Cornerstone Thinking

I've had, in the past few years, had several respectable, and respected, people share their ideas with me.  And thinking on how to articulate this next line I just realized that quite often those ideas, regardless of how the ideas are framed when shared, are in need of a personality that will help anchor the idea to "what" will get that idea from, what I like to say is, "TO-BE" to "AS-IS".  I like to think that, as those that share their ideas with me are seeking out that "what" and its source, they feel that they may see a glimpse of something in me that reflects what they think they need. Further to that point, I am, but shouldn't be, amazed at how folks, including myself at times, are capable of being so convinced of, or possibly better stated as being thoroughly embedded within, the vision of an idea, that they consider the idea to already be real and in an "AS-IS" tangible status.  To counteract this detrimental leap from reality -- in those potential cases I remind myself that -- we must exercise our ability to objectively push our idea through a gating process that reveals the truth and route to viability.

We've all done it; seen it; wore-out the t-shirt; a great idea leads to momentum, which if not removed from the idea machine and into the reality funnel aimed at the creation machine; the idea becomes bloated, convoluted with tangents, and takes years of effort before it either dies under piles of wasted money, or we/they realize that the idea must actually go through the correct gating process.  In other words, trying to move from vision to creation without proper anchoring to reality, leaves the same result every single time; drawn out failure (whether outright our simply due to marginalized success, failure nonetheless).

In the past couple decades, I've been involved with many successful and failed ideas, from many different positions on the totem pole.  I've learned a great deal in every one of those failures and reinforced those lessons in every success.  It all culminates in to a single concept; what I'm terming Cornerstone Thinking in this chapter.

The concept, as many purport proportionally in many other frameworks, is to have a standardized tunnel/container/box, which ideas enter into and are maintained within, during the reality and creation gating processes.  The sole purpose, of this controlled environment, is protecting the mindset around the processing of the idea into something tangible.  The reason this controlled environment is required is due to the common confusion that the necessary near-chaotic environment of idea generation may in any way permeate, support, or provide value to the creation process.  This confusion has been further demonstrated by the common reality experienced by iterative development efforts; the unwitting, or disillusioned, participants fail to realize how much more structured and controlled that environment must be to result in a successful outcome, at a rate comparable to traditional waterfall development.

This chapter will layout the framework for anchoring an idea into a protective environment, which will allow that idea to properly maintain its position of "cornerstone" in the building out of the necessary constants and variables required to carry the idea through to fruition.  The terms "reality" and "creation" gating processes are abstracted, and necessarily meant only to be demonstrable of the evolutionary process in phasing an idea through a validation phase into a best-prepared realization phase.