 |
| Mínimamente Viable |
Estar atento y, de es
necesario, cuestionar nuestros esquemas mentales siempre ha sido un valor
importante.
Estos días asistimos a toda
una nueva corriente de desarrollo de software creada en realidad hace mas de 20
años pero que logro su “tipping point” hace relativamente poco.
Hablamos claro esta de la metodología Agile
en sus sabores Scrum o XP.
Esta misma corriente ha “invadido”
y desparramado como todos buen meme a otras industrias y disciplinas y si bien
entiendo que hay mucho que rescatar debemos estar un poco atentos a las
aplicaciones prácticas y recordar los orígenes de la metodología.
Esto viene a cuenta de un
post aparecido en Enterprise Irregulars unos días después del fallecimiento de
Steve Jobs el año pasado escrito por Bob Warfield, habitual colaborador del
sitio, titulado:
Es muy cortito así que lo reproduzco a continuación:
We live in a world that has learned
to embrace and even worship the notion of a “minimum viable product,” not
products that are the best that we can do. This is done for risk
mitigation reasons. We are concerned that we may not know what’s best, we
need to get feedback, and we need to move cautiously rather than boldly. It’s
born of a desire to conserve capital and to raise capital. Capital, in
many ways, has trumped Vision, Passion, and Products. Venture capital is
hard to come by for Vision. They’ve been burned too many times, and it is
too hard to identify Visionaries. It’s easier to fund traction. Let
the markets decide. Let the people decide. It’s democratic.
It’s safer. But it will never produce Insanely Great the way Steve
Jobs has.
In a world that so
embraces this “new approach”, it’s sad to see the passing of Steve Jobs.
Steve had no interest
in the minimum viable. He had no concerns for getting feedback before
creating what he did best: Insanely Great Products. In reflecting
on his passing, I wonder about our future in the world of Technology.
Will we ever get back
to building Insanely Great Products?
Is there really no
future in having Vision and an uncompromising passion to make it into Insanely
Great Products?
What is the role of excellence,
aesthetics, and beauty?
What about hope,
promise, and dreams?
What about changing the
world with technology?
Must we build
everything with checklists, committees, and focus groups?
The first Dot Com
Bubble did us a great disservice by
introducing the notion that all that matters is getting there first with the
right idea, riding the bubble, and having a big enough portfolio to weather the
bad ideas. It did us a disservice
by conditioning us that Insanely Great is so rare as to be not worth pursuing.
It made us entirely too dependent on catching the next Bubble
instead of Creating the next Great Product. Steve Jobs worked hard to
show us we were wrong. First with the iPod, then the iPhone, and finally
the iPad. Clearly, there is plenty of life in Insanely Great. Given
Apple’s financial performance relative to those who played it safe or depend on
a monopoly that steadily wears out with the pace of technology change, it may
be the only enduring way to build an Insanely Great Company.
Steve, your legacy will
live on. Let’s hope others will have the courage to try to follow in your
footsteps. Let’s hope Apple can keep the Passion for Insanely Great
burning.
