Veery birds predict the hurricanes and act on it
There is inspiration all around us. Where do you find it? I found mine in a tiny thrush called Veery.
Recently, while looking for something new to watch on Netflix, I stumbled upon a docuseries “Connected”. I watched the trailer, and said to myself - “This looks interesting”.
Without a doubt, the series turned out to be thought provoking and fun. It has episodes focusing on different topics, but the crux is how things, in the end, are connected to us - we humans.
The first episode is Surveillance, and it talks about how we are being watched all the time. Some of the surveillance examples freaked me out, like the one about how our mobile apps talk behind our backs and share data about us among themselves (Have you tried reading any privacy policies, duh!).
But not all the surveillance is bad.
One of the other examples was about some scientists surveilling the nesting and migration of Veery birds, and how they play a role in hurricane prediction. And me being an avid admirer of wildlife, I was interested right away.
Migration in birds
The bird species usually migrate from one region to another as the seasons change. This depends on the nesting and the breeding season of the bird, often happening from the northern breeding areas to the southern wintering grounds. Migration is different in different species, but the common resources being sought for are food and nesting locations. And these tiny Veeries are no exception.
The Veery is a thrush that nests in the forests across the northern US and southern Canada. They spend winters in South America’s Amazon region. The migration activity involves crossing the Atlantic ocean and Gulf of Mexico.
Research shows that there is a 15% chance for a bird dying during migration when compared to sedentary periods of its life. And storms certainly take their toll. But although many die as a result of hurricanes during migration, the migrating birds may not be putting their life at stake, leaving their precious life in the hands of the rain god.
How?
Veeries vary their migration
The dataset from the last 20 years suggests how the bird’s nesting season length and nesting effort correlates with the severity of the hurricane season.
Here is the interesting part - Out of the 20 years examined, Veeries nesting in Delaware cut their breeding season short in the years that had severe hurricane season.
Why?
So that they can cross the Gulf of Mexico before the storm and reach Amazon rainforest in South America.
To take into account the early migration, they have to cut short the nesting season. Veeries have to re-nest to raise a successful breed, as most of their nests are lost to predators. But re-nesting is less of an option when the birds must cut the season short to avoid migrating during a hurricane. So the scientists also observed these tiny geniuses laying more eggs per season than usual. Taking more of the given opportunity, I would say!
Here is to reiterate the above - Veeries do not intuit a hurricane coming a few days, but a few months in advance. Let that sink in.
How can we relate this to Product Management principles?
Ever heard of the over-glorified corporate term Risk analysis and Mitigation? Well in a simpler term, Veeries are doing just that.
When you are working on a product, there are many ways a product may drift off the course, extending the delivery deadlines by days up to weeks. The work isn’t adjudged properly before committing the deadlines, some work gets added in the roadmap which no one takes into account the impact it will have on the delivery timeline, the team runs into some technical issues which add unpredicted days in the roadmap, etc etc. The “Gulf of Mexicos” is what we have to cross, without the shitstorms.
Following are couple of the points I can relate to Management -
1. Risk analysis and prediction
Managing something is not just about having a great plan and roadmaps. Roadmaps are useless if they have the missing pieces of the puzzle.
Let's say you have to migrate the data from the legacy app to the new app you are planning to build. Initially you may feel that this would be an easy task, but later during the actual migration, you may figure out that the data validations and database structure of the existing app and the new apps do not match. Boom!
Another common example is that of the inaccurate analysis of the web traffic. Inaccurate prediction of the concurrent users sessions while designing the server architecture may have impacts as large as losing out on customers.
2. Being flexible
Having said all of the above, the storms if handled properly is a fun experience and a great learning for everyone on the team. There is hardly any product which does not run into problems, no matter how good you might have planned things out initially. Of course the severity of problems differ, but there are problems on every product.
This is 2nd learning from the Veeries - being flexible, the ability to change course and plans to make sure we do not run into graver problems in the future. Yes, a more agile way of doing things!
Issues come, and they may add up to days of work pushing the delivery timelines. Pushing the delivery dates is not always the option, so then we can think of moving some features out to the next phase and getting the most important features released, as an example.
Sticking to the roadmap helps, but when the unprecedented issues come up, being flexible with the plan is always a wiser option.
To wrap the mantra by veeries in two words:
Gauge and Adapt
Well Product Management is a huge topic, and I am still learning the art of mastering this skill through my mistakes.
The greatest of our learnings happen when we are able to relate to things happening around us, and put them in our context of things. And wildlife has been one of the biggest teachers.
We may not be as good as these Veeries in analysing the “storms”, as these birds are even better than the meteorological forecasts when it comes to prediction. But we can at least try to foresee the future and minimize the risks to a larger extent, so that we can cross the oceans by timely avoiding the hurricanes.
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