Something for the Weekend - Waterproof Power Strip

I thought I'd follow up on last weeks SFTW on vision and fit with the real world with a great example of the opposite! www.wetcircuits.com offers waterproof power strips! A great safety increment on the standard power strip but as Wired.com explains 'Your TV isn’t going to be any safer when perched on the end of your bathtub'!

A great physical example of not considering the things that interact with your design (in this case the socket and the devices you might plug in!!).

So whilst we're at it, what are the factors that change data based thinking (waterproof power strip) into creative thinking (safer power)? I was reading a book by Tim Brown this week and he recommends a simple but effective model developed at IDEO. His book (Change by Design) is fantastic and I could never do it justice but here's a summary of the model:

• Inspiration - actively seek out sources of inspiration...That might be other industries who do something similar or even analogous situations. Comparisons are drawn in the book about F1 pit stops and A&E units. Be open to less obvious inspirations too.
• Observation - watch your customers in the real world without agenda. Observe the way they naturally adapt ways of working to overcome small niggles (keeping log books, labelling things, ordering items together to quicker serve customers, etc) and understand why they do these behaviours - they're rarely an accident!
• Empathy - take a different mind set, rather than considering what your customers need, imagine you are your customer, how you would feel and what you would need. Perhaps interview some of your customers to ensure you've got the right picture.

Small activities that lead to more creative solutions. If you want the book there's a link below, ditto if you want the power strip!

Sources and Credits
Wired.com
Wetcircuits
Tim Brown IDEO

Something for the Weekend - Understanding vs. Listening

I recently read an article from the Harvard Business School on elBulli. elBulli is constantly recognised as the worlds best restaurant, people travel from all over the globe for the 5 hour dining experience. Not just that, each year, some 2 million hopeful diners vie to be one of the fifty customers he serves each evening for the six months that elBulli is open (8,000 a year). The HBS report (some of it plagiarised below) had a marketing lens but I'd like to look at the same case from a LEAN perspective.

There is much about the restaurant that's inefficient, as MBAs are quick to note:

• They should employer fewer staff - (1 waiter per customer is unnecessary!)
• They should source cheaper ingredients
• Less complex cooking techniques
• The restaurant is a 2 drive through mountains from Barcelona - they should relocate to Barcelona and perhaps open another branch in Madrid.
• They should make the booking process easier (2 year waiting in some cases!)

However the study also recognised that if you stripped all that away what you'd end up with is, McDonalds! (if you put that logic on steroids). I'm not saying McDonalds isn't popular but certainly wouldn't wait two years for one!

There are number of interesting points that relate to this, in particular in understanding what motivates seemingly irrational customer behaviour but I'd like to focus on is one point in practical relating to LEAN and its Voice of the Customer principles and the difference between listening to the customer and truly understanding the customer.

To summarise Chef Ferran Adria's comments in the report he believes that if you listen to the customer they'll tell you what they want based on what they know and they'll be happy with it. But it'll never be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I agree with sentiment, listening and delivering against expectations gives good service (Critical Success Factors) but GREAT customer service (enhancing features) is about something more, going above expectoration.

LEAN techniques, being grounded in manufacturing, are naturally efficiency based - I'm certainly a big LEAN advocate but I can't help reflecting on whether certain processes could risk being over-LEANed? Is an element of service orientated 'waste' acceptable if it provides a differentiator? Or should the processes and systems be slick and efficient and our people be the differentiating feature?

An interesting point to consider…

Full HBS report is available here