Dogfooding
There is a contest going on in my org. The contest is to come up with new innovative ideas, concepts. A suitable working prototype will do. The winning proposal will fetch lots of US dollars. I personally think there is too much of romanticism with all this tech product companies being innovative and creative and so on. You need not be the next Google to survive. Once your product is out, most of the times you can help yourself with open eyes and ears. While being the next Google is great, some basics are more important. For e.g using your own product in real life as much as possible.
If you are running an ‘arisi mandi’ you better cook your meal from the rice you sell. If you can’t, that speaks a lot about your rice. Same applies for software product as well.
As far as I have seen, very few employees use the product they develop and design even though they can. Nor do they use the competitor’s product. Nor do they read the feedback from real users - the email compilation of which is received every single day. Nor do they read the web to see what the people at large have to say about what our product. Most of the junta come to office and leave early so that they can take care of the family. They are very clear, for them the product is their family and children.
In this scenario, does it really help to come up with all these contests? If only all good prototypes had resulted in great products, everybody would’ve been a millionaire by now.
If we can use this product more often, and truly listen to what customers say, we have enough work to do for the next year or two. We have gunnybags of bugs to be fixed. Feature request initiatives can happen from the bottom. We can be working on real problems, whatever!
November 5th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
The roots of the mediocrity of the software produced by Indian service companies lies in the nature of the deal that resulted in that software development effort. Most of the outsourcing deals are “done deals” - they are usually multi-year/multi-month contracts that go on regardless of the quality. They are high touch business deals involving shady deal making and clueless managements in the US. The end user is never involved and even if he is it is kind of half hearted, going through the motions kind of thing. How many cancellations do you know of ? European deals are slightly different, often they come with a penalty clause.
In between all this middle management drama about innovation, technology for the clueless employees.
November 5th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
BNB
I am not sure the situation is very different even when companies themselves setup shops here.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Yes, In some of those MNC branch cases, it’s even worse, since it’s again a “done deal”. The India Office is there for some book-keeping trick /tax purpose or whatever, although they spin it otherwise. Even if their original intentions are right they bring in managers with a traditional outlook - that Microsoft India mail is a classic example.
November 18th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Prabhu,
If you are running a ‘arisi mandi’ it doesn’t means you have to eat rice 3 times a day. I feel some product companies are surviving because of innovative ideas. Ideas are important for product companies than quality of product. Google is also not cent percent perfect, still google is fetching some bulls**ts for some searches.
Not least, We have to follow ‘Nobody is Perfect’ Principle…
November 18th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Shankar,
I dont understand the concept of ‘innovating’ when
(a) we don’t use the product we build
(b) we know very little of the competition
(c) there is a huge gap between the customer and the development teams
>>Ideas are important for product companies than quality of product
I don’t agree. Lots of times, you will realize the guy who does things first turns a loser simply because the guy who did next could do it better, faster, cheaper.
Innovation and ideas are important when there is a tendency to treat a good product/ service as cash cow and keep milking it forever.
On the other extreme we can’t be ‘ideating’ when we are far removed from our actual product, actual customer and actual competition.
May 18th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
“If you are running an ‘arisi mandi’ you better cook your meal from the rice you sell. ”
I not neccessarly agree with this as a person who is running a Liquor store/ Lottery store?
Do they have to drink the liquor to be able to qualify?
May 18th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
RA
Yes. Assuming you are a drinker…
what kind of AD is that if you get good drinks from your competitor rather than your own store?
If DELL employees use Apple mac as a corporate policy, will it be nice to sell DELL to customers?
May 18th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Absolutly NOT, However from where I see you still could have a right to choose what you like rather force to use just because you do.
In your use case: I think a person who may like MAC can work at DELL. i DO NOT SEE ANY ISSUE THERE of Mr X liking Mac working for DELL.
Well it would be all together a different ball game if your corporate policy allows you to do. But you know what the more I think about this, there could be a possibility to do R&D on bing @ Google and vice versa.
So its debatable. Would you agree?
May 18th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
A person is free to work in X while liking Y. Thats not what i’m talking about.
Ideally there should be R and D on bing @ google.. again thats not what i’m talking abt…
Its using google docs on day to day basis @ microsoft. Thats exactly what i’m talking about.
If you do not consume your own product, how do you expect the consumers to..is my question.