Keep Looking Back – Don’t Forget The Mirrors!

Looking back may not fit in optimistic dictionary. But, I remember a guy who failed in the license test in Missouri because he forgot to look into rear view mirror and side mirrors. Being an Indian I never knew mirrors were so important in a driving test. Although it made me nervous while taking the test myself but, since then the incident got stuck in my head. Why would someone fail because he didn’t look at some mirrors? Simple reason is, to be a ‘safe’ driver one must look back and sideways. The corporate world is not different. To be on top of the realms it is necessary to keep an eye behind the back!

While working on long and multidimensional projects it is possible to lose the track easily. Usual PLC (Product Life Cycle) involves several steps. One of them is defining the path. In any project the management and experts team sits down together and decides the direction in which the objectives will be accomplished. In old days when the only philosophy known to people which came naturally was ‘Water Fall’. Water Fall philosophy deals with watertight situations. Where the starting point, the path, the stepping stones and the end point are precisely defined. But, in modern days everything is dynamic and the demands of the market change every moment. Water Fall philosophy fails in such situations.

Due to it’s own disadvantages, in modern times (rather it’s also becoming old) the most famous philosophy implemented in PLC is ‘Agile’. Fundamentals of Agile system are requirements, iterations and continuous cycle to accommodate constant changes in the evolving environment. As a philosophy it looks excellent. But, Agile has an inherent problem which I have found during my experience. The problem is about loosing the track! Agile seldom looks back to keep the realms on the path which was determined when the project/product was conceptualized. 

May be my experience is anomaly but, I sincerely believe while using any system for PLC is easy to lose the track of initial path decided for the project. I have seen people saying “O’ don’t look at what happened to it, when we started working on it, we imagined it to be very different!” So my thesis is to keep looking back while working for the future. It will make the product better because while looking back at the path, we can check the current requirements against original concept.

Another big secret to develop a good product is by rechecking the path traversed to keep a check whether current changes are in line with the original design. So keep looking back !

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