Michele Macready's Blog

The convergence of complexity and technology

A few weeks ago, I wrote about businesses, governments, and other organizations as Complex Adaptive Systems.  Why is this important now, when complexity science has been around for many years?

I’ll start with a quote from Steven Hawking, who said back in 2000, ‘I think the next century will be the century of complexity’.  I agree with him, because technology and society have only recently converged with the science of complex adaptive systems, and now we can leverage this convergence to solve problems in entirely new ways.

Complex adaptive systems are adaptive, dynamic, self-organizing systems, where the results emerge from the interactions of the agents or individuals in the system.  I started studying these systems and using complexity science to solve problems for Fortune 500 companies about 10-15 years ago, to model adaptive supply chains, develop distributed and self-organizing org structures, and model adaptive behaviour on stock prices.  But 10-15 years ago, Google had just recently been incorporated, and we had no Facebook, Twitter, social media, or smartphones, so we were not connected globally the way we are now.  Fast-forward to today, where there are 5B cell phones, and we can connect instantly with people we have never met from around the world using social media and online games.  There are many examples of self-organizing systems today as a result of this global connectivity:  for example, think of the role of mobile and social networks in Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, and how gamers recently solved a complex science problem in record time.  

What if we merge this with the latest thinking on innovation, such as crowdsourcing, open innovations, and recombinations of existing ideas?   And also the latest thinking in gamification and the power of online games to solve real-world problems, so that we are encouraged to play and work together to solve complex problems in new ways?

I believe that studying this convergence is the next step in modelling businesses and governments, and might help us solve complex problems in new and interesting ways.  Here is a thought experiment for you: what if cities and businesses used a few lessons from complex adaptive systems, and started incorporating a few of the following ideas:

• Encouraging real innovation from everyone, by removing the rules and red tape that get in the way of innovation.  Instead, focusing on setting a few simple rules, and ensuring the delicate balance between order and chaos. (If there are too many rules in a complex system, the system will stagnate; but if there are not enough rules it will fall into chaos: so we need to set the right rules and watch for the resulting emergent behaviours).
• Understanding that we are not always in control, and that complex adaptive systems are not always predictable.  If we are dealing with a complicated system, then using a command and control leadership style might work fine; but in complex systems, we should consider using distributed and emergent leadership styles instead, where we encourage self-organization, set simple rules, and watch for the emergent behaviours that result.
• Encouraging experimentation and risk-taking where appropriate; we may need to prototype, test, learn, and cycle through this process until we find the big idea or new innovation.
• Encouraging solutions from everyone and everywhere, and using the latest thinking on gamification to let people connect and play to solve big problems themselves.
• Using technology to spread ideas fast and to encourage more ideas and solutions.

We might have better ways of innovating and solving difficult problems for governments and businesses if we looked at the problems and solutions through the lens of the convergence of complex adaptive systems and technology.  

Innovation is a state of mind

Where do innovative ideas come from?  How can organizations and individuals become more innovative?  This is an ongoing question in organizations large and small, from business, to government, to high-tech start-ups.  My experience and research in this area have taught me a few things about innovation.

First and foremost, innovation is a state of mind.  You cannot just walk into a brainstorming meeting with no preparation and all of a sudden start to innovate.   Instead, you have to change your way of thinking, and look at innovation as something that you do every day, as part of your daily life.  Here are a few tips on how to do this:

• Practice asking questions instead of immediately coming up with solutions. 
• Keep up with the latest innovations in your industry, but also branch out and find out what is going on in other industries or technologies.  Innovations often come from using existing technologies or solutions in a different way or in a different industry, or recombining multiple existing innovations.
• Encourage your inherent curiosity about the world around you.  Go to new places, go to events or conferences about industries or technologies that are not directly related to your area, and connect with a diversity of people.
• Ask yourself what you can learn from everyone you meet: ideas often are generated from a chance encounter.
• Take a tour (in-person or virtual) of a company in a different industry, and see what you can apply within your organization.
• Start an Ideas Notebook (on your tablet or smartphone so it is always with you): take note of any ideas that you have every day.  Thomas Edison had 3,500 of these ideas notebooks throughout his life.
• Pay attention to the environment and time of day when you are most creative: many people get their best ideas on a walk, or in the shower.
• Play and be visual with your ideas: draw a picture, or build a working prototype.

