Author: Christopher Berry

How Knowledge of Quality Attributes is Distributed

Posted on by Christopher Berry

It’s quite astonishing to think about just how much human knowledge exists, and just how diffuse its distribution is. It’s hard for any individual to tell. There are clues though. Knowledge is a major way that people create distinctions among one another, so it stands to reason that you can get a sense for how knowledge is distributed by looking at the distinctions people make amongst themselves. The knowledge of French and the knowledge of English creates a distinction between two rather large groups. The knowledge and application of ancient stories is another. The knowledge of how to shape a piece of wood, or stone, or glass used to be a pretty huge distinction. There are entire identities put in[…]

What are the minimum Quality Attributes and Need-Solution Pairs of Web3?

Posted on by Christopher Berry

What are the quality attributes and need-solution pairs of Web3? At minimum, the key quality attribute is decentralization. The key matching need is fairness. There are good reasons why this is so. I’d love to be able cite someone that there is a natural tendency for humans to centralize power. I’d love for that statement to be axiomatic. I can cite quite a few papers that appear to just take it as a given (Aristotle (301 BCE, Machiavelli (1513), Bloomfield and Coombs (1992)). But, I can’t find a passage for the axiom anywhere. For the purposes of this post, I’m importing the assumption as a truth: there is a tendency for people to centralize to power. Decentralization is a counter-force[…]

What are Quality Attributes?

Posted on by Christopher Berry

A quality attribute, in systems engineering, is a non-functional requirement. I think of them as adjectives that describe a system. They’re useful tools. There are dozens of quality attributes in systems engineering: accessibility, accuracy, durability, flexibility, observability, repeatability, safety, sustainability, testability, upgradeability, usability, vulnerability and so on. They’re useful tools because they’re the core of discriminator statements, and as such, can help us think about Need-Solution Pairs. Quality Attributes and Need-Solution Pairs What if, in the context of a Need-Solution pair (von Hippel and von Krogh (2016)), a solution can have a large number of quality attributes? When comparing a product to a substitute, you can think of faster, cheaper, and easier. This laptop is faster than that one. It’s[…]

What are Need-Solution Pairs?

Posted on by Christopher Berry

Von Hippel is onto something with the idea of need-solution pairs. This is how I understand the idea: Most management literature is focused on problem definition. (See: James G March for one of the best models of how problems drives search). Often, searches are sparked by a problem. But what if it isn’t always sparked by a problem? Von Hippel argues that search isn’t always motivated by formalized problems. Sometimes people are just discovering alternatives based on needs, and then, they compare a new alternative to the status quo. If the alternative is predicted to be better than the status quo, then the alternative will be substituted. If not, it’s rejected. This is a kind of a neat way to[…]

The Product Vision

Posted on by Christopher Berry

“I’m seeing things Believe me I’ve never seen before Little things Deceive me” Seeing Things, Theme Song, 1981 One common formula for a product vision comes from Steve Blank (2010, 2020). It goes like this: “For <customer segment> our product, <product name> is a <name the sector that customers say> that <benefit>. Unlike <competitors>, our product <discriminator>. Our product is <product name>.” And each bit of that formula can be systematically turned into a set of hypotheses that can be tested and refined until the vision is sufficiently true, or likely, to create a wonderful business if scaled. Blank himself repeats that entrepreneurs are rule breakers, so it’s really up to them which ones they want to break. Osterwalder and[…]

What Is A Garbage Can Product Roadmap?

Posted on by Christopher Berry

“Consider organized anarchies.” (Cohen, March and Olsen, 1972) Product management exists within the context of organized anarchies. Within that context, product managers do their best to create, read, update, and destroy elements of a product roadmap. There are a few definitions of what a product roadmap is. From Atlasssian: “A product roadmap is a shared source of truth that outlines the vision, direction, and progress of a product over time.” Another: “A product roadmap can be seen as a key element of an organization that maps out the vision and direction of the product offering. It describes the way how a product or a product portfolio is going to meet a set of business objectives and the work that is required[…]

The Stories We Demand

Posted on by Christopher Berry

It’s kind of amazing we know how to abstract at all. It’s an unreasonably effective skill. It enables a high bandwidth way of transmitting information. Learning through demonstration is pretty effective. Learning through symbolic representation even more so. Consider these words. They’re made up of sounds. The sounds can be strung together to symbolically represent physical things and virtual concepts. We learned how to draw physical representations of physical things. Then the alphabet was invented, letters themselves an innovation because they originally symbolized sounds. The letters have long since drifted from their original sounds. So much so that in English, we cram 48 sounds into 26 letters. The English alphabet is an overloaded abstraction. Stories too are overloaded abstraction. There[…]

Ways To Think About Work In Progress Inflation

Posted on by Christopher Berry

Leopold makes the argument that business agility isn’t software agility [1]. It’s a very good argument. Here’s a few ways to think about Leopold’s insight. Most products are static. A pie is made, purchased, and consumed. As are most physical goods: toasters, fans, mattresses, tables and so on. Most goods leave a residue behind but their core essence is completed. A toaster will persist in the landfill unless it’s dug up later. Otherwise, it’ll go onto form a line in the geological strata. Most virtual goods are static too. A lottery ticket, a podcast, a book, a brand marketing campaign, an episode of Avenue5. Most of these goods are shipped and then they’re effectively gone from their creators. They leave[…]

Growth

Posted on by Christopher Berry

Life changes the planet. It always has. We humans are life. We’re changing the planet. How you choose to think about it has a lot to do with what you choose to do about it. The Medea Hypothesis In his book, The Medea Hypothesis, Peter Ward summarizes a few decades of ecology research and adds a few of his ideas of his own. Ward argues that the idea that life seeks to create equilibrium with the environment, the Gaia Hypothesis, is false. He paints a compelling picture of how life doesn’t create harmony with the planet at all. Life appears to be in perpetual conflict with the abiotic environment. It tries to occupy as much space as it can. It[…]

Carbon, Energy And The North

Posted on by Christopher Berry

Canada is a land of many Canadas. There’s the Maritime version, the Montreal version, the inland BC version…so many versions really. In spite of how different those Canada’s are – they’re all down South. The North is entirely different. More people live on Prince Edward Island (~160,000 people over ~5400 KM^2) than the entire North (~126,000 over ~2.5 million KM^2). I don’t even fully comprehend just how different life is in the North.  It’s always been expensive and hard to get up North. It’s brutal by foot and paddle. It’s expensive by boat, rail, truck and airplane. The most obvious factor is the distance. The spaces are vast. Less obvious is how much more expensive it is to build transportation[…]