Some of Cutler's ideas remind me of Peter Senge in his biok Fifth Discipline. He adopts a systems thinking lens to org behavior issues. Related to this, wrt to the product waitlist piece, it struck me that a legacy conversation would involve stocks and flows. That you need to maintain appropriate stock to keep place with flow (market demand). Building software products turns that on its head. Software stock can be scaled up quickly (unlike say brewing beer or making cars), so an idea like product waitlist thrives. A question about maintaining a product waitlist is how can we make it customer-centric.
I've not read Fifth Discipline... but you got it right. Cutler has a good example of system thinking in work.
I think waitlist is more a demand shaping tool. Stock & flow help in planning the supply side. May be I am being too purist.
And how to make the product waitlist customer centric:
1) FCFS sounds respectful, but could be an outcome of your announcement approach.
2) Customer could show how much they like by doing a bit more. And thus efforts get rewarded on priority. Some brands do that where they move you up the waitlist on doing some action.
3) If I think the benefit of the customer pov, I can think of giving the product first to those who are more early-adopter by behaviour. They are good at handling half-baked product so will better experience a new product as well. Others might not find the experience great if they are not used to buggy versions.
I think you got it right when you said that waitlist is a demand shaping tool. My question was coming from a legacy view of waitlist where manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers would look at unmet demand as a cause for concern. Retailer would be putting in bigger orders to wholesaler, and wholesaler to manufacturer.
Here, in the example you give, it is the opposite. All your suggestions therefore flow well from that point of view.
As always, I look fwd to Mondays :-)
Thx for sharing the wealth of information. Pritesh. I don't say it as often as I probably should but a big, big Thank You!
Thankyou Ranga. As always, its your support and encouragement that has made this fun.
Nice collection.
Some of Cutler's ideas remind me of Peter Senge in his biok Fifth Discipline. He adopts a systems thinking lens to org behavior issues. Related to this, wrt to the product waitlist piece, it struck me that a legacy conversation would involve stocks and flows. That you need to maintain appropriate stock to keep place with flow (market demand). Building software products turns that on its head. Software stock can be scaled up quickly (unlike say brewing beer or making cars), so an idea like product waitlist thrives. A question about maintaining a product waitlist is how can we make it customer-centric.
I've not read Fifth Discipline... but you got it right. Cutler has a good example of system thinking in work.
I think waitlist is more a demand shaping tool. Stock & flow help in planning the supply side. May be I am being too purist.
And how to make the product waitlist customer centric:
1) FCFS sounds respectful, but could be an outcome of your announcement approach.
2) Customer could show how much they like by doing a bit more. And thus efforts get rewarded on priority. Some brands do that where they move you up the waitlist on doing some action.
3) If I think the benefit of the customer pov, I can think of giving the product first to those who are more early-adopter by behaviour. They are good at handling half-baked product so will better experience a new product as well. Others might not find the experience great if they are not used to buggy versions.
Am I thinking in the right direction?
I think you got it right when you said that waitlist is a demand shaping tool. My question was coming from a legacy view of waitlist where manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers would look at unmet demand as a cause for concern. Retailer would be putting in bigger orders to wholesaler, and wholesaler to manufacturer.
Here, in the example you give, it is the opposite. All your suggestions therefore flow well from that point of view.
Got it. The license raj example was too far for me to imagine. But that's a fair take as well.