Showing posts with label Points of View. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Points of View. Show all posts

April 6, 2015

A 2-Year Campaign Cycle

So campaigning for the Presidential election, still quite some time off in November 2016, has already begun in earnest in Washington, D.C.

With roughly 600 days to the election, we are going to be spending a lot of time and money leading-up to this thing. 

Are you excited about all the lead up and electioneering?

The Chicago Tribune did an interesting comparison of the U.S. and U.K. in this regard.

In 2008, the U.S. spent $1.7 billion on the campaign (and you can be sure this number is continuing to go up, up, and away) versus roughly $33 million imposed on each major party in the U.K. and an election announced in April for May--one month! 

While you can argue that one month is too short for such a major decision for a country...do we really need 20+ months and billions in media advertising to communicate the candidates' points of view and to coalesce around our next President?

Perhaps spending more time actually accomplishing things for the country and it's people during a President's tenure would be a far better focus of our national attention and efforts than an near endless cheer of ra ra ra sis boom ba yay candidate!  ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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May 4, 2013

When Requirements Go Awry

You may have seen this before--it is a great comic strip on how requirements can go awry. 

When you look at how product or service requirements look from each person's vantage point, it is easy to see how they can be misunderstand, misinterpreted, or misrepresented. 

Getting clarity of the tire swing before we start can save a lot of wasted time, effort, and money on building contraptions that no one wanted or needs. 

Get the business and technical requirements spelled out in as much detail as possible from all parties; document, document, document; and have the customer approval and sign off on these. 

Build to specification, on time, and within budget and make sure it meets the operational mission needs and strategic vision of the organization. 

(Source Photo: here with attribution to tamingdata.com)
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Walking On Rocks

The first few times when I started hiking, I had this paradigm that I had to walk between the rocks--sort of like hopscotch--then I realized that I could walk on them.

For a long time, I had heard about how thinking within the box constrains our thought processes and innovation. 

It was interesting for me to see this in action just by the way I initially viewed a basic skill like hiking. 

The paradigms we use to view the world alter what we think and do, and only when we break out of the proverbial box we are in, can we really see and be open to other ways of being and doing things.  

You can walk between the rocks or you can climb over them--whatever works best for you--just be open to seeing things in many different ways.

No one way is necessarily better than another--they are just different and each useful in their own time and place. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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April 24, 2011

Brain Sharing is Eye Opening

This is a neat video and idea from GOOD called "Brain Sharing" by Lincoln Schatz.

The idea...what if we could plug in to someone else's brain and see the world the way they do (for a period of time) or as they say in the video "swap CPUs"?

(This is a little reminiscent of the Borg from Star Trek, where species are plugged into the Collective and become sort of one ultimate race or similarly in the movie the Matrix, where people are plugged into a master computer program that runs their world--although here it's not an ominous context.)

But back to the point--what a powerful concept.

Rather than see things the way we see them, and think that's the way it is, period; instead we temporarily plug into someone else's brain (bionic implants away!) and whoa, we have the opportunity to see the world the way others see it and process the world the way they do--that is eye opening!

All of a sudden, things are not quite so simple. It's not black and white, as they say, but lots of shades of grey.

Of course, I still believe that there is objective ethics and morality from G-d for us to live by and therefore we can distinguish right from wrong, which we are often are forced to chose.

However, when we are seeing choices through others persons eyes and processing through their brains, we may see the problems anew with different variables and effects as well as see new options for solving them that we didn't even see before.

That's a great thing about being a diverse society and bringing multiple views, vantage points, and brains to the table--we can innovate together beyond the limitation of any one of us alone.

This isn't necessarily a new concept, but still one that is very important, often forgotten, and one well captured in this GOOD video.

P.S. Maybe an interesting exercise is to think about make a list of whose brains you'd like to share for a while (if only you could) and see the world the way they do.

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March 22, 2009

Why We Miss the Planning Mark

We’ve all been there asking why we missed the signs while others saw them head-on and benefited in some way. This happens with financial investments (e.g. I should’ve sold before this recent meltdown like my good buddy did), business opportunities (e.g. I should’ve opened up a chain of coffee stores like Starbucks before Howard Shultz got to it), military strategy (e.g. we should’ve seen the attacks on Pearl Harbor and 9-11 coming and been better prepared to try and stop them) and other numerous “should’ve” moments—and no I’m not talking about that” I should’ve had a V8!”

Why do we miss the signs and misread information?

Obviously, these are important questions for IT leaders, enterprise architects and IT governance pros who are often managing or developing plans for large and complex IT budgets. And where the soundness of decisions on IT investments can mean technological superiority, market leadership and profitability or failed IT projects and sinking organizational prospects.

An article in MIT Sloan Management Review, Winter 2009, provides some interesting perspective on this.

“Organizations get blindsided not so much because decision makers aren’t seeing signals, but because they jump to the most convenient or plausible conclusion, rather than fully considering other interpretations.”

Poor decision makers hone in on simple or what seems like obvious answers, because it’s easier in the short-term than perhaps working through all the facts, options, and alternative points of view to reach more precise conclusions.

Additionally, “both individual and organizational biases prevent…signals from getting through” that would aid decision making.

How do these biases happen?

SUBJECTIVITY: We subjectively listen almost exclusively to our own prejudiced selves and distort any conflicting information. The net effect is that we do not fully appreciate other possible perspectives or ways of looking at problems. We do this through:

  • Filtering—We selectively perceive what we want to and block out anything that doesn’t fit what we want to or expect to see. For example, we may ignore negative information about an IT investment that we are looking to acquire.
  • Distortions—Information that manages to get through our mental and emotional filters, may get rationalized away or otherwise misinterpreted. For example, we might “shift blame for a mistake we made to someone else.”
  • Bolstering—Not only do we filter and distort information, but we may actually look for information to support our subjective view. For example, “we might disproportionately talk to people who already agree with us.”

GROUPTHINK: “a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas.” (Wikipedia)

“In principle, groups should be better than individuals at detecting changes and responding to them. But often they are not, especially if the team in not managed well, under pressure, and careful not to rock the boat.”

Interestingly enough, many IT investment review boards, which theoretically should be helping to ensure sound IT investments, end up instead as prime examples of groupthink on steroids.

Concluding thoughts:

If we are going to make better IT decisions in the organization then we need to be honest with ourselves and with others. With ourselves, we need to acknowledge the temptation to take the simple, easy answer that is overwhelmingly directed by personal biases and instead opt for more information from all sources to get a clearer picture of reality.

Secondly, we need to be aware that domineering and politically powerful people in our organizations and on our governance boards may knowingly or inadvertently drown out debate and squash important alternate points of view.

If we do not fairly and adequately vet important decisions, then we will end up costing the enterprise dearly in terms of bad investments, failed IT projects, and talented but underutilized employees leaving for organizations where different perspectives are valued and decisions are honestly and more comprehensively vetted for the betterment of the organization.

If we shut our ears and close our eyes to other people’s important input, then we will miss the planning mark.


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