Building the Right Thing, Building it Right, Building it Fast

Markets are changing faster than ever. We are living Moore’s Law. In 1965, Intel co-founder, Gordon Moore, noticed that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since their invention. Moore predicted that this trend will continue into the foreseeable future. Although the pace has slowed (the number of transistors per square inch now doubles approximately every 18 months), computing power has become significantly smaller, faster and cheaper. Think of that mobile computer you carry around with you and probably still refer it to as a “phone” though you spend more time texting, watching videos and surfing the net than making phone calls with it.

It is this faster, cheaper technology that allows you to watch streaming videos on your mobile device – or virtual reality, augmented reality – merged reality… There is a lot of pressure to keep up with the rapidly changing technology that is quickly and continuously reshaping our world – how we find things, how we purchase things – how we find out about things. Products and service providers need to adapt to this faster pace of change. They need to deliver their solutions faster – but the experience must be better than their competition.

How do you build it fast and deliver the experience that your customers desire? And customer’s expectations are much higher now. Moore’s Law has accelerated the Kano Model – the rate of what was a delightful innovation becomes a basic need. You expect that hand-held device of yours to easily display augmented reality – but you didn’t a few years ago. Holographic projections from a wearable may be a delightful innovation – but that, too, will become a basic need.

To build it fast – and build it right – means that you need to clearly define what “right” is. Machine learning and predictive analytics can help… and so can traditional research like contextual inquiry. The important thing, in this lean and agile process, that the developers – the once responsible for building it right and fast – have folks clearly defining the right thing to build.