The only designers who know what to design

In e-business, there are too many variables to be taken into account, too much uncertainty, too many unknowns and knowledge gaps. Products and services in e-business cannot be planned and designed in the same way as they could be in the Industrial Age. But, the idea that an e-business solution can be conceived and designed without a detailed business plan and a strong management team is totally foreign to the business mind of the Industrial Age.

Examples of the failure of business plans and strong management teams abound in the world of e-business as evidenced by the spectacular failures of some of the early dotcom startups. Failure was often blamed upon poor business planning and lack of sound management, but, this was only he judgements made in retrospect. At the time these companies got their funding, they all appeared to have sound business plans and good management. This must be so because it is usually the basis upon which any venture capital is granted or IPO (Initial Public Offering) investments made.

The real truth is that conventional business methods are unworkable in the fast changing world of communication technology. Plans are made to look bad and management made to look poor because the approach is all wrong from the start. Time and time again, people and companies have produced e-business solutions that are fully planned and developed before being exposed to potential customers. Success happens before a product or service goes to market, but, it happens only in the heads of the designers. When it becomes time for a product or service to face up to the reality of the market place, almost invariably it is found wanting. What seemed certain to lead to a profitable e-business in the design stages produces nothing but disappointment when it is presented to the real world.

There is only one type of specialist that can design products and services that do not meet this fate, and this type cannot be organised and managed - it is the customer. Customers know what they want and what they don't want and if they can be part of the creation process they can produce results far better than the cleverest of designers or market researchers.

One of the readers in the cafe of people reading the drafts of the chapters of this book, Anette Standfuss, grasped the idea neatly. She commented to her table:

From my point of view the main point of chapter 16 is collaborative work and building dynamic networks around ideas and projects and the main point of chapter 17 is collaborative learning and problem solving.

Comments on chapter 16. Here I see two main points regarding the cafe technology:

1.) Using the cafe technology for creating and managing new e-enterprises. As said before this is about building dynamic networks, working collaboratively using effective communication strategies to manage information overload and the dynamics of the environment.

2.) Using the cafe technology in enterprises of the world of bricks and mortar. In this case the main question is, how will the use of such a technology change the organization? As is said in this chapter, such a technology is a possibility to by-pass information "blockers" and break up hierarchies.

Comments on chapter 17:

I love this chapter. There is a very interesting point mentioned. It is said that the author is using the cafe concept as a planning tool and (see fig. 17.4): "The principle was very simple, you start from any point and through a process of steps, proceed towards a satisfactory solution. At the end of each step, stock is taken and a new direction is taken."

Customers can.. become integrated in the development process by including them as members of the development team.

Anette Standfuss

Involving customers in the design is something quite different from custom design. Too many companies assume that if they offer a customer a whole range of options and allow them to choose from these options (or fit options to a customer profile) that this will automatically form a sound basis for an e-business solution. They quite forget that they are in a constantly moving and highly competitive environment. How can they be sure that the range of options they have on offer will cover customers' rapidly changing needs and expectations? They can't, unless their customers are actively involved. This involvement should not be limited only to the selection of options. Customers should be included as an integral part of the system that produces the products. They provide the guidance.

Before the advent of the Internet, the involvement of customers at the initial design stages of a product or service was largely impractical. The nearest that got to this was market research, but, this is expensive and is only a very crude approximation of what can be achieved through involving potential customers by way of the Internet.

The Internet now makes it possible to get customer help in guiding the development of a product or service at every step of the way: from conception to final design. But, the definition of a final design in a fast changing competitive environment isn't the same as it was in the Industrial Age. In the Industrial Age, a final design implied a frozen state: a state where the product or service has achieved a condition of acceptable permanence.

Such a state of permanence is not viable for long in a fast changing world. The final product has to take the form of a system, a system that is flexible and adaptive. This kind of final design will never reach a state of permanence and will continuously need to involve customers as an integral part of the system to keep it on track. They must always be on hand, to guide evolutionary changes as the product responds to the fast changing needs and competition of the market place. Products and services can then be shaped by the customers - through their feedback, contributions and suggestions. It is in the ability to tap into and include this design source into a system that most often leads to success in the world of e-business.

This is the single most successful strategy used in e-business: getting customers involved at the design stage. You don't have to guess what people want, they will tell you and help you provide it if you set up a sufficiently interesting or rewarding situation for them to participate.