Innovation

Innovation

the agile sensemaking model

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“Research shows that teams will organize themselves in different ways in response to how different types of complexity strains their sensemaking capacities. In order to increase their sensemaking potential, teams will reorganize their relationships in recognizable ways. We can think of these as emergent patterns of collective sensemaking.” —Bonnitta Roy

The increasing complexity of work is a result of automation, such as AI & robots, who are taking away any repetitive tasks, leaving barely repeatable tasks for humans. In addition to this automation of any work that can be described in a flowchart, we also have a larger number of human connections to deal with and humans by nature are complex. Robin Dunbar showed that we are only able to have a maximum of about 150 real human relationships before our cognitive capabilities are maxed out. Note that 150 is the size of an infantry company, a standard size that has stood the test of battle and time. But I, and many others, have thousands of connections on social media platforms like LinkedIn. How can we make sense of these?

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the frontiers of our knowledge

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I was asked to contribute to an article in CIO magazine — The CIO’s Dilemma: Innovate AND Cut Costs. The question was how can CIO’s preserve their organization’s ability to innovate in the face of budget cuts? My response was relatively simple.

“To work in any complex field, we have to be connected to loose social networks that provide us with a view of the frontiers of our knowledge, says Harold Jarche (@hjarche), a partner at Internet Time Alliance. “We then need to actively engage in communities of practice to develop shared understanding among our peers. Then we can truly contribute as members of teams working on complex problems. None of this costs additional money, only time and attention.”

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actionable insights

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I concluded a few years back that rates based on time at work only help to put you into a pigeon hole so that HR and Purchasing can easily classify you. Knowledge professionals are not pigeons.

I have noticed a tendency over the past decade to push wages and fees down. Some may say it’s just the supply and demand conditions of the market. I think it’s the idea that human labour is a cost and it’s best to keep costs down, especially when CEO’s are still focused on increasing shareholder value. Short term objectives rule in this type of market. I recently spoke with someone who had left a large corporation after 30 years. He said that the constant pressure to keep increasing sales, year over year, was too much. The executives were only focused on the spreadsheets.

Large consultancies ensure that when they do work it is wrapped in large documents with fancy presentations so it looks big. But the value is not in big. The value for consulting is actionable insights. Can and will the client do something after the consulting engagement? If not, it was a waste of time. Sometimes the advice appears to be very simple, and therefore appears to be of no value. But master practitioners often make their work look simple.

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networked social capital

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When FiveThirtyEight published the details of 3 million trolls and bots that were linked to the Russian-based company Internet Research Agency, they were merely providing data. Two researchers initially compiled the data. But by making the data public, FiveThirtyEight was able to engage a diverse group of widely varying expertise in order to make sense of it.

It is only with knowledge that we can examine data and turn it into information. FiveThirtyEight realized that a small group of experts was not enough. These data required a subject matter network to make sense of them. The initial results are interesting but so far there are no actionable insights for the average person or organization. As a society we have some more information but are still none the wiser in knowing what to do next. But it’s a start.

“Many other readers shared their works in progress, and given the sheer size of the data set, there is likely much more to come — as well there should be. Releasing the data was meant to preserve an important historical record, but analyzing it is the only way to understand what happened and bolster national security.” —538-Russian Trolls

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network management protocols

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My principle of network management is a modern progressive remake of the principle of scientific management put forth by F.W. Taylor in 1911.

“It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone.” —F.W.Taylor

Based on this format, I have proposed the following principle for work in a post-industrial network society.

It is only through innovative and contextual methods, the self-selection of the most appropriate tools and work conditions and willing cooperation that more productive work can be assured. The duty of being transparent in our work and sharing our knowledge rests with all workers, especially management.

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agile sensemaking

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“Complex environments represent a continuous challenge for sensemaking in organizations. Continuous ambiguity exerts continuous pressures on organizations to modify their patterns of interaction, information flow and decision making. Organizations struggle to address situations that are precarious, explanations that are equivocal and paradoxical, and cognitive dilemmas of all kinds. This creates a demand for innovative approaches in sensemaking. Since agility is what is required in navigating complexity, we can call these new approaches ‘agile sensemaking.'” —Bonnita Roy

Working in complex environments requires constant sensemaking, connecting outside the organization with the work being done inside. Increasing awareness of new ideas, methods, and processes often comes through serendipitous encounters outside the workflow. Radical innovation can appear here. Radical innovation only comes from diverse networks with large structural holes, according to Steve Borgatti. This is why our social networks cannot also be our work teams, or they become echo chambers. In our work teams we can focus on incremental innovation, to get better at what we already do. This is collaboration. Communities of practice then become a bridge on this network continuum.

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out on the edge

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Last month in Berlin I gave a keynote at the Landing Festival entitled, It’s your Network, Stupid. I explained that to find new ideas and information, loose social networks are best. Weak social ties enable us to find a wide variety of information and ideas, often relatively quickly using networked technologies. In this way a diverse social network can yield a lot of information.

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the random organization

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“Post-industrial work is learning. Work is figuring out how to define and solve a particular problem and then scaling up the solution in a reflective and iterative way – with technology and alongside other people.”
“The future of work has to be based on willing participation by all parties, and the ability of all parties to protect their interests by contractual means.” —Esko Kilpi

This week I had the privilege of co-presenting a session on the future of work and the role of learning to the EMBA students at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership. Esko Kilpi told a story of visiting an Amazon warehouse and how tubes of toothpaste would arrive in a large crate and then individual tubes would be placed randomly throughout the warehouse, wherever there was room. Using RFID, the computer system knew where each tube was located. This random network of objects, instead of all similar types being grouped together, reduced order fulfilment time by about 70%. Esko explained that random networks are actually more effective at making connections. This reminded me of Dave Weinberger’s book, Everything is Miscellaneous.

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fifty percent

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The dominance of men over women in society has been going on for a long time. I have suggested that our primary communications media have influenced this gender-based power shift, proposing that electric communications in networks are redistributing some power back to women. While the written and print forms of communication favoured men, oral societies were often matriarchal. It may be that electric communications will favour women, promoting what have traditionally been seen as feminine leadership traits. The deep past of our oral societies may help guide us into the future.

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bias thwarts innovation

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My recent blog post on our future is networked and feminine has had more online attention than any other post I have written in the past two years. I was even asked to change the title, something that has never happened before. For me, the topic is not new, and I have presented these ideas to live audiences many times. I just wanted to get the ideas written out and the references linked. It is a fact that many of our current institutions and workplaces are not favourable to women.

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