A paradigm shift for Engineering...

This 15th September commemorates the 150th birth anniversary of Sir M.Visveswaraya, one of the most  revered engineer across the globe. I have a lot of respect for this individual, not because he was an engineer, but he was a professional who thought about public good, in each of his deeds. I strongly recommend reading about his life and achievements. You wouldn’t get a better day than 15th Sep, to celebrate Engineer's Day.

But somehow, I feel off-late engineering as a degree has been degraded a lot, thanks to easy availability of seats, and selling of seats to people who can afford it, not who deserves it.  But there is always a question of why engineer's degree is not in sync with the work he is doing. And once you have done engineering, why should you do MBA..? Trust me - these are valid questions…

Here is my analysis -

Engineering is not a subject, not a degree; it is paradigm of looking at things, it is the attitude which molds your thinking, and problem solving abilities. It is not about why a diode works in a particular manner, it about if a diode is working in a particular manner, how can you utilize this capability to form a half wave rectifier or full-wave rectifier circuit. It is about how creatively you look at getting the half-wave rectifier or full-wave rectifier with the least number of diodes. It is the way you look at issues as cause v/s effect phenomenon.

Engineering is also not about just finding solutions to problems, it is also about working backwards - have a required solution/ end product in mind and then decide the how things should evolve in order to obtain the solution, or to put it simply - reverse engineering. So what is this?? This is the way you look at things - Management books call it Top-Down (forward engineering) and Bottom-Up (reverse engineering) approach.

In a series resistance structure, if one resistance fails, the whole current flow collapses; this is similar to how a typical hierarchical structure in an organization works, if one level fails to execute, the flow of information may be skewed, leading to wrong decision making. In a parallel resistance structure, even if one resistance fails, the circuit still continues to run, as the current is still passing through the other branches of resistance. Similarly, in an silo mode of management, even if one the branches of the company is not working correctly, the company still continues to thrive, because there are other supporting branches. Now the challenge for management is how best can it use this parallel and series structure of management to enhance optimal performance.  The challenge for engineer is also the same, but with resistors. So engineering is not about resistors, but how best you arrange them - this is the paradigm shift that is required.

This is one of the several examples which I can quote to say that my engineering attitude has helped me develop a totally different outlook towards issues, and ways to solve them.

So if you are a mechanical engineer who worked for a software company, in banking domain, and now with a MBA degree, looking out for a consulting job - there is nothing wrong, as long as you can prove people that engineering is a paradigm and attitude, not (just)a degree.

Happy Engineers Day!!!

Innovation = creativity * implementation

"Innovation is not creativity" - A statement made by Vijay Govindarajan, in one of the recent HBR blog. He has tried to quantify things in terms of a simple formula, which says an organization's capacity to innovate is the product of creativity and execution.

Just as I read this article, I came across an update on Google wave.  This was an update saying that it is withdrawing the Google wave product, by this year-end. When Google wave was first introduced, it literally waved across the user community, but it failed to increase the user-adoption. Does that mean, it was not user friendly - Not at all, it was infact very impressive. Then what failed ..??

One reason which I can recognize, for this failure is lack of a great business model. It just re-instated the perspective, that innovation is not just creativity, but also a strong implementation strategy (or a sustainable business model). One cant expect a mediocre business model to propagate a great product. If you give say 9 points (out of 10) to Google wave product per se, and there exists no business model to sell the product, implementation gets 0 points, the multiplication (9 x 0) of which gives 0. So net innovative quotient of that product is zero, even though it was a creative one. If the business model even propagates by 1 point, the overall score increases by 9. This is the splendor of a great business model.

As I skimmed through the humble submission of Google, my fascination for that company actually increased. We say that people don’t learn from their mistakes, how about organizations like Google?  This is the not the first product failure which the company has faced (some of the previous failures being Dodgeball, Jaiku, etc..  apologies for my bad memory), but still it thrives, and continue to be creative and (sometimes) innovative.  Google chandelled with a innovative search engine concept, and has leveraged that growth in expanding into various products.  But Google has never repudiated any legitimate failures, rather has accepted  them graciously and got motivation from each of the them, to succeed. I remember people saying, learn from your failures - and not every person can do so, only great persons can do so. It takes a lot of courage to accept your mistake and get motivation from the same.

Isn't it amazing to find out how organization and humans are analogous? Any maxim applied on humans almost applies to organizations. One great man said - "If you never failed; you never lived" , I bet Google would be the present Google, had it not failed.