Order The Persuasive Wizard: How Technical Experts Sell Their Ideas to Non-technical Decision Makers on Amazon.com for the low price of $12.95. For a limited time, blog readers can get the book at a discounted price. Go to this site, Wizard and enter the code 7PBGMXNC. The book is an excellent gift for anyone who needs to persuade others.
We continue with the task of predicting research outcomes, how much it will cost and when it will be complete. Most technologists have only a vague notion of how to do this and, subsequently, they do it inadequately, if at all. This series has several parts because I want to keep each entry succinct and blog-readable. If you follow these proven steps, though, you will know how to make good, reliable technology forecasts. Part V is a toughie. We consider the Critical Elements.
First a summary. In Part I, we created a high-level list of research and technology tasks. In Part II, we prioritized them. In Part III, we assigned quantity – how much, how long it would take, and how many dollars we would have to spend. In Part IV, we investigated how to calibrate your input mechanisms: how to read people and assess their capability to be forthright and honest. Part V forecasts the critical elements.
Critical elements are those components of research that truly involve breakthroughs and new discoveries. They require new and currently unknown solutions to problems of major importance to your project. They demand invention and creation. There will only be 2-3 critical elements in any research project, but they are so critical as to be the sine qua non of the entire project, without which none. If you cannot complete the critical elements, all is lost. How, then, do you forecast creation, innovation, and discovery and how do you make reality align with your forecast
First, predicting creation, innovation, and discovery is why leaders of technology groups should possess advanced degrees in science and technology and not in accounting or business. One cannot apply a set of numbers or take an average of things done in the past. There is no pro forma equivalent of invention. There is no algorithm. There is no equation for compilation of thought. It is not entirely deterministic.
On the other hand, it is not entirely random, either. It is not alchemy, either. Not smoke and mirrors. What, then, is invention?
Plato was the first to identify maternal responsibility when he wrote in his Republic, “Necessity, the mother of invention.”
Paternity being left indeterminate throughout the Dark Ages, Galileo Galilei thought to enlighten us that “Doubt [skepticism, examination] is the father of invention.”
Jonathan Schattke, not knowing that DNA could provide truth, supposedly added, “Necessity is the mother of invention, it is true, but its father is creativity, and knowledge is the midwife.”
By now, uncertain of the agents of conception, Thomas Edison sought toassure us that it, at least, was not a one night stand. “I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.”
Nicolai Tesla was the genius who defeated Edison’s bid to light up the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Tesla invented the concept of modern transmission of electricity via alternating current, a huge savings in energy. Edison was worse than a politician in his petty denigration of his former employee’s invention. Tush. Edison’s idea of direct current was demonstrably inferior in performance and immeasurably more expensive. Tesla, who today has an almost cult-like following, may have been thinking of his victory over Edison when he responded, “I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success … Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.
“Oooh. I sense great labor pains in invention” [the author].
Mary (Godwin) Shelley is best known, now, for her Gothic novel, Frankenstein. In her day, though, she was best known by her cavorting cohabitation with the married poet Percy Shelley, bearing his child illegitimately, and undoubtedly contributing immensely to the suicide of Percy’s wife. Afterwards, Mary became the legal Ms. Shelley. Today, in our politically correct bubble where tolerance trumps all virtues, we will consider only her statement, “Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist of creating out of void, but out of chaos.”
So, in summarizing these great minds we see that invention comes by a great need, constant iteration, creativity, knowledge, and hard work. It requires that we make considerable sacrifices to be successful. Since only God can create something out of nothing, we mortals must gather the raw materials for invention, those being knowledge, a plethora of ideas, and opportunity. We need considerable materials on hand because we don’t know which ones we require. We thus must entertain many ideas and concepts so that we can derive the winning combination.
Or, as my good friend, George Carlsness once enlightened me, “You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince.”
How does one make a technology forecast and then how does one forge that forecast into reality?
- Create a master schedule. This is the schedule you turn in to management, the decision makers, the powers that be. In the master schedule give yourself and your team the longest period of time possible for the 2-3 critical elements. Bargain and connive for the longest time possible.
- Create an internal schedule that the team works towards. For the 2-3 critical elements, the internal schedule should nominally reflect half the time shown in the master schedulefor those tasks called critical elements. This is the schedule you publish to the team and the only schedule they ever see. Make no exceptions. This gives you a 100% buffer to work against: you will need it.
- Define quantifiable, measureable metrics to gauge the progress of the critical elements towards the end goal, that being completion and success.
- From day one, treat the critical elements as if they were already impossibly behind schedule. Schedule extra shifts, order the late-night pizzas, cancel holidays and vacations, and err on excess personnel and equipment. Plan on exhausting your resources and making a few enemies: it is unavoidable and part of success – see the quote by Tesla. That not only means your team, but you, personally.
- Monitor the progress of the critical elements daily. Do this personally. The 2-3 critical elements cannot be left to a subordinate. Check on these elements daily as to quantifiable progress toward the goal. You do not need to have a meeting and take up everyone’s else’s time but do whatever you must to get quantifiable, measureable data. Guesses, hearsay, and notions count for nothing and are a waste of everyone’s time.
- Continually bring in fresh ideas and insights to the team.
- Ensure that all equipment, facilities, and personnel are in place and fully functional at all times, day and night, weekdays and weekends.
- Make decisions in a timely manner and stick to them. A manager who cannot or will not make decisions is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A manager who cannot or will not stick to his or her own decisions will kill the project and the flying shrapnel destroys all hope for success.
- Watch professional baseball. Learn the game and apply baseball rules to your management of the critical elements.
- In a professional baseball game, there are three sets of pitchers: the starters, the bull-pen, and the closer.
- The starter starts the game and, theoretically, will be able to pitch all nine innings and end the game. This rarely happens, though, because a pitcher can only throw about 100 pitches. (Read: there is only so much one person can do.) The starting pitcher represents your initial ideas and your initial team. You would hope that they complete their tasks, on schedule, as assigned, but this happens about as often as winning the lottery.
- The bull-pen is a set of pitchers who pitch when the starter begins to fatigue. In a research project, that bull-pen represents new ideas and new methods to try, alternative plans, and different techniques. Collect your alternative plans on day one. Keep pitching new ideas and alternatives.
- If you cannot get unanimous agreement on the approach to use, set up 2-3 separate teams and have them each work on the project independently. The teams will be either be successful, independently, or they will converge.
- Your biggest mistake will be keeping the starter in the game too long. If you are approaching the half-way point of the internal schedule (the fourth-way point of the master schedule), and still have no solution in sight, it is time to bring in the bull pen. Do NOT wait until it is too late and the game is out of hand, and lost. Do it NOW. Start on day one to implement alternative plans, as and if, required.
- When you get near the end of the schedule you have to either fish or cut bait (an allusion to a pathetic red-neck joke). In other words, know when it’s time to make the final decision and go with the closer. Sooner is better than latter.
- Learn to pray and start believing there is a superior power who is concerned about your personal needs.
- Keep management appraised of your quantified, measured progress against the end goal. Do not wait until it is too late to ask management for help. They will usually volunteer help but they have to be part of the success equation. Use their help to advantage. No one want to lose the game. Do not keep management in the dark.
That’s a great deal to absorb. Cogitate on those steps and implement them.
Then, you can affirm with John (Hannibal) Smith of the A-Team, “I love it when a plan comes together.”