The (almost) Perfect Predator

Who do you think is the most successful predator on this earth? Many of us will picture various beasts. Is it a lion with his majestic mane? Or a tiger with its stealth? Or is it a Cheetah with its supreme agility? Or it can be packs of wolves? Or the ferocious sharks?

These all are nature’s wonderful beasts who are powerful and deadly.? But when we compare the performance of the above predator with the (almost) perfect predator in nature, they lag behind by miles.

Cheetah kills around 58% of animals it hunts. Sharks fail during half of their attempts. Then comes the lion with around 25% of success rate. Wolf kills around 14% of the prey it stalks.?

Do you know who this almost perfect predator with a striking success rate of about 95%? Almost all of us might have seen it…

It's a ‘Dragonfly’. Dragonfly intercepts their prey in midair with a 95% success rate.

And you know why??

Because they have mastered a complex task of intercepting a moving object by predicting its future location. Dragonflies not only see the current movements of its prey better (which almost all the predators can do); but they can ‘Predict’ the future movements of its prey.?

I think the main word here is - to Predict.?

For products to be successful, we as Product Managers should be able to predict various aspects of the product i.e. to predict?

Predict Stakeholder behavior (behavior of user and other stakeholders) -?

• Can you predict how a user will behave and why will he / she act the way they act?

Prediuct Ecosystem aspects (product and platform aspects) -

• Can you predict what the product performance will be under ‘x’ number of users?
• Can you predict product load or those ‘x’ number of users?

Predict Outcomes (qualitative and quantitative) -

• Can you predict sales figures under uncertain conditions?
• Can you predict customer satisfaction after building a new feature?

Predict Process indicators (development metrics and parameters)

• Can you predict development capacity?
• Can you predict resource crunch which might occur in future?

Predict Servicing aspects -

• Can you predict call volumes when you launch a new feature?
• How many bugs might be logged by users post Go-Live?

Predict Environmental impact -?PESTEL factors

• Can you predict feature impacts due to certain Government rules which are planned to be enforced?

Hence,

The trait Product Managers can learn from this beautiful creation of nature is ‘Predicting’ product aspects in this everchanging business landscape...

Note: According to the study, there is a group of 16 neurons, called target-selective descending neurons (TSDNs), which create a population vector that reflects the direction of the target with high accuracy and reliability across 360°. So basically Dragonfly has an ability to create this 360 degree map of already moving object and intercept the target at the right movement.

References:

* https://www.pnas.org/content/110/2/696.full#abstract-1

* https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/animals-ecology/article-suggests-dragonflies-are-the-most-effective-predators-in-the-animal-world-95-success-rate/

* https://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/local/not-a-dragon-not-a-fly---just-nature-s-most-effective-predator/article_cc356590-d695-11ea-92c9-4f8600805086.html