Modular by Design — How it works

The mod­u­lar by design approach is based on the sim­ple con­cept of small mod­u­lar com­po­nents. In order to fully under­stand it, how­ever, one must exam­ine the actual com­po­nents of this approach: stan­dards, focus, flex­i­bil­ity, speed, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and stealth.

I will now go into each of these con­cepts, pro­vid­ing exam­ples for each of them but it is nec­es­sary to give a quick overview of the con­cepts before look­ing into how they apply to the approach and why you should con­sider adopt­ing them.

Stan­dards

When I first unveiled the mod­u­lar by design con­cept, I didn’t think of this crit­i­cal com­po­nent. The idea was brought forth to me in one of the many dis­cus­sions that ensued but it does make sense. A mod­u­lar by design model should really be based on a com­mon stan­dard. The rea­son for this is that the basic pre­cept of an aggre­gated model is lock-in through pro­pri­etary stan­dards. The anti­dote to that is adop­tion of open standards.

Focus

Because mod­u­lar units are small, they are gen­er­ally much more focused than larger aggre­gated ones. How­ever, because they are small, they must con­serve energy and focus on the crit­i­cal mis­sion they want to accom­plish. This forces them to get rid of any other dis­trac­tion and focus on their core com­pe­tency. Doing so is the only way they can truly survive.

Inde­pen­dence

Because they are rel­a­tively small, mod­u­lar units are gen­er­ally more inde­pen­dent. How­ever, that inde­pen­dence only goes as far as the basic issue they are focused on. Much like any other organic struc­ture, mod­u­lar units have inter-dependency on other mem­bers of a com­plex sys­tem to fully accom­plish their task.

Flex­i­bil­ity

It’s been said that “there are no mon­u­ments to great com­mit­tees.” Large aggre­gated mod­els gen­er­ally have less flex­i­bil­ity in the decision-making process because they have to get the buy from all the parts they are aggre­gated to. Because mod­u­lar units are gen­er­ally focus on solv­ing a sin­gle prob­lem and work as part of a wider net­work but are given inde­pen­dence within the net­work, they tend to be much more flex­i­ble in terms of adapt­ing to chang­ing mar­ket conditions.

Speed

The suc­cess of mod­u­lar units can often be attrib­uted to their veloc­ity. In a mod­u­lar world, only the strongest unit sur­vives. As a result, a mod­u­lar unit is always run­ning at full-bore, try­ing to take advan­tage of the lim­ited lead it has over com­pet­ing con­cepts, mod­els, or prod­uct. This can be con­sid­ered as the live fast or die model.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion

Because they are forced into high veloc­ity, and because they are gen­er­ally focused on a sin­gle issue, mod­u­lar unit need to be in con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion with other mod­u­lar units in order to cre­ate and destroy aggre­gated mod­els. For exam­ple, a mod­u­lar by design com­pany could be rely­ing on a num­ber of other com­pa­nies to help it bring its prod­uct to mar­ket, and could even be work­ing with its com­peti­tors in order to push for­ward a new idea, stan­dard, or prod­uct line. At the same time, a mod­u­lar unit needs to stay on top of what the rest of the world is doing in order to stay ahead.

Stealth

While it does com­mu­ni­cate heav­ily, a mod­u­lar by design unit is gen­er­ally hid­den from the main­stream. This is largely because its con­cept is gen­er­ally not main­stream dur­ing the ini­tial phase, and then keeps mov­ing and mor­ph­ing over time. As a result, a mod­u­lar unit is gen­er­ally rel­a­tively hard to pin down. Amor­phous by nature, the mod­u­lar by design approach means that a mod­ule has already moved on by the time some­one has enough infor­ma­tion to pin it down.

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