Intelligent Reaction

Interesting presentation from Adam Bosworth, VP of Google, talking about how the way to win is not through a 5-year plan, but through confidence in your ability to ‘intelligently react’.

The gem in this speech – though not its main subject – is that there is no useful distinction between operations and development. Successful development teams are initimate with the operational realities and specifically with the people who are using your product.

By widening the definition of ‘development’ to include any part of the business that needs to create, learn and build we come to the conclusion that it’s hard to outsource a developing business not because of distance or process or communication – but because the context of learning should be the context of your operational, day-to-day, business and that that context tends to happen in-house.