We're doing a lot of thinking these days about which features will give us the best ROI, trying to prioritize existing features and asking ourselves "did we miss something? is there a new feature out there we left behind?". It's not easy to think about great one-of-a-kind ideas. It is easy though to make it almost impossible.
Why? it's all because the "parallel" right hemisphere of our brain, imagine the following brain storming conversation:
me(Left brain): Alright I've got one! The user will enter the screen, do X and Y (we'll do some Z behind the scene) to receive ... me(Right brain kicks in): but, doing Z will take me two weeks to develop.. me(R): gosh, we'll need to build a dictionary and hold it in memory if we want it to scale.. me(R): reminder, use ReaderWriteLockSlim this time. It's much faster than ReaderWriterLock! me(R): I guess that this feature is not as important as feature F1, maybe I'm spending my time thinking about this feature??! me(R): I'm so hungry! me(R): Oh, we can use [some service name] to do Z. Cool, so now this feature is feasible. me(R): crap, [some service name] cost money, I think.[To the surrounding, it looks like I'm saying one fluent sentence of course. During that time they have their right brain working on "why not" / "how" / "when"] joe(R): gosh, is he for real? this is the lamest idea I've heard! jack(R): hmm, maybe he have a point there. This feature reminds me something I've always wanted to do... what was it now??... jack(R): naa.. this guy is crazy. for sure. joe(R): oh wait! we can use something I wrote to implement this feature! might be cool to use this code finally. It is laying there for ages. sarah(R): wonderful idea! I wonder if I'll be assigned to work on it? jack(R): I'm listening to his bubbling for 20 minutes now. self reminder: talk about a bonus with the CEO. sarah(R): I need coffee! God, if you'll end this meeting now I promise the donate 10$ for charity! coffee... please...
me(L): .. a brilliant search result !!
Any wonder that most brain storming meetings are futile?
Brain storming is a process that should be mastered and I suggest that you'll jump to the nearest browser to find books at the topic, it's a skill worth investing time at.Before you do so, here are some rules I use to silent my right brain while doing Left Brain Storming:
Happy hunting!
Disclaimer The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.
© Copyright 2010, Oren Ellenbogen
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