Value

Your organization has one job: Deliver value to your customers. But not all kinds of value are the same, and not all manners of working to deliver value are equivalent. Do you know where your organization is devoting its resources? Let’s examine these parameters and how you can improve the way you work to deliver both kinds of value. Value and Work There are two types of value you can deliver: You can maintain old (already-delivered) value, for example you can restore your website when it goes down or you can repair a failed product. Or, you can develop new value, for example performing R&D for new or improved products. Both types of value are important to customers. ...

Are you in an organization that can not or will not fund improvements because there is zero cost-savings accrued as a result? Are important decisions forcefully hammered flat into a single-dimensional cost metric? Must you justify every action with a business case that boils down to a price tag? If so, I feel sorry for you. The most respected organizations in every field take a more mature view: Value, not cost, is king. And value attracts business. ...

Back in the early days of computers, or so the legend goes, when an entire room housed less computing power than in today’s iPhone, a large government agency had a serious problem: their computer system stopped working. Though it was only three weeks since the system had been certified, the startup sequence refused to complete, leaving the agency lacking critical operational capabilities. Work on the project ground to a halt while every engineer on staff checked and rechecked wiring, tubes, and relays to find the issue. But two weeks of troubleshooting amounted to nothing, and the Director of the agency was beside himself with frustration. He decided to hire the worldwide expert on such computer systems, a retired professor who was known for his sense of humor. ...