@cyetain
What is the
Value of
Social Capital?
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@cyetain
T
o envision the the types
technology that teams may
reasonably be expected produce
in 5-10 years and to prepare
those teams to envision, create,
produce, and support that
technology.
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@cyetain
WARNING
MAD
SCIENTIST
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The
Human Systems
Project
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@cyetain
Individual systems are purposive,
knowledge and understanding
of their aims can only be gained
by taking into account the
mechanisms of social, cultural,
and psychological systems
-Russell Ackoff
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@cyetain
Psychology helps us to understand
people, interactions between
people and circumstances,
interaction between teacher and
pupil, interactions between a
leader and his people and any
system of management.
~W. Edwards Deming
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@cyetain
Working
Pin
Car
Artifacts
Code
Hammering
Carrying
Thinking
Creating
Work
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Humans
are Rational
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Work != Working != Worker
Pin
Car
Artifacts
Code
Hammering
Carrying
Thinking
Creating
HUMANS
Bounded:
Perception
Understanding
Rationality
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@cyetain
What is Social
Capital?
Short Answer:
An organizations ability to distribute and
leverage TRUST
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Evolution of
Capital
Capital
1700 1850 1950 2000
Human Capital
Intellectual Capital
Social Capital
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The human capital
explanation of the
inequality... people who do
better are more able
individuals;
Social capital explains how
people do better because
they are somehow better
connected...
-Ronald S. Burt
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@cyetain
Social capital can be
measured by the amount of
trust and “reciprocity” in a
community or between
individuals
-Robert Putnam
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Social Capital is the stock of active
connection among people; the trust,
mutual understanding, and shared
values and behaviors that bind the
members of human networks and
communities and make cooperative
action possible
-Don Cohen, Laurence Prusak
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Nature of
Knowledge Work
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Let’s Look at
Some Pictures
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Silently
Say What You See
On The Next Slide
Say it SILENTLY
In your mind
(not out loud)
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Got It?
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Stand up if you said B to yourself
(in your mind)
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Stand up if you said 13 to yourself
(in your mind)
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Kahneman
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Neurosis is the inability
to tolerate ambiguity.
-Sigmund Freud
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GOAL
Current
State
UNCERTAINTY
? ?
of
How
Ambiguous Methods
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Current
State
GOAL
GOAL
GOAL
GOAL
UNCERTAINTY
?
?
of
What
? ?
?
?
Ambiguous Goals
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• Direction can Collapse
Ambiguity
• Ambiguity Makes it difficult
to create a shared vision
• Just because you Know
something doesn’t mean you
can experience it
• Specificity can be dangerous
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The act of creating
value via information
has a temporal nature.
The optimal Methods,
Tools and Individuals
to create value change
as information moves
from local to
distributed
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The advantage created by a
person’s location in a structure of
relationships is known as social
capital.
...The advantage is visible when
certain people, or certain groups
of people, do better than equally
able peers.
-Ronald S. Burt
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n(n-1)/2
n = number of people
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Structural Hole
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The Perf
ormance of OVERL
Y
connected organizations f
alls
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Punctuated
Equilibrium
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Broker
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Three benefits of bridging
structural holes can be expected:
Access to alternative opinion and
practice, early access to new
opinion and practice, and an
ability to move ideas between
groups where there is advantage
in doing so.
-Ronald Burt
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Closure
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The value of a relationship
is not defined inside the
relationship; it is defined
by the social context
around the relationship.
-Ronald Burt
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People strongly
connected are likely
to provide redundant
information.
-Ronald S. Burt
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Impact of Social
Capital
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Information, skill and
knowledge are embedded in
networks and relationships.
Individuals, instead of “owning”
information, attract, translate
and know how to and where to
access to the information that
emerges in the networks around
them.
@cyetain
Change the patterns of
participation, and you change the
organization. At the core of the 21st
century company is the question of
participation. At the heart of
participation is the mind and spirit
of the knowledge worker...
-John Seely Brown
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Conway’s Law
organizations which design systems...
are constrained to produce designs
which are copies of the
communication structures of these
organizations
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Because the design that occurs
first is almost never the best
possible, the prevailing system
concept may need to change.
