Guest Author: Christian Buckley
http://buckleyplanet.net

Not too far back, a radio host was discussing the idea of ‘creative destruction’ in a segment, and it really caught my attention. He was discussing it within the context of government needing to retool and purge itself of outdated ideas (and legislation).

Creative destruction is a term made popular by economist Joseph Schumpeter to describe the creativity that springs forth from the continuous cycle of destruction and rebirth. The philosopher Nietzsche also used this idea in his writings, but with an existentialist (and slightly less optimistic) perspective. I was familiar with the concept, but it got me thinking: creative destruction is, in management terms, the process of innovating over bad design. Or less efficient design. This is, as the Japanese refer to it, Kaizen: the act of continual improvement.

The concept is simple enough: every product or process has a lifecycle. An idea is formed, a prototype is created, it is introduced to the market, it grows and matures, it goes into decline, and then…

Well, if it’s a policy or process that we’re all used to because “that’s the way things have always been done,” then nothing usually happens at the logical end of its life. Occasionally someone brings out a can of fresh paint and spruces up that old process with a fresh coat, but it’s still outdated.

Think about how you are managing your SharePoint environment, and whether this describes your modus operandi. Are you throwing fresh paint on a tired process or bad design? Or are you constantly throwing away what clearly doesn’t work, looking for incremental improvements? Are you taking the time to get some real feedback about what you or your end users are doing right, areas where you can improve, and processes/content/sites that you can retire?

Another thought: my mother in law introduced my wife and I to the Fly Lady a few years back. I don’t expect many people reading this to have heard of this self-help system for de-cluttering your home, but my wife and I really took to it (we are HUGE fans of the control binder). Something that I have incorporated into my professional life, in a way, is the concept of “de-cluttering”: simplifying your life one baby step at a time, identifying and ridding your house/office/life of clutter. The idea is that once a week you find 27 items to throw or give away. I don’t know the magic behind the number 27…..so find the right number for you, and just do it. Even throwing out (giving away, donating) one or two items a week is progress. Make a conscious effort to simplify your life, your working environment, and your SharePoint solutions.

Hopefully you can see how these things all fold together.

Find what is broken, what has stopped working, what has no value and get rid of it. Make this a recurring theme in how you manage your business. Embrace the creative destruction, find your inner Fly Lady, and maybe get a little existentialist.

Guest Author: Christian Buckley
http://buckleyplanet.net

Christian is Director of Product Evangelism at echoTechnology, an Axceler company, where he is responsible for content, strategy, and evangelism. Prior to echo, Christian was part of the Microsoft Managed Services (MMS) SharePoint team, now known as BPOS-D (Business Productivity Online Services-Dedicated). He has also led product and deployment teams in the creation of product lifecycle management and supply chain-integration solutions for some of the world’s largest manufacturing and telecom companies, and co-authored 3 books on software configuration management and defect tracking. You can find him at http://buckleyplanet.net or on Twitter at @buckleyplanet