Often neglected but extremely powerful skill

One of the most important characteristics, which any company implicitly looks for is - how to break down the problem/situation/scenarios into ever simpler smaller pieces.  

 

This particular characteristics manifests itself into other forms such as - ability to ask good questions, being curious, ability to visualise future state, ability to  plan or build, problem solving etc. 

The scenarios to show how important this is or can be applied are unlimited. One of these could be - while acquiring a firm, amongst other things, the first line of questioning can simply be asking the questions as to what is it that company does and keep going in deeper into each customer and supplier  user case. 

A more familiar example is while interviewing a candidate. Again simply start by asking what he is doing currently  and just keep digging deeper into it. For example if the candidate was a project manager, start by understanding part of life-cycle candidate handled. Breaking it down, did she conceptualise and planned the project. If not conceptualise, how was it handed over, in what state did the candidate take over etc.  

Ola Uber App refresh dichotomy

Today, had to take a cab back home and observed a small yet interesting difference between Uber and Ola Apps.

Experience with Uber: As soon as I opened the App, a message came that I can not been any cabs since the App needs to be updated. Only after that I can book the cab. Thats it. Clear and upfront.
So, if I was in a hurry, I would not wait for app update. Today I was not in such a hurry so started the app refresh. In the meantime I decided to try Ola.

Experience with Ola: First of all, as soon as I opened the app, I was asked to fill the feedback for the last ride I had taken. The ride was almost 1 month back and I hardly remember the experience. So just to get on with things, I gave a rating of 5. Ola as usual had no cars available but only autos. Since, I wasn't in a hurry, I kept trying to get a cab. After about 5 minutes, I managed to locate one mini. Clicked ride now, confirmed and BAAM - a message pops up - App is too old, needs to be updated. Hmmm, made me think, telling me upfront would have helped.

Things to note:
1) Ola has strict rules for the market place such that user can not avail a service unless she rates her previous experience. A company going that strict on the users usually happens when it is the biggest and users may not have alternatives.

2) Telling users upfront and not wasting their time later in the process always works better in this the way Uber did. And the way Ola tells 0 cars nearby even before user selects that icon to search.

P.S. Clearly I am not a DAU, WAU or even MAU for both the companies and finally used a non-curated Auto.