Me See, Design n Life
Had heard a lot about the book The McKinsey way, but never got a chance to lay my hands on it. In the course of Creative Problem Solving today, the prof presented a point from the book and must say, it is indeed charming! Simple things like these make firms like McKinsey what they are! Believe and leverage on faith and there you are, right at the top! The same thing applies to life too. Great people are what they are, for they do what they do!
Cut to the context, and the prof was teaching us the MECE(read me-see and hence the title). The objective is to structure thinking, avoiding confusion and overlap, when solving business problems. The MECE principle is defined thus:
The MECE Rule: Considerations in a group should be mutually exclusive (no overlaps) and collectively exhaustive (no gaps).
It is very simple and the role of a manager comes in creating such cohesive work groups that are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.
This brought into my memory the paradigm of Software Engineering, especially the Design Phase where we are supposed to structure the design in cohesive groups with less coupling and more cohesion. The main of design in Software Engineering is similar, too! Break the given requirements into exclusive groups that are independent from each other, but all together achieve the desired goal!
The difference being while MECE deals with people, Design phase deals with objects and codes. Probably thats where the difference is seen well... Managers deal with people and coders data! But, the bottomline to be observed is the importance of design in life.
When Einstein was asked what he would do if he had an hour to save the world from an impending problem, he said, " I would spend 55 minutes to define the problem and five minutes to solve it" He emphasises here on the importance to understand things and problems in life. It is important to ponder upon things and work towards them rather than giving up at the outset. As the prof rightly put it today, Lets make sense of problems first! Patience really pays when in problems, just that one should not be patient and passive, one should be patient and persistent!
We, especially students, lack that design for life. We just get into anything that comes our way and then realise our interests. I know friends who regret Engineering, who are in a job but yearn to do something else. Not that I myself has designed life or something, but just to make a point. I havent had a perfect design too. Just going where my instincts take me. To be succinct, rather than doing what I want, I have always avoided what I dont want and ended up at better places and I hope this continues at least for some more time.
Design is very important in life, and there is something funny about it. I take up something, think I will have a plan designed for it, but the efforts end up futile and I do something other than what best could have been done and move on. The best thing comes now! When I move on to something else and look back at things, I realise I should have been more prudent, patient and planned better... Thats life for us I suppose! Everything seems easier after we have already done it, and everything seems better as long as we havent taken it up yet!
All said and done, the gospel is: The Show must go on!!!
Cut to the context, and the prof was teaching us the MECE(read me-see and hence the title). The objective is to structure thinking, avoiding confusion and overlap, when solving business problems. The MECE principle is defined thus:
The MECE Rule: Considerations in a group should be mutually exclusive (no overlaps) and collectively exhaustive (no gaps).
It is very simple and the role of a manager comes in creating such cohesive work groups that are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.
This brought into my memory the paradigm of Software Engineering, especially the Design Phase where we are supposed to structure the design in cohesive groups with less coupling and more cohesion. The main of design in Software Engineering is similar, too! Break the given requirements into exclusive groups that are independent from each other, but all together achieve the desired goal!
The difference being while MECE deals with people, Design phase deals with objects and codes. Probably thats where the difference is seen well... Managers deal with people and coders data! But, the bottomline to be observed is the importance of design in life.
When Einstein was asked what he would do if he had an hour to save the world from an impending problem, he said, " I would spend 55 minutes to define the problem and five minutes to solve it" He emphasises here on the importance to understand things and problems in life. It is important to ponder upon things and work towards them rather than giving up at the outset. As the prof rightly put it today, Lets make sense of problems first! Patience really pays when in problems, just that one should not be patient and passive, one should be patient and persistent!
We, especially students, lack that design for life. We just get into anything that comes our way and then realise our interests. I know friends who regret Engineering, who are in a job but yearn to do something else. Not that I myself has designed life or something, but just to make a point. I havent had a perfect design too. Just going where my instincts take me. To be succinct, rather than doing what I want, I have always avoided what I dont want and ended up at better places and I hope this continues at least for some more time.
Design is very important in life, and there is something funny about it. I take up something, think I will have a plan designed for it, but the efforts end up futile and I do something other than what best could have been done and move on. The best thing comes now! When I move on to something else and look back at things, I realise I should have been more prudent, patient and planned better... Thats life for us I suppose! Everything seems easier after we have already done it, and everything seems better as long as we havent taken it up yet!
All said and done, the gospel is: The Show must go on!!!
posted by Naresh @ 3:15 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
oh very true!!
infact about dis having a design for life...its kinda difficult to know wat u actually want in life..i mean its all about realisation.. for some people , realisation hit dem only wen they r in school but for some , it takes years....
so its all abt having short term goals which might lead to realisation of long term goals
How do you get into design for life if you are not even clear with the requirements???
SEN was fundu boss...even here I have seen the effects, and the things is that everything can be mapped to life.
BTW this McKisney Prez is from your new college:) and he was rejected in a mckinsey campus interview at Harvard
oh wow... ur getting a lot to chew on i see, in DMS... as for me, midsems ensure that "thinking" is the first thing that gets sacrificed :)
Ya design or structuring our life is important..most of the time we fail to do it..we give more emphasis on worrying abt the prob we have rather than facing the prob..
Probly if we just follow our instincts and go on wid life the design mite follow suit too..
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