Two-Product Trade Study

Selecting between technical, product, or user alternatives can be quickly achieved using trade studies, often with surprising results.

ATTRIBUTE SELECTION AND PRIORITIZATION

The first step is to define the attributes or success factors that are important to the users – the core of the product’s value proposition.  Since these are coming from the end user, they tend to be broadly described: “I need it to be easy to use.”  As we move forward through more trade studies or use other systems engineering tools such as the QFD house of quality, these broad attributes will be further broken down into measurable performance parameters for more detailed analysis and assessment.  For now, the broad, high-level definitions suffice to begin exploring user goals and expectations.

Next comes the relative prioritization of those attributes, based on how important each product feature is to the user.  Each attribute can be assigned a value from low to high (1-10) based on how much user value is derived from that attribute.  This is important because it reveals the relative value of all features in the product set; shown in the relative value column, this indicates the value histogram.

PRODUCT ASSESSMENT AND SCORING

The selected products are then rated in terms of performance to goal; that is, how well the product met the user expectations.  The performance rating for each attribute is multiplied by the value score to obtain the total score by attribute.  Again, this provides the relative performance score, shown in the relative score column as a histogram.

Once the feature-by-feature assessment is complete, the selection team can analyze the overall rating and total score for each product to determine which product is the best fit.

One of the benefits of the trade study is its ability to analyze performance across attributes as well as for the overall product.  In the sample trade study, the top three attributes in terms of relative importance were all performed better by Product A than Product B; however, Product B has a higher score overall and a higher rating-to-potential ratio.

The Leadership-Management Interface

A common question is, "what's the difference between leadership and management?"  There are several key differentiators, including execution, people, and approach.

THE MANAGER’S BOX

First and foremost is the difference in execution; simply put, a manager's role in the organization is to control the resources, budget, and time they are allotted to complete a specific set of tasks within their area of responsibility.  So enters the "manager's box" scenario, where managers have to keep everything in their box - scope, resources, and time - perfectly balanced.  Since managers are interested in reducing risk and maintaining the status quo to balance everything in the box, they create a formula for success based on their capped set of resources. Managers also focus on a short timeframe, usually based on the annual planning and funding cycle.  The manager's box may be slightly larger or smaller next year, based on prevailing support requirements, but the manager's role will be the same.

Clearly, changes to the environment or to their set of responsibilities can create havoc for the manager, who then has to modify their carefully prepared formula in order to meet the previously unplanned need.  Their execution focus on planning and budgeting requires rework.  And in most thriving organizations,  change is a constant.  

Leaders, on the other hand, set the overall direction for the organization; they are less risk-averse and are interested in change, even though change creates disruption.  A leader's time frame also stretches well beyond the manager's time horizon, as they set a new long-term course for the organization to develop and deliver new services, products, and markets.  This creates the disruption that (potentially) upsets the manager's carefully balanced box, challenging the manager's ability to maintain order within their prescribed resources.

VERTICAL vs. MESH COMMUNICATIONS

The inherent people relationships managers and leaders create are also fundamentally different.   When it comes to people, managers rely on the chain of command, structured organizational and staffing model with typical vertical communications; they do this to maintain order and manage their resources efficiently.  Within a specific functional area, team members have specific roles and the manager seeks compliance among the team, who generally defer larger decisions to the manager as they focus on their individual tactical activities.  Leaders align people by developing horizontal and cross-enterprise relationships, using the entire mesh of the organization, to drive a broad future-state vision and enroll others in committing to its successful delivery.

The future-state approach also varies between managers and leaders.  The manager maintains primarily focus on tactical problem-solving to maintain timelines and budgets, whereas the leader focuses strategically, identifying and exploiting new potential across the organization in pursuit of new initiatives.  Managers, charged with staying within resource boundaries, focus on established processes and capabilities; leaders take a creative approach, using their influence to enroll others in an inspiring vision that delivers new capabilities.

THE SYMBIOTIC NATURE OF MANAGERS AND LEADERS

Even though there are distinct differences between managers and leaders, there exists a clear and necessary interface between the two.  It's important to realize that one is not better than the other; indeed, both need each other in order for the organization to thrive.  Leaders need managers to support and deliver existing services that meet current customer needs and service level agreements; managers need leaders to define new opportunities for growth and to expand capabilities.

Leadership Across Domains

As part of my exploration into further expanding my leadership competencies, I developed the metro-style System Map - Leadership Across Domains to define and mark my waypoints along the journey.  I soon realized that leadership is an ongoing study; even as the sciences advance in our understanding of the human condition, technology continues to shrink the world and change the ways humans interact.  Continuous learning on all parts of the spectrum is part of the process, and the map is a work in progress.

The system map shows the metro lines representing the primary domains of knowledge.  These are the main areas leaders must understand in order to achieve full-spectrum leadership competency:

  • Blue Line: Personal Domain
  • Red Line: Team Domain
  • Orange Line: Organizational Domain
  • Green Line: Leadership Domain
  • Yellow Line: Customer Domain

An individual leadership topic or focus is represented as a station along each line.  Those station connections that span multiple lines represent areas of commonality that cross domains, and these topics dictate a deeper, multidimensional understanding.  For example, communications - the single largest reason for either a program's failure or success - indicates that full-spectrum leadership competency requires an understanding of how to communicate in personal, team, organizational, leadership, and customer settings.

The System Map - Leadership Across Domains has proven to be a useful tool when I share it with my teams, my colleagues, or my class students.  It promotes leadership importance and its inherent challenges, enables a common understanding of the language and concepts of leadership, clearly maps the target opportunities, and celebrates milestones of achievement. Not every train may stop at every station, but understanding the map makes all the difference in getting where you need to go.