Innovation is a life-long learning process, and if we truly want to be innovative, we have to learn and play and question every day.  Fortunately this is also a lot of fun, and once you get started, you may find that it becomes a way of life.

Exercising your innovation muscles

Most of the start-ups, social enterprises, and large global companies that I work with, want to be more innovative.  That leads to an interesting question: How are innovations generated?  Is it through the work of a lone genius, with the storied ‘A-ha’ moment?  Is innovation a personality trait that some people have and some people don’t, or can we all learn to be more innovative?

Throughout my career I have spent time working with innovators in science, technology, and business, and I have found that innovation is a skill that can be developed over time.  It takes work and daily practice to be innovative.  Imagine this:  Thomas Edison kept 3,500 idea journals throughout his lifetime.  What if we all started doing this every day - what new innovations could we come up with, if we treated innovation as a lifetime skill that we had to practice and work at, every day?

If you want to learn about some exercises that you can do, to exercise your innovation muscles, check out the book The Innovator’s DNA, by Clayton Christensen, Jeff Dyer, and Hal Gregersen.  It lists the 5 traits of innovators, and has practical exercises that you can do every day to bring innovation into your daily life.

Here is a very brief summary of the 5 skills listed in the book, that are important for innovators.  Each of these skills has an associated list of exercises that you can do, to exercise your innovation muscles in these areas:

• Associating:  This is where most innovations come from: recombining two existing ideas to get a third unique idea.  
• Questioning:  Asking the right questions is more important than generating solutions, especially early on in the process.  Ask questions and be inquisitive every day, and see what you can learn.
• Observing:  Look around you and pay attention in life, and see what new ideas come from this simple process.
• Networking:  Connect with a truly diverse group of people, through personal meetings, attending conferences, and searching out others with diverse backgrounds.  
• Experimenting:  Build and test your ideas as quickly and as inexpensively as possible, as there are great lessons to be learned by doing this.

Businesses as complex adaptive systems

In my prior blog post, I talked about Complex Adaptive Systems.  These are adaptive, non-hierarchical, self-organizing systems, with robust emergent properties, where simple rules can lead to very interesting emergent results.  It’s time to take this a step further and see how this can help you in your business, technology project, city, or other organization.

Let’s start with an example:  Google set a simple rule a few years ago, encouraging their engineers to spend 20% of their time working on any company-related idea they find interesting.  This led to many unexpected and innovative results: GMail, Google News, and the Google shuttle bus all originated from this simple rule.  Setting simple rules and letting the system self-organize, resulted in many interesting and profitable ideas.

If you think about your business, technology project, city, or other system as a Complex Adaptive System, you will find many interesting insights.  By setting simple rules and letting the system self-organize, you will get many innovative ideas generated from the periphery of your organization.  By creating connections and encouraging feedback, you will get adaptation.  And since we live in a world where business and technology are changing at light speed, we need our businesses and cities to adapt very quickly.

We need to understand that we cannot predict the future if we are dealing with a Complex Adaptive System.  We still need to plan and manage, but we also need to create an environment where the system can adapt on its own.  Micro-managing a complex adaptive system does not create predictability.  Instead, we need to experiment, fail, experiment more, learn, and adapt.  

The time to do this is Now.  Technology is distributed, we are all connected, and innovations are emerging from everywhere.  There are over 5 Billion mobile phones, on a planet of 6 Billion people.  Social media, social games, gamification, and mobile are connecting us as never before.  If we learn how to leverage these connections, and how to adapt to a rapidly-changing world, we will be much better prepared to handle an unpredictable future.

I’ll end with a great quote from Eric Young in the book Getting to Maybe: “We can have no certainty about what the future will be.  It is not a good time for control freaks.”

What do birds have to do with business?

