Project Junction

A respected IBMer named Gia Lyons left our company to work for a smaller firm jive software. It takes nerve to leave the IBM safety net. I applaud her moxie.

The Newcomer Advantage

Should we worry that Gia is no longer an insider? After all, she’s knows our strategy and she’s could attack us in the marketplace. Pah.LEE.zzz! Get a grip my fellow beamers. Why should anybody worry about her taking our lunch money? We have brilliant minds in IBM and a war chest to fund our projects. Why is that we we fret about these small start ups?

The answer, I fear, is that they have a competitive advantage. That’s right. These nascent companies have a distinct advantage in bringing products to market. Their advantage has nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with execution. You see they run “lean” while we run “heavy.”

The IBM Legacy Millstone

It’s hard to run lean in IBM when you are constrained by legacy checklists, legacy processes and legacy fulfillment systems. These new firms deploy small, self governed teams driven by direct customer feedback. There are some folks in IBM who wouldn’t know a customer if one knocked on the invisible door at their cubicle entrance.

There are other Beemers who welcome customer interaction and apply Agile development principles to their workflow. When these folks break out here in IBM, I suspect that we’ll run all over the upstart competitors. Here’s my keys for breaking out of our cubicle cells.

John’s Keys to Software Development

1. Stop playing it safe by running endless business cases when your gut already knows what you should do. Move. And move fast. Speed doesn’t kill. Speed wins!
2. Stop throwing money and people at problems. The CoCoMo model of software development long ago demonstrated diseconomies of scale. Keep your core team small and travel light.
3. Stop slowing down the players on the field with politics and endless status reporting through multiple layers of non value add executive overhead.
4. Stop gold plating requirements. Build a working model of the core requirements first before you add a single bell or whistle.
5. Start accepting measured risk. This is business. You’re paid to retain some risks.
6. Start using new development processes like Agile and lightweight project management tools.
7. Start dismantling legacy systems and systematically move to a SOA or SaaS model.
8. Stop jive talkin’ and start doing.

Are you telling me that we can’t do this in IBM? Of course we can. The only question is will we? The executives in our company need to put the key into the lock and open the door.

Did you notice that I didn’t include any Tools in my short list above? People and methods are the primary keys to success. In my opinion, collaboration is the nuclear fusion of business innovation. Gia figured that out long ago. And that’s why I’ll continue to listen to her even though she’s now outside of our IBM firewall.
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