The Good Enough Technology Economy

Q1: As we alluded to, the outrageous transformation taking place in the camera and film industries is being caused by good-enough products, specifically digital cameras and phone-embedded cameras. Read the Outrageous Industry Transformation cases at the beginning of Chapters 2 through 8. Which corrections are being caused by good-enough technology products?

From digital camera to phone with camera, this correction is caused by good-enough technology products. Camera in phone is not a perfect camera because the quality of megapixel is not as good as a digital camera. However, people tap into its benefits of being able to snap photos anywhere, anytime.

Another example of good-enough technology products is from hard-wired internet to wireless. Wireless connectivity enable people to access internet anywhere, at anytime, and it makes you mobile as compared to hard-wired internet, although its connectivity is slower.

Skype is a good-enough technology product, it is not as convenient as mobile phone as skype cannot be used without internet, whereas you can make phone call anytime at anywhere using mobile phone without the need of internet. However, the cost being saved through making international calls through skype are tremendous

Cell phone is not perfect either as the voice on the other end cuts in and out, and sometimes calls are even dropped. However, the good thing about cell phone is that it makes you mobile.

Q2: What does all this mean for systems development? In the good-enough technology, which will organizations come to rely on more heavily: insourcing, selfsourcing, or outsourcing? Can organizations afford to use the traditional SDLC and completely gather requirements before proceeding with development? For what systems can organizations still use the traditional SDLC?

System development is being defined as the process of defining, testing and implementing a new software application or program. The advantage of incorporating “good-enough technology” in system development is that you will save a lot of time, money and resources in your system development process. This could be achieved through rapid application development methodology, whereby it has extensive user involvement in the rapid and evolutionary construction of working prototypes of a system to accelerate the system development process.

In the good-enough technology, organizations usually will rely more heavily on in-sourcing.

Organization can afford to use the traditional SDLC to completely gather requirements before proceeding with development, because it is a component-based development that can be written each time for each application. Thus, it save a lot of time & utilization of resources to gather information required for proceeding the development. The rapid application development system is an example of traditional SDLC that can be used by organization to achieve good-enough technology economy .

Q3: How is the notion of getting things out the door quickly and then using market feedback for product improvement similar to the concept of prototyping? What are the disadvantages of using such an approach to the release of products that aren’t perfect?

Prototyping is the process of building a model that demonstrates the features of a proposed product, service, or system. Prototyping is a dynamic process that allows end users to see, work with, and evaluate a model and suggest changes to that model to increase the likelihood of success of the proposed system. This is where the notion of getting things out the door quickly and then using market feedback for product improvement similar to the concept of prototyping.

The disadvantage of using such an approach to the release of products that aren’t perfect, is that the project team tends to forgo proper testing and documentation. This is because they trust that after all, this product is going to be improved further in future. Thus, they tend not to put in efforts to look into the details. This may lead to the standard of the product getting lower and lower.

Another disadvantage is that people will feel that this company’s products are not high in quality, as they can easily spot the product weaknesses when it first launches in the market. It gives a bad impression to the consumer. As time passes by, this becomes a not so good branding for the company as the product is low in quality, even though it is going to be improved later on. This impact is especially prominent in those products that required high quality image, such as health supplement.

Q4: Can manufacturers of automobiles use the concepts of the good-enough technology economy to produce automobiles? What features of an automobile must be perfect (or very close to it)? What features of an automobile can simple be “good enough”?

Certain parts of the automobiles can use the concepts of good-enough technology, whereas certain parts of it cannot use the concept of good-enough technology. For example, the engine, the hand-brake, tyre, etc must be perfect because any discrepancies will threaten the safety of human’s life. On the other hand, parts that do not require perfect technology are the material of the seat, the air-con, the sound system, etc. These features can be just “good-enough” technology instead of perfect technology.