The general’s incompetence exhausted the three armies. The success or failure of a project is the result of the efforts of the whole team. It would have been worth it if the lessons learned today had even the tiniest implication for future generations.

In the spring of 2017, our team received a task to develop a set of smart home products, and the product development cycle was initially set at three months. The architecture of the product is not complicated, it is some off-the-shelf technology, should be able to win soon.

As it turns out, the world of the coder is far simpler than reality. Since the technical director resigned last month, the boss temporarily promoted Big King, the manager in charge of structure, to be director of research and development. Big King does architecture, not hardware and software. Big King is new and eager to prove himself. Therefore, due to the urgency of time and construction period, an innovative mode is pushed: structure first, structure drives hardware and software research and development of both rules and parallel mode.

When our software and hardware development plan was still under discussion and not finalized, colleagues in charge of the structure worked overtime and quickly came up with their plan. The volume parameters of many electronic components are determined by the clap of the head. The boss was satisfied with the quick response of his colleagues in the structure department, but he raised a different opinion about the size of the product. Big King was so good at reading people’s faces that he called a meeting with his colleagues in r&d and proposed cutting the size of the existing product by half. The hardware supervisor was about to speak but stopped, and the plan was settled in the rough and tumble.

Before the hardware circuit board had been designed, the structural colleagues had begun to mold it. Yes, you read that right, it’s not a hand board, it’s a mold. Mold opening cost is very expensive, is a big part of product research and development. Opening the mold means that the structure of the product basically cannot be changed, only by modifying the software and hardware to match.

The guys in the structure department were often praised by the boss, and Big King was proud because that was the team he had brought out.

Since Big King is the r&d director, everyone listens to him. In Big King’s mind, hardware and software development is a non-technical matter. According to King, the most complicated part of product development is the mold. This is really a model of departmentalism.

The team struggled for more than a month, the circuit board and software are out, the mold is also out.

Put the product in the shell, some products will not fit. Because the high power relay is too big.

How to do? Big King was dumbfounded. So they met all night to discuss solutions. Later, I found that there was a high-power relay in Japan, which was relatively small in size and could be put under, but the price was 3~4 yuan more expensive than in the market. Our boss is very stingy and has very high requirements on product cost accounting.

The boss can’t accept a plan that increases the cost of the product. So King kept putting pressure on our hardware and software development. As a result, the whole company felt that it was the incompetence of our R & D department that led to the poor progress of the project. The head of hardware development is under a lot of pressure. In fact, there is a plan, is to modify the structure, open mold again. If King had realized his mistake sooner, it might not have been too late to fix it.

Unfortunately, the leader is never at fault, only the employee. After several revisions, the hardware still wouldn’t fit. The hardware executive finally burst under pressure in a meeting and uttered a classic English phrase that no one has yet translated.

So the hardware director quit. Finally, the boss realized that it might not be the fault of the R & D department this time, so he proposed a compromise plan: accept the imported relay with a higher price and quickly develop and sell this version. At the same time, the structure was enlarged and the mold was opened again to prepare for the next version.

Re-opening the mold cost the boss more than a million dollars for nothing. The boss was upset, and Big King was cut off.

Software director Ximiao took office as research and development director. Once after drinking, Ximeow told me: “King used to be a fool, and the most complicated thing in product development was software.

I know, the next development may be a tragedy. When research and development is dominated by bum-oriented departmentalism, the outcome is often not so happy.

The blogger’s public account, welcome to pay attention to: