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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We don’t have to build it right to find out if it’s the
right thing
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Continuous delivery means we can get this stuff out
there in days
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Being able to do stuff quickly is great!
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“You build it, you run it”
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Great for building stable well-monitored services
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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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BUT…
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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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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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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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Data-driven
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Some examples
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Schiphol airport
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– 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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In one year, would mean ~ 96,000 additional
registrations
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Travel during the London 2012 Olympics
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62 million journeys during the Olympics
– 35 per cent above normal
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– 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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– 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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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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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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3. Influencing teams at the FT
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Developer tooling: then and now
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FT Platform
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Lots of decisions made for you
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Didn’t collaborate with their end users
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‘Forced’ upgrades
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– 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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Internal teams no longer have a captive market
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But they should have all the advantages
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Tools and APIs over platforms
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“Look at this! And here’s how
easy it is to use”
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Defining what it means to build a system
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“Your system is expected to be
stable, secure and well
monitored”
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“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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Define what you want, not how
to do it
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“It should be possible for a new
developer to get their development and
deployment environment set up in 20
minutes”
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The Engineering Checklist
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Checklists are great
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Github web hook
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“Your web application health
check should look like this”
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Communication
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Good things get around
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Graphite and Grafana
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Circle CI
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Giving people information
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Programmatic checks for standards compliance
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FT AWS tag standards
• team
• environment
• stopSchedule
• etc…
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Tagbot: checking AWS tags and terminating
instances that don’t comply
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If no-one is doing the thing you want them to - it’s
your problem
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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
@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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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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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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Timely:
• Telling people what’s coming next
• Talking to customers and doing things for them proactively
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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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Provide a good solution and teams will use it
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EAST can help to nudge the teams towards that
solution