We are in the middle of significant paradigm shift. Consumerization, cloud, mobile. This is only a short list of influencing factors changing the way we develop PLM products these days. Paradigm is a “framework of basic assumptions, ways of thinking, and methods” held by its practitioners. New PLM development are triggering a paradigm shift because it is changing our worldview of how we interact, develop product, run processes and communicate.
I’ve been thinking about different paradigms PLM application used in the past. Here is my top 3 paradigms I identified – Product, Process / Project and Social.
Paradigm 1: Product
In my view, “product” is the original paradigm born together with CAD and other design and analytic tools. The big moment of product paradigm was development of digital mockup tools together with complex product configuration capabilities. These tools are not simple, but it solved critical product design and configuration problems.
Paradigm 2: Process / Project
As PLM tools development moved forward, the question of PLM adoption in organization came into focus. Organizations are run by process and to have the ability to us PLM process for such fundamental processes like ECO and others got traction. ERP and other business process applications success provided an additional input in PLM process development.
Paradigm 3: Social
Here is the newest paradigm shift – social. The latest innovation of social networks and web application provided new development perspective to PLM developers. To provide a Facebook-like user experience became a modern fashion, must-have features. We’ve seen it everywhere. The idea of social streams had some traction. However, from discussion with people and commentary on my blog, I’ve learned that adoption of PLM social application in real implementations is still very slow.
I don’t think old paradigms are dying. At least not so fast. The lifecycle of enterprise product development is probably one of the slowest among other software development domains. Old paradigms like product and process are here and provide mainstream sales for PLM products. However, what can be the next paradigm that provide an increased adoption of PLM applications by users in organizations.
One of the interesting places to innovate these days is calendar. Think about many everyday applications we are using – calendar remains almost the same as we know him for the last 10-15 years. I’ve been reading about Fastcodesign blog about new scheduling app called – Mynd (I’ve heard about this app as NeverLate app before). Navigate here and have a read. Here is an interesting video. Watch it to learn more about “calendar oriented paradigm”.
What is my conclusion? Attention span. How to get your application in front of the user and get him to use your application frequently? How to make it valuable for larger amount of users? Calendar is the application we use every day. For most of us, calendars are part of our every day activity. Here is the dream. Can I make my calendar to schedule right meetings with right people based on the project schedule, list of critical issues in development and even more? Sounds crazy? IMHO, not so much. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
