by Eric G. Parker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2014
Relevant for some product development teams, but others may find the core idea too basic for their needs.
A former product engineer serves up a simple process to help companies choose the right ideas.
Here’s a stunning statistic: Companies “can consume 50 percent of development time” on the “fuzzy front end” of a product’s life cycle—the time when a product concept is formulated and the company decides whether or not to pursue the idea. Parker’s book is all about fixing this problem by using the dramatically simple “idea sheet” process. By creating a single, one-sided sheet of paper with a solid description of each idea, the author writes, a company’s product development team can quickly sift through the ideas, weed out the bad ones and pursue only the good ones. Lest the reader think the idea sheet is a no-brainer, it does require two crucial buy-ins: First, management (whom Parker labels “the boss”) has to support the process and second, valued customers need to be recruited as idea filters. Ultimately, it is a customer’s reaction to an idea that determines its go/no-go status. Parker meticulously details the entire idea sheet process, sometimes to a fault. He offers a blow-by-blow description of every element and each moment in an idea sheet meeting. At times, this level of specificity suggests the author’s objective is to bulk up the book since the content is too lean. On the positive side, Parker supplements the description of the process with idea sheet examples, a scenario—in which an engineer’s emotional involvement with an idea dooms it to failure—that represents what not to do, and some of his own experiences. All of this is good, but the book suffers from redundancy; it seems, for instance, that the author merely restates the same steps of the idea sheet process meeting in two different chapters. The text could be more crisply written, and black-and-white illustrations separating the chapters tend to look amateurish. Still, managers seeking an easy-to-implement way to cut down on wasted front-end product development time could benefit from Parker’s process.
Relevant for some product development teams, but others may find the core idea too basic for their needs.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-1492812685
Page Count: 130
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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BOOK REVIEW
by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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