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Nudge theory: influencing empowered teams to do the things that matter to you Sarah Wells Principal Engineer, Financial Times @sarahjwells

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@sarahjwells Hello

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@sarahjwells 1. The challenge 2. Nudge theory 3. Influencing teams at the FT

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@sarahjwells 1. The challenge

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@sarahjwells Need to be able to try things out and take risks

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@sarahjwells We don’t have time to wait for a decision

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@sarahjwells We don’t have to build it right to find out if it’s the right thing

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@sarahjwells Continuous delivery means we can get this stuff out there in days

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@sarahjwells Being able to do stuff quickly is great!

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@sarahjwells “You build it, you run it”

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@sarahjwells Great for building stable well-monitored services

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@sarahjwells I’m not going to support it if someone forced me to do it wrong

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@sarahjwells One size does NOT fit all

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@sarahjwells BUT…

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@sarahjwells What happens when the project finishes?

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@sarahjwells What’s it like to move teams?

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@sarahjwells What about higher level goals?

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@sarahjwells For the good of the company • Security • Cost control • Operability • Support

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@sarahjwells For the good of the people • Recruitment • Career growth/learning • Ability to switch teams

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@sarahjwells 2. Nudge theory

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@sarahjwells –David Halpern, ‘Inside the Nudge Unit’ “a ‘nudge’ is essentially a means of encouraging or guiding behaviour”

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@sarahjwells Attractive to governments!

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@sarahjwells US government

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@sarahjwells – https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/15/executive- order-using-behavioral-science-insights-better-serve-american “A growing body of evidence demonstrates that behavioral science insights … can be used to design government policies to better serve the American people”

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@sarahjwells UK government

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@sarahjwells The “Nudge Unit” now employs 70 people in London, New York and Sydney

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@sarahjwells Data-driven

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@sarahjwells Some examples

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@sarahjwells Schiphol airport

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@sarahjwells – https://worksthatwork.com/1/urinal-fly “Sphinx, the urinal manufacturer that provides the toilets for Schiphol, says that having the fly in the toilet represents savings in cleaning costs of 20% or more”

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@sarahjwells UK organ donation register – http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/publications/applying- behavioural-insights-to-organ-donation/

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@sarahjwells In one year, would mean ~ 96,000 additional registrations

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@sarahjwells Travel during the London 2012 Olympics

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@sarahjwells 62 million journeys during the Olympics – 35 per cent above normal

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@sarahjwells – http://content.tfl.gov.uk/olympic-legacy-personal-travel-report.pdf “Across the two weeks of the Olympics, more than three quarters of the London travelling population made some sort of change to their travel patterns as a result of the Games and just 23 per cent continued to travel as normal.”

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@sarahjwells – http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/did-the-olympics-give- cycling-a-boost-31296 “the government’s Ride to Work scheme … leapt in popularity after the Olympics, with a 30% increase in uptake in the third quarter of 2012 compared with 2011.”

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@sarahjwells So - how do you influence behaviour?

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@sarahjwells If you want to encourage a behaviour, make it:

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@sarahjwells Easy • Reduce the ‘hassle’ factor of taking up a service • Harness the power of defaults • Simplify messages

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@sarahjwells Attractive • Attract attention • Think about the incentives

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@sarahjwells Social • Show what other people are doing • Use the power of networks • Encourage people to make a commitment

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@sarahjwells Timely • Pick the right time • Offer immediate costs and benefits • Help people plan behaviour in advance

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@sarahjwells Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely (EAST) – http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ BIT-Publication-EAST_FA_WEB.pdf

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@sarahjwells 3. Influencing teams at the FT

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@sarahjwells Developer tooling: then and now

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@sarahjwells FT Platform

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@sarahjwells Lots of decisions made for you

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@sarahjwells Didn’t collaborate with their end users

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@sarahjwells ‘Forced’ upgrades

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@sarahjwells – matt.chadburn.co.uk/notes/teams-as-services.html “pick the best value tools for the job at hand, be they things developed and supported by internal teams or external to the company.”

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@sarahjwells Internal teams no longer have a captive market

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@sarahjwells But they should have all the advantages

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@sarahjwells Tools and APIs over platforms

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@sarahjwells “Look at this! And here’s how easy it is to use”

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@sarahjwells Defining what it means to build a system

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@sarahjwells “Your system is expected to be stable, secure and well monitored”

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@sarahjwells “If you as a project choose new technologies, either you do overnight support or you provide enough documentation and handover for first line to be happy doing so”

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@sarahjwells Define what you want, not how to do it

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@sarahjwells “It should be possible for a new developer to get their development and deployment environment set up in 20 minutes”

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@sarahjwells The Engineering Checklist

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@sarahjwells Checklists are great

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@sarahjwells Github web hook

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@sarahjwells “Your web application health check should look like this”

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@sarahjwells Communication

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@sarahjwells Good things get around

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@sarahjwells Graphite and Grafana

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@sarahjwells Circle CI

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@sarahjwells Giving people information

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@sarahjwells Programmatic checks for standards compliance

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@sarahjwells FT AWS tag standards • team • environment • stopSchedule • etc…

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@sarahjwells Tagbot: checking AWS tags and terminating instances that don’t comply

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@sarahjwells If no-one is doing the thing you want them to - it’s your problem

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@sarahjwells You need to be willing to discuss things (e.g. github user names)

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@sarahjwells How does this relate to Nudge theory again?

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@sarahjwells Easy: a reminder • Reduce the ‘hassle’ factor of taking up a service • Harness the power of defaults • Simplify messages

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@sarahjwells Easy: • Checklists • APIs • Example code, client libraries

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@sarahjwells Easy: • Supporting self-service • Customer service: dedicated slack channel, status pages, helpful error messages, feedback mechanisms

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@sarahjwells Attractive: a reminder • Attract attention • Think about the incentives

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@sarahjwells Attractive: • Showing how this will make their life less painful • Making clear the value that team and the FT as a whole get from doing it

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@sarahjwells Attractive: • Information in places people look at • Great documentation, screen shots, demos

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@sarahjwells Social: a reminder • Show what other people are doing • Use the power of networks • Encourage people to make a commitment

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@sarahjwells Social: • Show how other people are doing on this measure • Agreeing on when a team will tackle something

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@sarahjwells Social: • Showing off about stuff - lightning talks, demos, explainer sessions, posters • Getting client teams to talk about how easy/useful it is

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@sarahjwells Timely: a reminder • Pick the right time • Offer immediate costs and benefits • Help people plan behaviour in advance

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@sarahjwells Timely: • Telling people what they are going to need to do and when • Frequently and via lots of mechanisms

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@sarahjwells Timely: • Telling people what’s coming next • Talking to customers and doing things for them proactively

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@sarahjwells 1. The challenge 2. Nudge theory 3. Influencing teams at the FT

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@sarahjwells Teams that make their own decisions can move faster

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@sarahjwells But you can end up with a proliferation of approaches

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@sarahjwells Provide a good solution and teams will use it

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@sarahjwells EAST can help to nudge the teams towards that solution

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@sarahjwells Thank you!