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Tue, 19 Mar 2024

Those dumb cavemen are (not so) stupid guys

(extracted from slides I made in 2017/2018)

You probably already know this drawing about cavemen, whom are extremely focused on the hardwork.

They're often presented as dumb guys unable to take a step back and unable to embrace the wheel of innovation.

I have empathy for those guys.

old-school builders

Empathy for the daily workers

If you have to drive some change, think a bit of those cavemen and understand where they (and you) are.

Not ready for change?

bad change timing

Topic Our cavemen The project to change
Effort Low remaining costs Little amount of changes, stable baseline
Process Mature enough for the remaining tasks Well known TRL-9 tools.
Simple and mature processes.
Skills Stable and skilled team No turn-over.
Well-known context and practices.
No grieves with current way of working.
Distance Short, straight and good certainty Estimate To Complete is crystal clear.
No risks anymore.

Unless you have ZERO negative impact on quality, costs and delays, it could be hard to provoke the change.

Right on time to help?

good change timing

Topic Our cavemen The project to change
Effort High remaining costs Many Changes. Unstable baseline.
Process Not adapted for the situation Voice-Based Process.
Little automation.
No written practices.
Skills Overwhelmed High turn-over
Junior ressources
Team is unhappy with practices (bad motivation)
Distance Long, uncertainties, mountain climbing Diffuse architecture.
Impossible to predict impacts.
Impossible to ensure maturity.
Not Feasible / Wall Effect

It's time to come and help with an holistic approach.
With all the right tools and solutions, you'll probably find the right balance between additional costs and values.

Problem solving they told us

Whatever the tool or technology you're pushing in a given situation, if you don't know 'why' and 'what', the 'how' becomes meaningless. The ROI (return on invest) is the ultimate decision factor.

Problem solving is about the problem. It is astonishing how often the problems are not correctly formulated, leading to the wrong problem being resolved (and thus no ROI at all).

return on invest
(from Geek&Poke)