Project Junction

I wonder how Apple runs their decision checkpoint meetings? If their meetings are like our meetings in IBM, here’s how the decision to charter the iPod possibly played out.  “Here ye. Here ye. Now that we’ve reviewed the project proposal for this music system, it’s time to vote.  Let’s go around the table and vote by function:”

Strategy
“A music player doesn’t fit into our business model. We’re a computer company.”
Vote:  Reject proposal

Market Intelligence
“Sony has a lock on the market.  We’ll never break it.”
Vote:  Reject proposal

Finance
“The expense is too high. We could use that money to make another Mac platform.”
Vote:  Reject proposal

Fulfillment:
“This would require that we build an on-line music store from scratch! Do you have any idea how difficult it would be to construct the IT Infrastructure?”
Vote:  Reject proposal

Steve Jobs’ then picked up a prototype, played with it for a few minutes and asked, “Have you tried this cool click wheel thing?”

Decision made.

Lessons: Sometimes you gotta go with your gut. And client centric usability trumps the stuff you can’t touch (like processor speed and memory) almost every time. Are there any other lessons here?