Rapid Idea Improvement

Rapid Idea Improvement

By Bart VanderhaegenBusiness
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Rapid Idea Improvement episodes

  • Episode 8: Pactify is a system for distributed problem solving, but what does that mean ?

    What is it ?

    • Organisations are problem solving systems
    • Everyone, at any moment, is doing something that is aimed at making progress (be it creating knowledge or executing knowledge to solve a problem)

      • You now have options for organising problem solving

      • Option 1: The role in the hierarchy determines the problem you are expected to solve
        • There is a specific one-on-one link between who should solve the problem and the kind of problem that is solved
        • Option 2: Distributed problem solving - no one-on-one link between between who solves the problem and the kind of problem

          • Option 1 has a problem

          • It’s impossible to separate problems into the exact domain of responsibility of every separate individual
            • Problems have dependencies with other people’s domain of responsibility
            • So far so good, then we just create combined teams ?
            • Another problem: it’s not by combining people into teams that they will also consider this a combined problem and certainly not a combined solution
            • Consequence: they’ll get stuck. They cannot just add their respective solutions on top of each other. There will be new problems when you do this … problems of inconsistencies, costs that are too high, inefficiencies …
            • So you need to work on those tradeoffs
            • But that is typically not done … we escalate or we give in
              • We let them have it … or we let the people above uw decided
              • So the real problem of option 1 is that the problem is NOT solved anymore in cooperation
                • So that we may miss crucial knowledge from one of the 2 parties in the solution
                • So that we may miss important knowledge if the decisions are made at higher levels where there is less information to make that decision, and less time to make the decision

                  • So how does problem distribution work?

                  • Define a relevant problem & team that will need to create more cooperation to solve it
                  • Start a specific process … to keep the problem solving optimal and at the same place
                    • Avoiding that the problem gets solved elsewhere or without the relevant contribution of every party in the solution
                    • Managing optimum knowledge growth and cooperation to do so
                      • Drivers: communication, autonomy, transparency, flow and group flow

                      What are the obstacles for it to work well ?

                      • Problems can be taken away from those teams and solved elsewhere
                      • Timing may be too short for optimum knowledge growth to kick in
                      • No facilitation in the teams when it’s need for more balanced and aligned knowledge creation

                        • Pactify has a specific approach for "distributed problem solving"

                        • A platform
                          • A single one
                          • With transparency on problems, how they relate to each other and what solutions are being developed for them
                          • A process with a facilitator
                          • A hierarchy that is willing to use power to keep the process going and not stop somewhere half way
                            • … willing to “keep the problem solving down into the organisation”


                              • For more info, please visit: www.pactifymanagement.com

                              24 min
                            • Episode 7: What is emergence ? And why is it relevant for organisations

                              Emergence is a complex property of a physical system. A physical system can be anything from a bunch of atoms& molecules interacting together, up to organisations where people act and interact together as a system.

                              In the case of organisations, the components of the system can be roughly divided into

                              1. The people (and their competences, talent, personalities, ...)
                              2. The rules of how to work together (e.g. the objectives& goals, governance: who decides what, roles & responsibilities, reporting and metrics, ...)

                                3. Now,  what are the kinds of emergent properties over time ?

                                1. The knowledge that is created among those people (i.e. to achieve a goal or solve a specific problem)
                                2. The behaviour that is exhibited to create that knowledge

                                  3. Why is this relevant and interesting (for managers) ?

                                  • The emergent phenomena (knowledge and behaviour) are the ones that determine success or failure !
                                  • But they cannot be understood/ explained/ predicted/ affected through only focussing on the components (the people & the rules to work together) !

                                    • For more info, please visit: www.pactifymanagement.com

                                    13 min
                                  • Episode 6: What software platform to use for your implementation program?

                                    What software platform to use for your implementation program?


                                    You have 2 types of populations in a transformation program:

                                    • The high level people: who need aggregated, consolidated views on progress of the transformation (to make decisions)
                                    • The low level people: people in project teams executing the work, who need detail, structure and clarity in their tasks and progress

                                      • The question is: How do we organise reporting/ transparency in both populations, through what kinds of software platforms ?

                                      As always: happy to hear comments and criticism ;-)

                                      Enjoy

                                      Bart

                                      For more info, please visit: www.pactifymanagement.com



                                      21 min
                                    • Episode 5: How do we know what we know? And why is that relevant for organisations?

                                      How do we know what we know? And why is that relevant for organisations?

                                      In this episode I touch upon a aspect of epistemology (the theories about how we create knowledge, grow knowledge and spread knowledge), namely the different potential sources of knowledge:

                                      1) Authorities

                                      2) Faith

                                      3) Observations

                                      4) A problem you start from

                                      Happy to hear your criticism

                                      Enjoy ! 


                                      For more info, please visit: www.pactifymanagement.com

                                      12 min
                                    • Introduction to the Pactify podcast

                                      Hello,

                                      This is the intro episode of a podcast I am starting up about management, behaviour and knowedge creation.

                                      Hope you like it

                                      Cheers

                                      Bart

                                      For more info, please visit: www.pactifymanagement.com


                                      2 min

                                    About Rapid Idea Improvement

                                    From the publisher's feed

                                    A podcast about the theory of knowledge applied to all fields that interest me (management, economics, physics, ...). My attempt at understanding & applying the ideas of Karl Popper (and his…