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New Business Paths
In 1891, with a starting capital of thirty two dollars, William Wrigley founded a company which delivered soap to wholesalers. In order to make his product more attractive, he included a free sample of baking powder with every pack, a method of promoting sales that was completely unheard of at the time. When Wrigley heard that his baking powder was more popular than his soap, he decided to give up the soap business and only sell baking powder. He continued to include a free sample with his new product, but this time it was two packs of chewing gum. As before, the samples became a bigger hit than the actual product. Realizing the future belonged to the chewing gum, not the baking powder, Wrigley made the crucial decision to once again switch products. In 1893, Juicy Fruit and Wrigley’s Spearmint, two classics still popular today, entered the market. Within 18 years, Wrigley’s had become the most successful chewing gum brand. Then the company surprised its customers with its next innovation: the gum was no longer packaged loosely in a box, but individually wrapped.
At first glance, soap, baking powder and chewing gum have very little in common. Per Wrigley’s example, question the obvious, and discover new possibilities.
Agile Portfolio Management
Recipes are undoubtedly helpful when learning to cook, but if you want to master the art, following them can actually be a hindrance. As Bill Backer, senior creative director of an advertising agency, once said, “With all due respect to the master chefs who share their recipes – they can only teach you how to make their soufflé. If you want to prepare your own soufflé, you must first understand what type of mixture is formed from eggs and flour and how that mixture responds to technique. From there, you need to develop your own theories, for on this basis, you can prepare your own dishes.”
It is not useful to simply adopt a successful solution without taking the causes into consideration. Rather, you need a deeper understanding of the problem in order to arrive at your own solutions, which are probably more appropriate to your problem.
Individual Recipes
Individual Recipes
Recipes are undoubtedly helpful, but only to a certain extent. If you really want to cook well, recipes can be a hindrance. As Bill Backer, senior creative director of an advertising agency, once said, “With all due respect to the master chefs who share their recipes – they can only teach you how to make their soufflé. If you want to prepare your own soufflé, you must first understand why eggs and flour form a fluffy mixture (or not), when you do certain things with them. And then you need to develop your own theories. On this basis, you can prepare your own dishes.”
It is not useful to simply adopt a successful solution without taking the causes into consideration. Rather, you need a deeper understanding of the problem in order to arrive at your own solutions, which are probably more appropriate to your problem.
Agile Process Management
The Art of Balance
Avoid mistakes! – Try and learn!
Uniformity! – Diversity!
Act like everyone else! – Be different!
Focus! – Be everywhere!
Tried and true! – Set new goals!
Ask permission! – Be independent!
Quarterly results – Future
More of the same! – Something different!
Adult – Child, Next Generation
Business Administration – „Science of Creation“
Through simple methods and solution-oriented processes, you create a proactive work environment that allows you to keep the balance in this stressful field.
Agile Software Development
A hunter had an excellent bow of ebony, with which he could shoot very far, and take a very certain aim. The hunter prized this bow over everything else.
But one day, as he was attentively examining it, he thought: Even though I can shoot so well with it, it is still a little too thick. All its ornament was in its smoothness. It is a pity; yet, I think, there is a way to remedy it.
And so the hunter sought out the best sculptor in the city and asked him to carve pictures his bow. The sculptor examined the bow and said, “That could very well be done.” It did not even take seven days, and the sculptor had carved a magnificent hunting scene with deer, rabbits and hunters throughout the entirety of the bow. The bow was such a beautiful sight.
The hunter, overjoyed, paid the sculptor and returned to hunt. “You deserve this ornament, my dear bow,” he said. But when he bent the bow, it broke. Because of the carvings, the wood had lost its strength.
This fable by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing illustrates that some improvements can ruin a good cause. This applies not only to rock-solid products which can lose their usefulness through “over-engineering”; even good employees, who are constantly driven to become even better, can break like the artfully carved bow.
The Artful Bow