The unresearched project is not worth doing*

I've been hoping that Clay Shirky's low profile on his blog means that he's flogging away at the keyboard on another book.  Frankly, I'm jonesing...to the point of re-reading Cognitive Surplus for, like, the fourth time.

Chapter 1 reminded me of the McDonald's milkshake research project.  (And, unsurprisingly, the engineer's urban myth about General Motors's vanilla ice cream problem**.)

But what do fast food and cars have to do with software development?  In a word, problem-solving.  (Okay, maybe that's two words...except when I cheat by hyphenating.  So there.)  Anyhoo, problem number one is making sure you're solving the right problem in the first place.

In the case of McDonald's, their problem was lacklustre milkshake sales.  The obvious attack vector on the problem is of course, experimenting with the formula and taste-testing it.  That gives a number of variables:

• Sweetness
• Flavour profile
• Consistency
• Mouth-feel
• Temperature

The problem is, McDonald's could spend millions of dollars in the lab tweaking the formula along multiple axes.  But what if the formula is not the issue? 

As it turned out, 40% of milkshake sales were purchased not as a dessert or treat, but as a commuter-friendly breakfast***.  The milkshake could be consumed one-handed, didn't leave crumbs (or stickier things) on the car (or commuter), and had more staying power than a doughnut.  Moreover, milkshakes, because they take longer to consume, had the added value of providing frequent (momentary) distractions during heavy traffic:  

1. See the car ahead start to roll forward...
2. Accelerate...
3. See the brake lights of the car ahead come on...
4. Step on the brake...
5. Pause...
6. Reach for the milkshake...
7. Sip...
8. Put down milkshake...  
9. Aaaaaaaannnnd repeat until the commute or milkshake run out.

Not surprisingly, the researcher who identified the important commuter demographic (Gerald Berstell), didn't do that from inside the lab.  He sat in a McDonald's for 18 hours for that epiphany (among others).  And then came back to quiz customers--not about how they thought the milkshake tasted, but what kind of problem it was solving for them.

And while I'm sure that Mr. Berstell's time and observational skills don't come cheap, they're infinitesimal compared to a whole bunch of biochemists and nutritionists and marketers flailing around in labs and focus groups.

Moral of the story?  Research done before the project starts is cheap--dirt-cheap.  In fact, it has a negative cost when compared with the cost of solving the wrong problem. 

- - - - -

* A nod to Socrates' "The unexamined life is not worth living."

**  Snopes classifies the story as "legend," but it's a fun read and far too believable because there's no substitute for hands-on debugging.

*** Clay Christiansen, Scott Cook, Taddy Hall, What Customers Want From Your Products - Harvard Business Review, 16 January 2006