I’ll answer that question by asking you two more questions…  Have you ever seen a single bird fly into a window?  Most of us have.  But… have you ever seen a flock of birds fly into a window?  I doubt it.  This is because flocks of birds are much more adaptive to their environment than individual birds, and they can quickly respond to most obstacles and changes in their environment.

Flocks of birds also have other interesting characteristics.  The dynamic and intricate pattern that you see when a flock of birds flies overhead, is done without a management hierarchy.  There is no lead bird micro-managing the other birds and telling them all where to fly.  

The individual birds self-organize by adhering to a few simple rules. This self-organization leads to unpredictable results; you cannot predict the specific patterns that will emerge, but the behavior is adaptive and highly robust.  

This is an example of a Complex Adaptive System.  Let’s contrast this with a complicated system: a complicated system is brittle, predictable, and hierarchical.  Large production lines are complicated systems.  They require detailed planning and control, and they are designed for predictability.  

Complex Adaptive Systems are NOT complicated: instead, they are adaptive, non-hierarchical, self-organizing, with robust emergent properties: simple rules can lead to emergent results.  

So, why should you care about this?  Because Complex Adaptive Systems are excellent models for most high-tech companies, start-ups, social enterprises, and even cities.  Applying the lessons of Complex Adaptive Systems can help us build businesses and cities that are more robust, more innovative, self-organizing, and quickly adapt to changes in the environment.  I’ll write more about this in another blog post soon.

7 tips for managing your client relationships

A couple of weeks ago, I was giving a talk to a group of iPhone developers, giving tips on how to structure and deliver services for product companies.  Many of the follow-up questions were about how to manage client relationships, so I thought I would post some tips here.  

Many software product companies start out developing a product, and they sell this product to customers, who are buying a commodity product and don’t need a long-term relationship.  However, product companies often also deliver services projects to clients, and clients require long-term relationships.  Your clients are buying from you because they like you, and they trust that you will deliver.  Successful delivery of a services project requires more than delivery of a working software product: it requires communication, management, and building a long-term relationship. Here are a few tips for building client relationships:

1. Build trust early and often, by delivering to your milestones:  Agree to your project milestones, and deliver to these milestones at all costs.  The best way to build trust is by delivering what you promised.
2. Communicate, communicate, communicate:  A task is not complete until it has been communicated that is complete.  Tell your client what is really happening on the project, on a regular basis. 
3. Address project issues immediately:  Remember that bad news doesn’t get better with time; it gets worse.  If you see an issue on the project that you need help resolving, then tell your client immediately, and get their help in resolving the issue.  
4. Over-deliver when you can:  If you can add in a few small features that have a big impact on the success of your project, do it.
5. Don’t get caught in the email trap: Meet with your client in-person or over the phone as often as you can.  Email is great for sending documents, but not for building long-term relationships.  
6. Relationships are personal:  So take your client to lunch, or meet for coffee outside the office, and get to know them as a person.   
7. Have fun:  Celebrate achievement of your milestones with your team and with your client.  Celebrations can be small, just by acknowledging success in a team meeting or going to lunch, but they are an important tool for building relationships.  

6 ways to simplify your process

Why do so many technology start-ups use overly complex process for delivering technology projects to clients, and for product development?  Sure, large global companies need clear and well-understood processes for communicating between departments, divisions, and locations.  But technology start-ups have a different set of challenges: delivering projects with limited resources, keeping clients happy, and delivering faster, cheaper, and better for their clients.

What if we start with the assumption that the simplest process is the best process?  If a process or tool takes less of the most valuable resources (people and time) and it gets the job done, then this is the process we should use.  With this in mind, here are 6 tips to help you simplify your project delivery or product development processes.

