I recently faced an interesting challenge. Should I build something ‘amazing’ if it’s going to cost a great amount and possibly be obsolete quickly?

There didn’t seem to be anything around that considered this, without building a fully-fledged business plan. I wanted to broadly quantify the inputs into the decision. I wondered if a pseudo-scientific approach might help.

Consider this simple equation:

decision = value + lifespan – cost

So, using an abstract 1-10 estimation scale for all values, you might see the following;

• D= 9 (a cool feature) + 1 (but a short life) – 7 (a costly build) =3 ->probably not worth it.
• D=7 (a good feature) + 6 (medium life) – 4 (medium cost) = 9 ->is worth it.

Note: without going into depth, remember Cost should include downstream maintenance, not just building effort and materials.

These discussions are usually not a yes/no but “how much” do we build – as in what’s the balance where the output (value) justifies the input (cost and life). As such it’s nice to put a number on this, especially for comparative analysis.

Anyway, I appreciate this is clunky and crude but it’s quick and it’s “something” – and that alone is better than what many people use. I also found it helps introduce many deeper points. What do you use in your product development thinking?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is starting to seep into everyday life, and as such let’s try to extrapolate the potential impact on home-work.

Guidance. AI looks at large volumes of varying data and uses algorithms to determine something resembling meaning. Think of this like reporting-on-steroids. This means insights and decision support is not a few clicks-away or must garnered from a chart, it will get built-into the business process directly. As such, the tasks at hand are pre-crafted by a system which has already calculated the best action to take based on the data available.

Autonomy. Using the same theory as above, some tasks will be so obviously the right ones that they are automatically taken, without the need for human intervention at all. This works fine for rule-based work decisions with little or no room for exceptions.

Setup. Work resources and tools will become richer and more immersive. More Video and Virtual Reality will allow you to visualise the work, interacting with remote environments.

Keyboards might finally bite the dust. Verbal commands and gesture interfaces might fit many work tasks. Ask system questions and to model scenarios based on auto-collected big data (e.g. would my customers like x or y). Hold conversations with the systems that has the raw data – turning it into insights and knowledge and issuing the appropriate actions.

Work Assignment. Maybe clever machines can dissect jobs into specialist fine grained tasks, and assign these out based on worker profiles – their past history and validated abilities). This means workers focus is narrow but deep and helps cross-pollinate skills over multiple projects or even employers. Basically this becomes work-as a-service.

No more offices – but a virtual office. You appear as avatar and work like you would surrounded by colleagues – their avatars. Means no loss of social, cultural and personal engagement. It means you Can be “in” more then one virtual office at once, to collaborate with any colleague anywhere. Everyone is just a virtual tap on the shoulder away.

Less Stuff. Everything you need will be in the cloud. Soon you will not have a need to maintain your own office setup as everything will be done online. You’ll only need an interface – probably a camera based system which permits body interactions: speech commands, gestures, body language nuance and so on. Obviously will need to see as well, so some kind of holographic projection system or output like glasses or headset (once they’ve fixed the VR nausea problem).

Ideation. Even ideas could be auto-validated by intelligent systems which can run virtual tests and builds to see if something might practically work out. Eg architecture or chemistry.

General Assistant. Imagine if your automated assistant is also watching too, looking for body queues like frustration and enjoyment, and feeding you alternative perspectives. Using intent and sentiment analysis during a meeting – against all participants, they could capture key points that you might have missed. An assistant might scan and analyse the whole thing, giving a post-meeting summary.

Meeting modelling. This same scanned data could also “model” the interactions and allow you to test how things could pan out. Indeed if everyone’s online profile (work tracking profile) was available then a picture could be modelled of participants. This could give pointers as to who might be best placed to be involve and how best to handle certain folks based on their historical interaction activity.

Profiled. As you as a worker will get tracked more, just like in social media. Everything you do will get recorded: Work assignments, projects, performance data, even your communications. As such your true value can be calculated, plus points for improvement (or recognition) identified. No more passive aggressive email!

