This link has been bookmarked by 12 people . It was first bookmarked on 28 Aug 2007, by eyal matsliah.
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13 May 11
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Then Gundrum was at a technology conference in California and heard the software pioneer Mitch Kapor talking about the open-source revolution. Afterward, Gundrum approached Kapor. "I said to Mitch, 'What do you think? Can I apply this—some of the same principles—outside of software and bring it to the food industry?'" Gundrum recounted. "He stopped and said, 'Why the hell not!'" So Gundrum invited an élite group of food-industry bakers and scientists to collaborate online. They would be the third team. He signed up a senior person from Mars, Inc., someone from R. & D. at Kraft, the marketing manager for Nestlé Toll House refrigerated/frozen cookie dough, a senior director of R. & D. at Birds Eye Foods, the head of the innovation program for Kellogg's Morning Foods, the director of seasoning at McCormick, a cookie maven formerly at Keebler, and six more high-level specialists. Mattson's innovation manager, Carol Borba, who began her career as a line cook at Bouley, in Manhattan, was given the role of project manager. Two Mattson staffers were assigned to carry out the group's recommendations. This was the Dream Team. It is quite possible that this was the most talented group of people ever to work together in the history of the food industry.
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Soon after the launch of Project Delta, Steve Gundrum and his colleague Samson Hsia were standing around, talking about the current products in the supermarket which they particularly admire. "I like the Uncrustable line from Smuckers," Hsia said. "It's a frozen sandwich without any crust. It eats very well. You can put it in a lunchbox frozen, and it will be unfrozen by lunchtime." Hsia is a trim, silver-haired man who is said to know as much about emulsions as anyone in the business. "There's something else," he said, suddenly. "We just saw it last week. It's made by Jennie-O. It's turkey in a bag." This was a turkey that was seasoned, plumped with brine, and sold in a heat-resistant plastic bag: the customer simply has to place it in the oven. Hsia began to stride toward the Mattson kitchens, because he realized they actually had a Jennie-O turkey in the back. Gundrum followed, the two men weaving their way through the maze of corridors that make up the Mattson offices. They came to a large freezer. Gundrum pulled out a bright-colored bag. Inside was a second, clear bag, and inside that bag was a twelve-pound turkey. "This is one of my favorite innovations of the last year," Gundrum said, as Hsia nodded happily. "There is material science involved. There is food science involved. There is positioning involved. You can take this thing, throw it in your oven, and people will be blown away. It's that good. If I was Butterball, I'd be terrified."
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Jennie-O had taken something old and made it new. But where had that idea come from? Was it a team? A committee? A lone turkey genius? Those of us whose only interaction with such innovations is at the point of sale have a naïve faith in human creativity; we suppose that a world capable of coming up with turkey in a bag is capable of coming up with the next big thing as well—a healthy cookie, a faster computer chip, an automobile engine that gets a hundred miles to the gallon. But if you're the one responsible for those bright new ideas there is no such certainty. You come up with one great idea, and the process is so miraculous that all you do is puzzle over how on earth you ever did it, and worry whether you'll ever be able to do it again.
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For those in the food business, the lesson was unforgettable: if something was new, it didn't have to be perfect.
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The strength of the Dream Team — the fact that it had so many smart people on it — was also its weakness: it had too many smart people on it. Size provides expertise. But it also creates friction, and one of the truths Project Delta exposed is that we tend to overestimate the importance of expertise and underestimate the problem of friction.
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Because there are so many individual voices involved in an open-source project, no one can agree on the right way to do things. And, because no one can agree, every possible option is built into the software, thereby frustrating the central goal of good design, which is, after all, to understand what to leave out.
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"In the end, it was not so much which cookie won that interested him. It was who won—and why. Three people from his own shop had beaten a Dream Team, and the decisive edge had come not from the collective wisdom of a large group but from one person's ability to make a lateral connection between two previously unconnected objects — a tortilla chip and a cookie. Was that just Barb being Barb? In large part, yes. But it was hard to believe that one of the Dream Team members would not have made the same kind of leap had they been in an environment quiet enough to allow them to think.
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05 Jan 11
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28 Aug 07
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03 Apr 07
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07 Dec 05
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02 Dec 05
Jon BaldiviesoComplete New Yorker article about using software development approaches (such as Open Source, XP) to build the perfect cookie.
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21 Nov 05
ken .Cross Fertilisation: using open-source and extreme-programming to make cookies :) "His job is to taste and advise, and the most common words out of his mouth are 'I have an idea.'", "Find a space where you can work together"
collaboration creativity design development management opensource process project programming teamwork
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20 Nov 05
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11 Nov 05
Piers Young"Project Delta aims to create the perfect cookie." but with 3 teams, one trad, one XP, and one open source
innovation gladwell creativity cookies XP OpenSource collaboration management
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