Krystal Webber is the Global Design & Strategy Leader at IBM Blockchain Services. She helps her clients understand how blockchain might solve their business problems in a way that maximises benefits in the shortest amount of time. In this podcast she shares her deep experience in blockchain network design from a governance, business value and technology design. A must listen for anyone looking to launch and scale a blockchain network.

 

What is blockchain?

Krystal calls answering that question her “blockchain party pitch”.

In today’s world we do business with each other. Where two companies, who have a business relationship, will each keep a record of the work they do together. From time to time records don’t match up. This can create disputes which are both time consuming and frustrating.

Blockchain is about having a shared set of records where both parties agree on the correctness of records before they get written onto that shared ledger. Once you have a trusted shared set of records you can start to automate business processes on top of it.  With consensus you have records which are valid, true and trusted. Encryption ensures that the whole blockchain is super secure.

 

What is design?

Design means a lot of different things to different people, from graphic design, to fashion design or how things look.  The Oxford English Dictionary definition of design is the “purpose, planning, or intention that exists behind an action, fact, or material object.” Said another way, design is the intent behind an outcome. Design is about being intentional.

Krystal and her team when they think about design what they are thinking is “what is it that we're trying to achieve? And how do we strategically and intentionally achieve that?”

 

What is a blockchain network design?

There are three elements to a blockchain network design:

* Governance design - is the strategy and the operational model behind a business network.

* Business value design – is the monetization strategy that is underpinned by an incentive strategy which allows the realisation of revenue, efficiencies or savings from the network. It’s also about stimulating collaboration between members to creating network effects.

* Technology design – creating digital products that are human centered, easy to use, scalable and stable on the back end to reach the business objectives for that network.

What is important to understand is that these three elements are very interrelated. So, decisions made in one work stream really impact decisions made in another work stream.

 

Governance design

At IBM they use an acronym called BOLT which stands for: Business, Operations, Legal and Technology. They believe that when looking at governance you need to look at it from those three areas.

 

Business from a governance perspective

This begins with the network of intent where the aspiring network have to answer the questions of “why are you here?”, “Why do you exist?”, “What are you trying to accomplish in the marketplace?”  Then there are questions on the “network model”. “Are you trying to be differentiated in the market?”, “Are you creating some level of market utility?”, “Are you trying to create an entire new market?”.

Answering these questions will provide the strategic direction when looking at governance design, business value design and technology design. It will also influence the branding of the platform, sales, recruitment, adopt and what’s going to get participants to join the platform.