Therefore, flexibility of organization
is important to effective design.
-Fred Brooks
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Dynamic Teams
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Teaming is a verb. It is a dynamic
activity, not a bounded, static
entity. It is largely determined by
the mindset and practices of
teamwork, not by the design and
structures of eff
ective teams.
Teaming is teamwork on the f
ly.
-Amy C. Edmondson
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It is hardly possible to overrate the value
… of placing human beings in contact
with persons dissimilar to themselves, and
with modes of thought and action unlike
those with which they are f
amiliar. …
Such communication has always been,
and is peculiarly in the present age, one
of the primary sources of progress.
-John Stuart Mill
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Fast-moving work environments need
people who know how to team, people
who have the skills and the flexibility
to act in moments of potential
collaboration when and where they
appear. They must have the ability to
move on, ready for the next such
moments. Teaming still relies on old-
fashioned teamwork skills such as
recognizing and clarifying
interdependence, establishing trust, and
figuring out how to coordinate.
-Amy C. Edmondson
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What Should We
Expect To See?
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Teaming vs
Teams
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Engagement in
Problems thru
Safe to Fail
Experiments
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Distributed and
Diverse
Experimentation
Directly with
Customers
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Focus on
Reduction of
Cycle Time as a
Method for
Mitigating Risk
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Humans can and will
learn if they are
provided the resources
and the necessary
psychological saf
ety.
~Edgar Schein
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Managers (must) adapt to
the ambiguity of flatter
organizations in which
bureaucratic chains of
command were replaced by
networks of negotiated
influence.
-Ronald Burt
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Large Multi Feature Releases
Incremental
Smaller Cycle
Fewer Features
Ideal Single Piece Flow
to the
CUSTOMER
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Many Concurrent
Safe-to-fail Experiments
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Practical
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Focus
Resolution
Distance to Coherence
Tasks
Minimal
Experiment
Intent
Strategy
Product Narrative
Helps to Complete
Which when released will help achieve our
Which supports our
Which helps us realize
Daily
Days
Days
Recurrent
Yearly
Months
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People
Understanding
Interactions
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Model Interaction
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Your Value Stream
is a Linear View of
your Social Network
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Swarms
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By making embodied
experience, skills & knowledge
(both tacit and explicit) available
on demand; structures capable
of dynamic teaming gain
significantly higher resiliency
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Just Say No to Xenophobia
Utilize Abduction
&
Scientific Method
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Multi-Hypothesis
Research
!=
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BRAINSTORM
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Theories
Opinions
Hypothesizes
The Facts and Just
the Facts
@cyetain
Theories
Opinions
Hypothesizes Request More
Information
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@cyetain
How Would I Validate my
understanding of this
problem?
How Would I
solve this
Problem?
•Based on your experiences, what
would you do to solve this
problem? This is your Hypothesis.
•Identif
y What Assumptions Need
to Be T
rue if your Hypothesis is
true.
•Imagine Experiments that would
justif
y the your Assumptions
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This is my Hypothesis,
Assumptions and
Experiments
Challenge
Assumptions &
Experiments
Rotate Pairs 2-3 Times
Allow Time for Revision Between Rounds
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This is my Hypothesis,
Assumptions and
Experiments
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Multiple Smaller Experiments
against
Multiple Abductive Hypotheses
instead of
Single Large Experiment
against
Single Hypotheses
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Knowledge Work
Principles
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Autonomous individuals
and teams are more
engaged in their work.
Therefore they notice and
react to changes in context
which enables innovation
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The distance between
relevant information
and those making
decisions impacts the
quality, efficiency and
timeliness of those
decisions
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Distributed decision
making enable faster cycle
times.
Faster cycle times enable
organizations to take less
“big bet” risks.
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Faster cycle times
result in higher quality
customer interactions.
Resulting in higher
quality software
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Diverse perspectives
allow organizations to
“see around corners”
enabling the innovation
required to solve novel
problems
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@cyetain
David Anderson
Jim Benson
Donald Reinertsen
David Snowden
Staff of TLC
Burt, Ronald
Adam Yuret
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@cyetain
If you want truly
to understand
something
try to change it
-Kurt Lewin