1. Hire the best people:  If you hire the best people, then they will not need overly complex processes and tools.  Just make sure they understand your business goals, and the goals of the project, and let them make it happen.  
2. Let your people pick the process:  If you hired the best people, they will figure out what minimal processes and tools they need to succeed on their projects.  They will also have more ownership of the process, if they had a chance to help select it.
3. Ask yourself why you need this process or tool:  Is it necessary to deliver faster, cheaper, and better for the client?  Or does it help you achieve a company business goal?  If it is not critical for the success of one of these items, then it is wasting your valuable time: get rid of it. 
4. Don’t try to invent it all in advance:  It will be very clear what you need, as you are working on your projects.   Instead of trying to develop or implement the perfect processes and tools in advance, pick a few key items up front, and then select the rest as you go. 
5. Let the process evolve over time:  Encourage your teams to change the processes and tools over time.  if something is working and is critical for success, great, keep using it.  If not, throw it away and try something else.
6. Focus on the client:  Your success is all about your relationships with your clients, and delivering cheaper, faster, and better.  If you hear your teams talking too much about the process, and not so much about the client and the project, then you probably have an over-inflated process.  

Selecting the right mix of products and/or services

If you are working on a product roadmap, or if you are trying to select the best mix of products and/or services to bring to market, you may have struggled to find a quick and easy way to visualize the choices and make the best decision.  I have been using the Business Model Canvas for a few months, and I am finding that it is a great technique for this.  

If you are working with a team, you can start by drawing a blank Business Model Canvas on a white board.  You will complete a separate Business Model Canvas for each product or service idea that you are evaluating.  For each idea, use some post-it notes to get ideas from the group for each item on the canvas (who are your customer segments? what is your value proposition? etc.), and post these on the canvas.  Using post-it notes will help you keep the wording short for each idea.  As you complete each canvas, it will start to become visually obvious which ideas are not worth pursuing, as they will stand out as having poor revenue streams, complex value propositions, lots of insurmountable obstacles, etc.  It will also become visually obvious which ideas are worth pursuing.

I have been waiting for the iPad app for the Business Model Canvas, and it is now available: I have not used it yet, but it looks very interesting.  I will write another post once I have a chance to use this in client situations.

When to throw away the agenda

We are all taught that all of our meetings should have an agenda, the agenda should be sent out in advance, and we should follow the agenda closely.  That’s great for project-based meetings, where you have specific project issues to resolve, or you need to get agreement on customer requirements, or anything where your goal is to resolve issues or get agreement on specific items.

However, if you are facilitating a more strategic discussion, you need to pay attention to what is working and what is not working in your meeting, and throw away the agenda if you are finding better ways of getting to your strategic discussion.  If you are facilitating a discussion on business strategy, product planning, or business plans, you should still start with an agenda, but you have to be agile during the meeting, think on your feet, and be able to change direction.  This means that while you are facilitating, you have to continually think about the end goal of the discussion, and how you can best achieve this goal.  Listen to the content in the meeting, and pursue the path that resonates best with your audience.  

There is a science to facilitation, which is focused on consensus-building, visualization, and change management.  But thinking on your feet and reacting to the audience is the art of facilitation, and the best way to learn this is by doing it yourself, seeing what works for you, and continually learning from the outcomes of your meetings.

Innovation comes from the periphery

If you are working on developing innovative product ideas, you probably grapple with the challenge of innovation.  Where do innovative ideas come from, and how can you bring these in to your organization?  One way to facilitate innovative ideas is through a brainstorming session, to generate innovative product ideas as a group.  If you do this, keep in mind that the most important thing to do in facilitating this session is to invite the right mix of people. If you have the wrong people in the meeting, you will not generate the best ideas, no matter what process you follow for facilitating the session.

You are probably already planning to invite a good mix of people from inside your company, which is a great start.  Make sure you bring in people from several areas of the company, including sales, marketing, product development, and client services, as all of these groups have different customer and technical insights.

But think beyond this too: who can you invite from outside the company? Often the best innovations come from people outside of your field; people who can really think outside the box.  One of the best examples of this is Innocentive: an open innovation and crowd-sourcing platform where leading organizations from NASA to Eli Lilly post challenges, and anyone can post a solution to the challenge, with the best solution earning financial rewards.  Many of the challenges posted on this web site are solved by people in completely different industries.  There are many articles written about the power of crowdsourcing as well.  Think about inviting people with an interest in your space, who are not experts in your field, but who have the ability to think creatively.