto 2 fez-me lembrar este tweet:

só eu é que acho estranho, gato empreiteiro escondido com o rabo de fora, usarem as filas no aeroporto geradas pela falta de pessoal para justificar a necessidade de um novo aeroporto em Lesboa?

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) June 1, 2018

Contexto - calçado

Quando a ISO 9001 fala de contexto, de questões externas relevantes para o futuro da empresa, é de coisas como esta, por exemplo, "Consumers Want to Eat Beef, Not Wear It, Sending Leather Prices Plummeting".

Não é a APICCAPS que quer fazer dos EUA o alvo para as exportações de calçado dos próximos anos? Não é o calçado de couro a especialidade do calçado português?

Até que ponto esta tendência tem peso? Até que ponto esta tendência se pode reforçar no futuro?

"Today, shoppers have a more vegan sensibility about what goes on their feet, demanding shoes with non-animal elements like canvas, microfiber and plastic. Making the choice easier are advances in the quality of fake leather, which is now so good most buyers can’t distinguish it from the real thing.
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That’s bad news for the leather industry because footwear makers are by far the biggest buyers, accounting for 55 percent of demand.
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Younger consumers, in particular, prefer more casual footwear to dress shoes, and they are gravitating to non-leather products from companies with a compelling feel-good story about how they’re made,"

"formulate clear problem statements" (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

"Is your problem important? The first rule of structured problem- solving is to focus its considerable power on issues that really matter.
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Mind the gap. Decades of research suggest that people work harder and are more focused when they face clear, easy-to-understand goals. More recently, psychologists have shown that mentally comparing a desired state with the current one, a process known as mental contrasting, is more likely to lead people to change than focusing only on the future or on current challenges. Recent work also suggests that people draw considerable motivation from the feeling of progress, the sense that their efforts are moving them toward the goal in question. A good problem statement accordingly contains a clear articulation of the gap that you are trying to close.
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Quantify even if you can’t measure. Being able to measure the gap between the current state and your target precisely will support an effective project.
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Remain as neutral as possible. A good problem formulation presupposes as little as practically possible concerning why the problem exists or what might be the appropriate solution. That said, few problem statements are perfectly neutral.
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Is your scope down? Finally, a good problem statement is “scoped down” to a specific manifestation of the larger issue that you care about. Our brains like to match new patterns, but we can only do so effectively when there is a short time delay between taking an action and experiencing the outcome. Well-structured problem-solving capitalizes on the natural desire for rapid feedback by breaking big problems into little ones that can be tackled quickly. You will learn more and make faster progress if you do 12 one-month projects instead of one 12-month project."

"Unscaling will leave few industries or activities untouched"

“Healthcare is on its way to becoming more preemptive instead of, as it is today, reactive. Newborns will routinely have their genome sequenced, and that data will help predict diseases. IoT devices will be able to monitor your vital signs and activity, spotting problems at a very early stage. You’ll be able to get an initial diagnosis from an AI software “doctor” app via your phone or some other device, and the AI will guide you to a specialist if needed. Healthcare will be flipped on its head, shifting from treating health problems after they arise to spotting and fixing them before they develop. That should cost a fraction of what healthcare costs today, solving one of America’s toughest financial squeezes.
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As entrepreneurs remake the energy sector, more homes and buildings will generate their own power using cheap and superefficient solar panels on roofs and high-powered batteries in basements or garages. The batteries, like those now being manufactured by Tesla, will store power generated when the sun shines for use when it doesn’t. “Each of these buildings will be connected to a two-way power line that can allow anyone to sell excess energy or buy needed energy in an eBay-style marketplace. If you do own a car, it’s likely to be electric, and your home solar panels and batteries can charge it.
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Trends suggest that you will get more of your food from small local farms or urban farms built inside old warehouses and shopping malls. The food industry spent the twentieth century scaling up agriculture, making farms bigger and more corporate, tended by enormous pieces of machinery with very few actual farmers. In the coming decades technology will help small, local farms operate at a profit, while breakthroughs in producing test-tube meat will vastly reduce the acreage needed to graze cows and raise chickens.
The technology of 3D printing is beginning to unscale and reimagine manufacturing. Within a decade, if you order a new pair of shoes or a chair, it might not come from a far-off mass-production factory; instead, many companies are going to custom produce items in small batches as they’re ordered, and the factories will operate akin to AWS—offering companies as much or as little manufacturing as they need.
Unscaling will leave few industries or activities untouched.”

Excerto de: Taneja, Hemant,Maney, Kevin. “Unscaled”.

"formulate clear problem statements" (parte II)

Parte I.

"When the brain’s associative machine is confronted with a problem, it jumps to a solution based on experience. To complement that fast thinking with a more deliberate approach, structured problem-solving entails developing a logical argument that links the observed data to root causes and, eventually, to a solution. Developing this logical path increases the chance that you will leverage the strengths of conscious processing and may also create the conditions for generating and then evaluating an unconscious breakthrough. Creating an effective logical chain starts with a clear description of the problem and, in our experience, this is where most efforts fall short.
.
A good problem statement has five basic elements:

• It references something the organization cares about and connects that element to a clear and specific goal; [Moi ici: Relevante e específico]

• it contains a clear articulation of the gap between the current state and the goal; [Moi ici: Critério de sucesso claro]

• the key variables — the target, the current state, and the gap — are quantifiable;

• it is as neutral as possible concerning possible diagnoses or solutions; and [Moi ici: Não indica causas, soluções ou culpados]

• it is sufficiently small in scope that you can tackle it quickly." [Moi ici: Usar um Pareto para concentrar a atenção onde o impacte será maior]

       

Emprego por contra de outrem em Mongo

Uma previsão feita neste blogue há vários anos:

“Unscaling will involve transitioning away from ownership and toward accessing services.
...
The key to success for most people will be living an entrepreneurial life and becoming their own personal enterprises, selling services on demand through the cloud to many employers. That’s not just for business owners but for everyone. For better or worse, a decreasing percentage of the population will rely on traditional full-time employment—and an increasing percentage will do better by owning their own business, with overlapping mini-careers throughout their lives.”

Recordar:

• Acerca da dimensão das empresas e da necessidade de crescer a todo o custo (Agosto de 2012)
• O futuro do emprego passará pelo auto-emprego (Janeiro de 2013)
• Mongo e o emprego (Junho 2016)

Excerto de: Taneja, Hemant,Maney, Kevin. “Unscaled”. iBooks.