Product Development
Jobs answers the question “What’s important to you in the development of a product?” with a dig at John Sculley’s Apple:
You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea,” then of course they can go off and make it happen.
And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. And you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make. There are just certain things you can’t make electrons do. There are certain things you can’t make plastic do. Or glass do. Or factories do. Or robots do.
Designing a product is keeping five thousand things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. And every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently.
And it’s that process that is the magic.
His words are pretty much sumed up what I’ve come to learn these days. (Web) Product Development is not an easy task. The idea is not everything. When you really sit down and make a detailed plan, there’s a lot more to learn and think about: process, people, when and how, what and why.
And the best way - I have learned - is to get great people, discuss with them, debate and challenge the idea, until you get a clear plan. Then the project is okay to go.
