Solve problems quickly and efficiently like Google& Co: Success in 5 steps
// ByJake Knapp
Everyone wants to solve their problems quickly and efficiently. Because whoever does not procrastinate has proven to work better. A method tried and tested in Silicon Valley can help.
This is how efficient work works in Silicon Valley
On a cloudy morning in May 2014, John Zeratsky walked into a beige building in Sunnyvale, California. John wanted to speak to someone at Savioke Labs, one of Google Venture's newest investments. He made his way through a maze of corridors, took a short flight of stairs to a simple wooden door that read"2B" and entered.
High-tech companies are a little disappointing to those who expect red-rimmed computer eyes, StarTrek-like holodecks, or top-secret designs. Most of Silicon Valley is essentially a pile of desks, computers, and coffee mugs. But behind door 2B there were piles of circuit boards, plywood cutouts and plastic fittings fresh from a 3D printer, as well as soldering irons, drills and drafts. Yes, actually top secret designs."This place looks like a startup should be," thought John.
How robots make our work easier
And then he discovered the machine. It was a three-foot-high cylinder about the size and shape of a kitchen trash can. Its shiny white body had an elegantly tailored, curved shape that broadened up and down. At the top was a small computer screen that looked almost like a face. And the machine could move: it slid across the floor under its own power."It's the relay robot," said Steve Cousins, Savioke's founder and CEO. Steve wore jeans and a dark t-shirt and was excited like a middle school physics teacher. He looked proudly at his little machine."It was built here, and it was made of precast." The relay robot, Steve explained, was designed for hotel guest services. He could navigate automatically, ride the elevator by himself, and bring things like toothbrushes, towels and snacks to hotel guests. Steve and John watched the little robot carefully wheel around a desk chair and stop near an electrical outlet.
Savioke (pronounced"Savvy Oak") had a team of world-class engineers and designers, most of whom were former employees of Willow Garage, a prestigious private robotics research laboratory in Silicon Valley. They all had one thing in common: the vision of making everyday life easier for people with the help of robots as hard-working helpers - in restaurants, hospitals, old people's homes and so on. Steve had chosen to start with hotels because they offered a relatively simple and consistent environment with one constant problem: morning and evening work peaks when the front desk was overwhelmed with check-in, check-out, and room service assignments. That was the perfect location for a robot.
AI as a maid
The following month, the first fully operational relay robot went into operation at a nearby hotel, doing real room service for real guests. If a guest had forgotten their toothbrush or razor, the robot would come along. But there was a problem. Steve and his team feared that the guests might not like the servant robot. They might find it a nuisance or even be afraid of it. The robot was a marvel of engineering, but Savioke wasn't sure how the machine should behave towards humans.
The risk of having towels brought by a machine was too impersonal, Steve explained. Savioke's chief designer, Adrian Canoso, came up with a lot of suggestions on how to make the exterior of the robot friendly, but the team still had a lot of decisions to make before the robot was really fit for the public. How should he communicate with the guests? How much personality was too much of a good thing?"And then there was the elevator," said Steve. John nodded."Personally, I feel uncomfortable just having to ride in an elevator with other people.""Exactly," said Steve, slapping the relay."And what happens when a robot is added?"
How to make structured decision-making processes more efficient
Savioke had only been in business a few months. The company had focused on development and technology. They had negotiated a pilot project with Starwood, a hotel chain with several hundred properties. But there were still important questions in the room - questions crucial to success, and there were only a few weeks until the start of the pilot project. It was the perfect time for a sprint. Sprint is Google Ventures' unique five-day process with which key questions can be answered by creating prototypes and then testing them on real customers. Sprint is a kind of compilation of the"greatest hits" from business strategy, innovation, behavioral science, design and more - packed into a step-by-step process that any team can use.
The Savioke team considered dozens of ideas for their robot and then used a structured decision-making process to select the most convincing solutions, without group-think processes. A realistic prototype was created in a single day, and in the end, the team won target customers and set up a makeshift research laboratory in a nearby hotel. We would like to tell you that we, the authors, were the genius heroes of this story. It would be wonderful if we could sneak into every possible company and share our brilliant ideas that will make it a resounding success. Unfortunately we are not geniuses. The sprint at Savioke worked because you worked there with real experts: those involved were already part of the team. We just gave them the right process for their job.
This is how efficient problem solving works in 3 steps
And here is the sequence of the Savioke sprint. No robots are built in your company? Never mind. We use the exact same sprint structure for software, services, marketing and many other areas.
- First we put together a number of checklists, including a shopping list for necessary materials or a brief overview of the respective daily routine of the week. You don't have to memorize everything at once, but before we begin we need to carefully plan the process so that it will be a complete success.
- Then the team shoveled a full week off. From Monday to Friday they canceled all meetings, activated the"out of office" response function of their e-mail accounts and focused exclusively on one question: How should the robot behave in the presence of people?
- Next, they set a
