Sandeep Sood doesn’t think the world is flat. He actually thinks it is pretty curvy.
The world is full of strange curves and contours. All this ‘flat world’ talk tends to gloss over the cultural differences, language barriers (even if you speak English, it doesn’t mean you understand it the same way only, isn’t it?), management challenges, time differences etc. that global collaboration brings up.
When we accept that the world is still round, we can have a better conversation about these challenges, deal with the management issues, and work harder on bridging cultural understanding.
We couldn’t agree with Sandeep more. Although we’re big Thomas Friedman fans, and do agree the world is flattening, we see the effects of the flat craze in the web software world everyday. Often it comes in the form of over ambitious projects that lack a core manifesto. Projects that try to do everything or copy everything with the hopes of hitting a home run somewhere along the line. Projects that lack intention and deep purpose.
Which, of course, is nothing new. Companies have been putting out unfocused projects since the dawn of time. But, what is different is that the web has made it easier for people to launch. It has never been easier for goodness to succeed, but it has also never been easier to nonsense to fail.
Just because the web makes things easy-er doesn’t mean your project can coast on a poor foundation. Surprise, surprise, you still need to do work.
Teenage boys know curves are a good thing, but seems some executives have forgotten. Luckily we have Sandeep to break it down for them.
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Dhru,
Thanks for the interesting comments. I like your take: that the same idea can be applied to project scope. I see it almost every month in project kick-off meetings. Hey, we’re just brainstorming, let’s put all the ideas on the table and see what we can accomplish! And, in an effort to please the group and do everything under the sun, a project ends up totally flat.