What the Restaurant Industry Can Teach the Software Industry

I really like “Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares.” Not the American version because it is mostly drama. The British version is where the substance is. The basic idea is that Gordon has 7 days to turn a failing restaurant into a successful one. Also, four to six weeks later he returns to see how many of his ideas stuck and how the business is going.

Universally, if the restaurant follows his advise they do well. If they fight him they fail. His tactic in every episode are almost identical and I have taken them and applied them to the software industry. Nothing new here, just interesting how good ideas transcend industries.

Know your customers

A lot of restaurant fail because try to be what they want and not what the customers want. Your location dictates what types of food you can serve, and even what decorations should be used in the restaurant. The chef/owner has to bring the concept, but that concept has to fit the area.

The same is true in software. Google Wave is a good example of what not to do. There was no real problem to solve, and there was really no audience. It was a novel idea, but it lacked the understanding of what it was trying to do.

Meet the Quality Expectation

There is a minimum quality that a sit-down restaurant must meet. It is entirely based on user expectation of value. One does not go into a sit-down and expect to order off of a “dollar menu.” And one does not expect to get preprocessed, pre-made, microwaved, hamburger.

What the customer never sees, that Gordon really harps on, is a clean kitchen with quality fresh ingredients.

Elegance is more important then flash

If the restaurant looks like “Tijuana puked up” then there is a good bet where all the money went and it isn’t the food. A similar thing can be said about software. If the UI looks like an icon library puked on it then all the money went into adding features no one uses.

There is an understated elegance to that indicates a care to details. And that makes things more enjoyable.

Simple is Key

In Gordon’s words “simple is key.” This is just part of the reason that Twitter, and FourSquare are popular given that Facebook has both of these features. There’s is the simpler solution so when that is all you want that is where you go.

Passion and Direction are key

Any kitchen that does not have a passionate chef is doomed. The same has to be true of your software engineers. When the passion is lost then everything falls apart.

The other important part is direction. Passion without direction is bull in a china shop; great energy, but likely to cause more harm then good.