Grokking the org

@mikelaurie - follow me on twitterM

GROKKING THE ORG

An attempt to make sense of the curious behaviours of big organisations

Mike Laurie

@mikelaurie - follow me on twitterM #SDinBiz #Grok

Andrew is in the queue at Sainsbury’s.

His card is blocked by a fraud detection algorithm blocked his card.

Monique calls a mobile telco to set up a new contract.

She gets cut off after 45 minutes of conversation.

When she calls back, she needs to go through the whole process from scratch.

Anji just moved house, so she changed her address with the bank.

Months later she notices that she’s no longer receiving mail from the bank.

After calling them, she realises they’ve misspelled the name of her street.

Today's problems come from yesterday's solutions.

Problems are not the problem; coping is the problem

Virginia Satir

Frontline coping tends to favour the service provider, not the customer.

Anatomy of a blueprint

WHAT CUSTOMERS EXPERIENCE

BACK OFFICE INTERACTIONS

IT SYSTEMS

WHAT THE CUSTOMER SEES

WHAT EMPLOYEES DO

SCARY TECHNICAL BITS

WHAT EMPLOYEES DO

None of this tells us WTF is really going on.

Anji just moved house, so she changed her address with the bank.

Months later she notices that she’s no longer receiving mail from the bank.

After calling them, she realises they’ve misspelled the name of her street.

Jay ForresterIn general, the difficulties of an organisation arise not from outside influences (as almost all of us would like to think), rather than what we do ourselves.

What is the biggest obstacle to the success of your business?

The economyCompetition in the market

Not being able to increase prices/feesRed tape

Taxation, VAT, PAYE, National Insurance, business ratesCash flow

RegulationsLate payment

Obtaining financeRecruiting staff

Shortage of skills generallyAvailability/cost of suitable premises

Shortage of managerial skills/expertisePensions

No main obstacle0 0.045 0.09 0.135 0.1815%0%1%2%2%3%5%5%6%6%7%8%8%11%18%

self-serving bias

systems dynamics notation

water flow

water levelinformation

desired water level

flow(controlled by a

policy to achieve a goal)

feedback

WHAT YOU SEE ISALL THERE IS

Daniel Kahneman

If you want to understand the purpose of the system to customers, don’t ask the

business, observe what the system does.

tree growth

livingtrees logging

treedeaths

lumberinventory customers

sales oflumber

plant seedlings

nursery

sell seedlings

My mental model of… The London Log Company

My mental model of… Spotify

customers

song requests

spotifyaudio

server

song streams

spotifymerchant account

spotifyinvestors

subscriptionfees

artists

labels

transferrights

streamingroyalties

royalties

dividendpayments

spotifyengineering

Spotifyaccounting

salarypayments

platformimprovements

uploadmusic

Modelling examples

Insight Maker TfL Escalators MIT Sloan Simulations

Why do any of this?

• Gain a shared understanding across functions • Prototype new operational models • A better understanding of where to intervene • New frames for old problems • Anticipate possible unintended

consequences

Some patterns & theories

Constraints control performance

SALES 50 ADVISORS

1K NEW LEADS

PER WEEK

CLIENT MEETINGS

REPORT WRITING

PRODUCTS SOLD

CAPACITY: 35 HOURS PER WEEK

INTUITIVE HEURISTICS

“when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, without noticing the substitution.”

Daniel Kehneman

BIKESHEDDING

AKA Parkinson’s Law of Triviality

MULTIFINALITY

Organisations don’t have a single purpose, they participate in a value exchange where all parties benefit

Ludwig von Bertalanfy

customers

song requests

spotifyaudio

server

song streams

spotifymerchant account

spotifyinvestors

subscriptionfees

artists

labels

transferrights

streamingroyalties

royalties

dividendpayments

spotifyengineering

Spotifyaccounting

salarypayments

platformimprovements

uploadmusic

Marketing Legal IT HR Finances

CONWY’S LAW

Theory X Theory Y

dislike work don’t want responsibility

must be coerced require supervision

are intrinsically motivated accept responsibility require little direction

solve problems imaginatively

Assumes that employees…

Didactic Dialogic

CUSTOMERS

SERVICE

DEMAND

FAILURE

DEMAND

VALUE DEMAND V.S. FAILURE DEMAND

The failure to do something right first time for the customer leads to unnecessary

demand

John Seddon, Vanguard

Feedback loops

“I never decide if an idea is good or bad until I try it.”

Rick Rubin.

Thanks

hit me up - mikelaurie@gmail.com

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