“Doing one thing well is hard. Doing more than one thing well at the same time is exponentially harder.
Clarity and focus are what generate excellence. They bring the attention to detail, dedication and obsession which begets success. It’s impossible to be obsessed about more than one thing at the same time.
If you believe, as I do, that excellence is the best path to success it’s best to take this challenge head on. Do the work to figure out which strategy has the best chance of success and then double down. You can always return to the other option later.”
Nic Brisbourne.
Nic Brisbourne writes a very thought-provoking blog about venture capital and startups. Unless you’re planning on creating a new OSS company, chances are that you won’t be directly interested in the subject matter in his blogs. Nonetheless, this is the seventh time I’ve quoted Nic on my OSS-specific blog.
The reason it strikes a chord for me is because Nic’s experience in seeing what works (and doesn’t work) in startups has strong parallels in the OSS industry:
a) Paring everything back to what is really important
b) Developing a deep understanding of customers’s business needs / problems [and solving them with a)]
c) Understanding what really drives business value and creates valuable businesses
There are many experts in our industry who can solve incredibly challenging technical problems but have little awareness of the three points above. The best of the best can solve technical problems and understand the three the three points above.
Does your organisation help develop these three additional streams of thinking?
Over the years, I’ve often referred to The Corkscrew Analogy or Momentum Spiral to describe a mindset of incremental improvement that’s needed to keep an
We’ve embarked on a journey of trying to plan for the future of OSS/BSS, not by predicting the future, but by seeking ways to be
As discussed in the previous article, “Future Scenario Planning: Have you given up on doing an OSS transformation? (part 1)” part of the fun of
Earlier in the week, a friend mentioned he was reading “Alchemy” by Rory Sutherland. It’s not an OSS book per se, but does provide some
Here at Passionate About OSS, we are exactly that – Passionate About OSS (Operational Support Systems). We’re also passionate about BSS, NMS, or any other names you call the tools that help to operationalise your network.
