Product lifecycle vs. Life development

Life is created in 9 months, that is 36 weeks. This includes full quality assurance with over 99.999% accuracy that the product will function within specifications. It's taken thousands of years with little incremental modification to create a perfect product, the product of human life. It's the incremental changes, released every so often that make sure we survive as human beings. We call this the survival of fittest, the term coined by Herbert Spenser and Charles Darwin. Also, the reason the changes are incremental is because the product works well. So the old saying goes, why fix it when it's working.

Software product development is no different. If we cannot build and get a product to market within 9 months, then something is obviously wrong. To be precise, the human body takes 6 months to develop and 3 months to QA and fine tune. In similar terms, the survival of the fittest in product development is the methodology adapted by the company. If a wrong or over-complicated methodology is adopted, then we might as well say good-bye to the product even before building it.

The concept of incremental changes and visibility to product development is an important one. Toyota invented the concept called Kaizen, which is about making small incremental changes. This makes sure we pick the right problem to solve first. The problem that will result the highest yield or return. Life development does something similar. It just doesn't develop for 6 months. It incrementally checks to make sure that it is developing correctly. If there is a mistake, the body either self-corrects or aborts.

All in all, develop a product within 6 months or less and give 3 months or less for QA. During this time, continue to check on your progress and make incremental changes.

Happiest days on my life!

There are two happiest days of my life, January 12th,2006 and November 15th, 2007. You must be wondering how come I have two happiest days that are two years apart. Well, the answer is simple...my two daughters were born. Not you must be wondering, if that is the case, then should I not have a 3rd happiest day, the day I was married. Well, I consider the day I was married one of the best of my life. But nothing beats the process of having to create a new life.

Tenzing Norgay's ex-daughter-in-law

In a rare occasion, I had a chance to meeting Tenzing Norgay's ex-daughter-in-law, Terry Tenzing. In case you are wondering about Tenzing, here is a small history brief: Tenzing and Hillary were the first people to set their feet on the summit of Mount Everest. Now you know,

We were celebrating our daughter Lara's 2nd birthday. If you know Lara, you would know that she is crazy about two things: Mickey Mouse and animals (especially dogs, cats and horses). So my wife had a wild idea of having a farm animal birthday party theme for Lara. We called a few places and found one that deliver the farm animals for January 12th.

It was not under best of the circumstance for Terry, as Sir Edmund Hillary had passed away a day earlier, on January 11th. She was sad and you could see the sorrow in her eyes. Terry said she lived a very high profile life when she was married to Tenzing's son, Norbu Tenzing. However, over the years, she found her passion...to be around nature. She owns land near highway 1 and rents farm animals among other things. Her hope is to bring nature closer to poeple, if people won't go out to nature.

On a side note, the birthday party was amazing. My daughter and her friends had a lot of fun and loved every moment of it. Definitly worth it. If you are interested, please visit her website: http://friendlyponyparty.com/. Her business is "FRIENDLY PONY PARTIES AND BARNYARD PALS"