EQ Roles. As machines focus on supplementing IQ efforts, human emotion-based contribution might be a opportunity area.

Total Independence. The ‘Employee’ as a concept goes outdated. Everyone is a subcontractor with compensation benefits auto-processed based on performance and deliverables – some of which are machine measured. As data collection develops what we do can be monitored, evaluated and rewarded very discretely. If you’re good, the sky is the limit, not that set by your single employer.

Conclusion. While it sounds very big brother, there are certainly advantages coming and it will be fun to see what comes first. Got ideas, please comment.

Previously I stated NOT to attempt to care for children while working from home – at least young children anyway, however with COVID-19 causing school closures many people have no choice. As such here are some tips to try to help:

Timetable – everyone needs structure, especially in these confusing times. Kids like knowing that fun things are coming, and the timetable should include work time and children time. Make it super clear and fun to look at for kids, to keep them engaged. Give each child their own copy or get them to draw/enhance it themselves.

Plan – similar to above, but get a jump on the day by having your timetable and events ready. Don’t worry about repeating activities that are easy and work well. Do them every other day – kids love to get better at something.

Outside– try to do some outside activities. You’ll find when kids come back in they are quieter and calmer – a chance to get some work done.

Focus – don’t kill yourself cooking complex meals and fitting in household chores as well. Focus on what is important and hopefully you can catch-up later, maybe with some help from your spouse. Of course you can make meal preparation and cleaning up an activity for kids to help with too – although my experience says that can be hard to achieve!

Simple Activities – don’t try too much that will be complex, messy and hard. Keep things simple with coloring, drawing, crafting, lego, board games and the like. Throw in a few short TV shows (i.e. work opportunities), some cooking (simple), story time, and before you know it your timetable is done. Rearrange it for tomorrow with a few different things and that is another day ready. Repeat, reuse, recycle.

Simple Work – similarly try to keep what you plan to accomplish at work sensible too. If you think you’ll have 15-20 minute bursts of quiet then chunk complex tasks into that. If you’re always on-hand then do shorter ad-hoc tasks like email. Match you tasks to the kids needs, so they do not conflict.

Be Positive – remember you’re doing much more than anyone is normally capable of. Your boss should give you a break at this exceptional time, and try to look at what you ARE doing and not what you are not. Be honest, open, and just be proud of yourself. Kids are much better behaved when everything feels happy!

Sometimes, perhaps a few times a year, I take long-haul trips for work and having just completed one of these it seemed good time to share a few tips. These are things I have observed or discovered for myself.

Onboard Luggage. Traveling economy means every last inch is valuable. As such having your full laptop bag with you in your seat is pretty impossible. You also don’t want to be getting up-and-down for things stored in the overhead lockers either. As such I have a slim bag of essentials inside my laptop bag which I whip-out as I board the plane. I then place my laptop bag overhead and slip my essentials bag either in the seat pocket or under the seat in front. Bonus tip is to use a slim bag with a shoulder strap. This works because it’s hard to bend over and grad a bag on the floor in front of you when sitting. Hooking the long strap with your foot is easy.

Inside my essentials bag is commonly:

• Pen, pencil and blank exercise book.
• Headphones.
• Snacks.
• Kindle or paper book.
• iPad or perhaps laptop.
• Sweater as can be fresh.

Window Seat. Personally I find it beneficial to have this seat over the others. Just a millimetre of extra space, no person on one side, and being tucked away from elbows, carts and traffic. You need to have good bladder control of course, and always take advantage of when others move about.

Sweater. Planes seem to go from sauna to refrigerator at various times. A thin comfortable sweater is great as the extra layer is nice plus is easy to store.

Timetable. Sounds over the top, but plan your journey. Some movies, some project work, some eating and perhaps some music and naps. It makes the time go quick and you feel better at the other end when you did what you planned.

Any more tips … leave a comment.