[Sigia-l] Dedicated to those...

[prady]

Ziya Oz :
> I have nothing against MBAs as a phylum, just the ones who think that
> metrics (alone) can be a substitute for design as business strategy.

Metrics is not substitute of what you do, it is a "measure" of whatever you do.

I see a confusion about the term metrics/ROI. Let's simplify and call
it "measure". And let's start asking yourself, is it stupid to believe
in "measuring"? Ofcourse with the exception (Joel's case in point)
when you "measure" with wrong yardstick.

There's another confusion here that WalMart, BestBuy, Dell failed,
because they couldn't get on the Music Store/design business (This is
happening due to misunderstanding the term "business strategy"). You
are measuring their success with wrong ward stick. All the examples I
gave are market leaders in their own industry (including WalMart, Dell
and Bestbuy). And the point was that they are leader because they
"measure" precicely what they do.

Through my examples of leading firms I was pointing towards the fact
that everything is "measurable" and if you don't measure you can't
"manage". You yourself pointed how APPL measures it's success (and
design). Other firms are measuring manufacturing, service, HR,
business profitability, customer satisfaction, value of customer,
brand equity, human capital, sales, design & development to make these
individual activities more managiable. Why would anybody disagree with
that?

Now coming to the subject, which you insist on - "design". It can be
measured and should always be. That is not to say that this approach
puts extra emphasis on measurement and not on design itself. You can
make a case that something (design in this case) has not reached its
maturity at a certain instance and "measurement" should be less
discretionary for final judgements. And people in white coat will
understand that.

I am not sure where this debate is headed, but I believe that you are
fairly intelligent guy and you get it. You have the unique attitude
towards learning - you start by denial. The thing which are causing
you to dance on both sides are due to unclarity of terms in your own
mind about "best practices", "ROI", "innovation", "strategy",
"metrics", etc. For that you should just simplify them and drink
kool-aid.

Good debate. Thank you.