HYDER – Huffington Post JGET article
JGET: It Worked for the Transcontinental Railroad, and It Works for Your Business in Today’s Global Market
Just Good Enough for Today – JGET™. Let’s face it. Speed does matter in this world of instant gratification. Many customers want something now, technology has conditioned them to expect it, and they’re willing to pay a little more for it.
Meanwhile, your time is more valuable than ever with constant demands for your attention. You don’t have both time and resources to do everything perfectly. You can have it perfect – or you can have it now. You need to decide which is important and be willing to settle for less than perfect when it’s appropriate.
Obviously, there are times when quality is crucial; building a space shuttle, for instance. There are other times when speed is more important and incremental improvement is not only acceptable but perhaps is the smarter approach. A web site is a prime example – you can launch a web site fairly quickly, then improve it as time goes on. Waiting until it is perfect could delay the project by weeks, even months.
Get it Done – Then Fix it
The building of the Transcontinental Railroad was one of the major accomplishments of our country. The railroad companies were under a tremendous amount of pressure to connect a new, vast country. And they were in uncharted territory, both literally and figuratively. They had engineering and resource challenges but schedule pressure was the priority. Sound familiar?
A ribbon of rail that connected two oceans through thousands of miles of wilderness! The railroad was an efficient transportation network for goods, services and people that changed commerce and would become the foundation of the Industrial Revolution. On June 4, 1876, the Transcontinental Express made it from New York City to San Francisco in 83 hours and 39 minutes. A trip that took months by land or several weeks by ship could now be done in a few days – and it was a whole lot safer and more comfortable than riding in a wagon!
Building the railroad was a challenge, of course. When it came time to put in rails through Nebraska, getting high-quality railroad ties was a real problem. Cottonwood was the only plentiful wood in the area, but it was inferior quality wood for railroad ties. The railroad couldn’t wait for the higher-quality hardwood to be delivered, so they treated the cottonwood as best they could, then alternated the inferior cottonwood ties with higher-quality cedar and oak ties: four low-quality, then one high-quality. JGET. It got the job done. They were able to go back later, once people and product – and revenue – were all moving, and replace the inferior ties.
As author Stephen E. Ambrose noted in his book about building the railroad, Nothing Like it in the World: “In America it was common practice to get the road open for traffic in the cheapest manner possible, and in the least possible time. The attitude was, it can be fixed up and improved later, and paid for with the earnings.”
JGET: Just Good Enough for Today
Not much has changed – yet everything has changed. The Industrial Revolution brought us the production line and mass production of the Technological Revolution. That eventually morphed into a Knowledge Revolution that resulted in what can only be called an IT upheaval that has changed the world yet again.
More businesses now face global competition. Customers are now conditioned to expect that they can get things fast, and they often can! If they don’t get it from you, they’ll get it from your competitor. Time is speed and speed is life in business.
I’m not talking about cheap and shoddy. But you don’t need perfect, either. Is it just good enough to meet today’s requirements and needs so that you achieve the current (and a small peek ahead) objectives?
At some point, you have to stop spinning the wheels and get the product out the door. The Apple iPad, is arguably, a prime example. Glenn Fleishmann makes some excellence points in his TidBITS article about how Apple has outperformed competitors with its incremental improvements. You see the same in automobiles, medical equipment, computers and many other consumer products. Sometimes it’s planned obsolescence, other times it’s a matter of knowing a product can be made better at some point, but getting the product on the market while you continue to develop improvements.
We are currently launching sales of new profit center that may double or even triple our growth. We rolled out the pieces of the marketing campaign this past Monday…..even though 40% of the supporting material was not completed….We had enough to start sales efforts…and began generating revenue. JGET! If we had waited for the remanding 40%, it would have been another month delay. No waiting….just go…and improve as you move forward.
Teach the philosophy of JGET to all of your coworkers. Make big JGET signs and put on the wall. Give a award once a calendar quarter for the best JGET usage. Slowly and surely, your company’s development lead times and business culture will change.
What will JGET do for the future of your business?