ramez naam. a book in progress i want your stories, examples, feedback mez@morethanhuman.org...
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Ramez Naam
A Book in Progress
I Want Your Stories,Examples, Feedback
mez@morethanhuman.orgtwitter: @ramez
BoingBoing?
How to Sabotage the Enemy
Munitions
Factories
Communications
Organizations
Sounds a Lot Like…
Life in a Big Business
For Example
Sabotage Technique #1
Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
Follow the Process
Sabotage Technique #3
When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
Committees
Virtual Teams
Shared Accountability
as Sabotage
Sabotage Technique #7
Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
CYA
Sabotage Technique #8
Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
Mind Your Business
Follow Orders from Above
Reminds Me of…
Why is this funny?
Stereotype
Committees, Process, Big Companies
Slow
Cumbersome
Dumb
Does it Have to Be that Way?
Our Heroes
A Conundrum
Is There Room?
In a Big Organization?
Lone Ranger
Maverick
Change Maker
Is it even a good idea?
What I think:
Yes and Yes
Sometimes
Today
Structure an Organization
Encourage Change and Innovation
Be an Effective Change Maker
From the Bottoms Up
Story
Evolution
of Ideas
Distributed Computing
Using Humans…
Wisdom of the Crowds
Inside an Organization
Descends from History
Twentieth Century
Distributed Systems
Beat Top-Down Systems
Economics
Markets outperformed
Command Economies
Governance
Democracycreated more happiness than
Authoritarianism
The Wisdom of Crowds Beat
Wisdom of the Party, King, or Committee
Smarter Than
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Why Do Western Businesses Look Like Communist States from the 70s?
Three Problems with Top Down
1. Slow
2. Information Gets Distorted
3. Lost Brainpower
How Do We Get Out of This?
Three Pillars
1. Distributed Autonomy & Bias for Action
2. Darwinian Evolution of Ideas
3. Sliding Scale of Self-Determination
1. DISTRIBUTED AUTONOMY & BIAS FOR ACTION
Organization: A Network of Brains
Mainframe Model
Distributed Computing Model
Tight Information / Action Loop
Rapid Cycle Time
Logic Embedded at the Edge
Bias for Action
Three Ingredients for Local Autonomy
1. Goals are Clear to Everyone
2. People are Empowered
3. Clear, Simple Decision Making
CLEAR GOALS
If the People on the Edge
Know Where You’re Going
They Can Row in that Direction
On Their Own
If they Don’t
Good Luck
Value of the Top
(CEOs, VPs, Managers, etc..)
Clearly Articulate a Direction
and
Reasons Behind It
SIMPLE LINES OF DECISION MAKING
Question
How Many People Can Say “Yes?”
How Many Can Say “No?”
Committees Bias Towards “No”
Mythical Man Month
Communications Overhead
Grows with the Square of the Number of People Involved
2 People – 1 Connection
3 People – 3 Connections
4 People – 6 Connections
5 People – 10 Connections
10 People – 55 Connections
N2 – N2
N = Number of Nodes or People
Overhead =
Applies to Decisions
Difficulty of Decision Making
Is N2 with Number of People
As Number of Stakeholders Increases
Odds Any One Person Can Say “Yes” Decrease
Number of People Who Can Say “No” Increases
Large Decision Bodies
(mostly ) Inherently Conservative
If You Want Nothing Done
Create a Committee
Or Spread Ownership
If You Want Things to Happen
Empower Individuals
or Self-Organizing Groups
of Like Minded Individuals
How do you Prevent Mistakes?
Hire Great People
Trust Them
Create Sandboxes
Where Failure is Okay
From Which You Can Learn
Use Science!
Use Data, Metrics, Experiments
Empower
Objective
Transparent
Example: Live Search Relevance
http://www.live.com
Engineers Create & Submit Experiments
Experiments are Evaluated on Metrics
Like
Comparison to a “Truth Set”
User Click Rates on Results
All Automated
Anyone Can Run an Experiment(within reason)
If an Experiment Improves on the Key Metrics, It Ships
Very Little Opinion Involved
Result
Everyone on the Team
Knows What to Expect
Is Empowered to Improve the Site
Regardless of Level, Title, Rank
Rapid Problem Solution Cycle
Find a Problem?
Or an Opportunity?
No Need for This
Just Fix It
Fast
Efficient
Empowered
Uses that Distributed Brainpower
2. DARWINIAN EVOLUTION
Ideas
Information
Patterns
Most Valuable Thing
In the World
Layout of that Page
Can Double Revenue
Or Cut it In Half
Just a Bit of Pattern
No Extra Cost or Resources
Huge Impact on Success
Other Patterns
Assembly Line
Germ Theory of Disease
Graphical User Interface
HTML & HTTP
Information and Ideas
Primary Source of Growth
Modern Company
Among Other Things
Idea Creation Machine
Pattern Creation Machine
To Get the Best Ideas
Harness All Your Available IQ
Create Lots and Lots of Ideas
(Most of them Bad)
Test Them
Scientific Method
Darwinian Method
Capitalist Method
Rule of Thumb
Highest Paid Person in the Room
Will Usually Be Wrong
Compared to Experiment
Trust Data
Trust Customers
Trust Results
More Than Management
More than Your Own Ideas
Layout Picked by Darwin
Thousands of Experiments
A Word of Caution
Pick the Right Metrics
Short Term Success
Can Reduce
Long Term
Revenuevs.
Customer Satisfaction
If You Need To
Mix of Metrics
A Word of Pragmatism
No Metric is Perfect
Keep Improving Them
Don’t Get Paralyzed
Right Direction
Good
Keep Making it Better
Invest
Ability to Experiment
Good Metrics
Rapid Innovation
Sandboxes
3. LIMITED SELF-GOVERNANCE
Embrace Democracy
Give Employees a Vote in:– Peer Evaluation– Immediate Management
Why?– They Know Things
Management Doesn’t!– It Will Make them Happy
Embrace Democracy
Requires Right Incentives– Employee Compensation
tied to Team Performance
– Can’t Just Vote for Boss Who Will Let You Slack!
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Shift the Conversation
Away from “How”
Towards “Why”
How?Implementation Details
“move this line of code here”
What?Deliverables
“add fault tolerance to our checkout system”
Why?Motivation
“lost items from shopping cart is our #2 customer complaint”
Why?Metric for Success
“Lost item complaints drop by 80%”
Shift the Conversation Up
How
What
Why
“What’s the goal?”
“What problem are we trying to solve?”
“How important is this problem?”
“How do we measure success?”
Build a Shield
How
What
Why
Clarify
Why?
Organize
How
What
Why
Lead
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