LEARN
LEARNING what is actually needed, and the actual impacts is critical to being able to begin the evaluation process.
You need to LEARN everything about the project constraints and the people that you’re working with.
We believe we know what we know, we believe we know what we don’t know, we know that there are unknown, unknowns.
Curtis Thompson, Foundation for Value Creation
How is the unknown impacting the known and the unknown?
In many organizations and teams across the world people are taking on new projects, some of them are routine and some are totally new to the people delivering products from these projects. The learning phase is paramount to value delivery and helps to reduce failure knowingly or unknowingly. Many organizations forgo learning for the sake of speed, in many cases this can be disastrous. However, we are not saying the all must be known before we begin work, there is a fine balance to moving forward and learning.
We must always be a in a position of learning, if we want to be both effective and agile we must always focus on positioning ourselves to proactively learn.
We’ve all seen meme’s or images similar to this one, where someone could have stayed on the path they were on and they would be successful. In this case the known information lured the man away from success. and his lack of knowledge allowed it to happen.
Knowing is always a more optimal position that learning, meaning we must always proactively learn.
Curtis Thompson, Foundations for Value Creation, Dark Data & Data Products
This scenario relates to Dark Data from the simple fact that Dark Data is the unknown. The only way to understand and learn how to extract value from it is to consistently explore the unknown, Dark Data. As we continue to press forward in that exploration there are many things that impede our efficacy with learning.
Internal
- Politics & culture
- Fear & self-interest
- Tech not advanced
- Limited vision
- Process & operational
External
- Tech not advanced enough
- Data unattainable
- Legal limitations
- Market limitations
- Economy
What’s Possible?
This is the question, I usually start with whenever I’m producing something new. As I progress along the product delivery path, I revisit this question and ask; are we taking the easy path or the best path?
Tribal Knowledge and Tradition Usually stand in opposition to Innovation & Growth
Exploring the unknown is critical to growth, success and competitive advantage. Many people who went to business school were taught that process dictates technology. I’ve worked with other VP that operated solely under this premise. That is true in some cases however, in situation where we are creating new products or trying to gain a consistent edge on the competition this is largely not the case. A great example of this is the automobile, Henry Ford didn’t invent the Automobile he changed the process on how cars were built. By using new technology in a more effective manner he ReDesigned the Automobile industry. At that time the Automobile industry was minuscule.
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
Henry Ford
