Sensemaking applications for agile, combining qualitative & quantitative metrics by daniel walsh nu cognitive slides

@danielwalsh
Sensemaking Applications for Agile
Combining Quantitative
and Qualitative Metrics
Daniel Walsh
#Agile2017
Orlando, FL
@danielwalsh

@danielwalsh Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved.2 CC BY-SA 3.0 Storyteller doll by Rose Pecos-Sun Rhodes
Sensemaking is a form of
distributed ethnography
Make sense of situations in
order to take effective action
Draws on concepts from
anthropology, cognitive
science, & complexity theory

@danielwalsh
Get the system to
describe itself…
don’t try and interpret it.
-David Snowden
3 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved.

@danielwalsh Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved.4
Qualitative
Narrative
Share a short
experience or
observation
Make sense of patterns using stories to
gain insights and develop action plans.
Quantitative
Analytics
link narratives to metadata
by answering questions
sensemaking
workshops
deploy safe-to-fail
interventions
Analyze trends and
weak signals across
many storiesSensemaking

@danielwalsh
What Lean and Agile
principles are correlated
with business results?
Is it possible to measure
the effects of middle
managers resistant to
change (i.e. permafrost,
marshmallow)?

@danielwalsh
Title: Tyranny of the urgent continues to
reign in middle management
“I spent about 4 hours last week pulling
together a proposal for assigning a dedicated
team room for 3-4 months to a group I am
coaching. I figured out the business process to
request the room put together a presentation
and even ghost wrote an email for the second
level manager to forward to the admin of the
space. The second level has been sitting on it
for a week. I know he is busy but…”
Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved.6
Share a specific observation or experience that
gives you hope or concern for the future of the
company.
Which attributes are present and needed or
lacking but needed based on what you shared?
Present
& needed
Lacking
but needed
What was the overall effect on business based on
what you shared?
negative positive
neutral

@danielwalsh
Stories where respect for individuals was lacking but needed also had negative
effects on business.
People were able to read the stories to help understand why
Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved.7
According to participants, these attributes were lacking but needed…
Effect On Business

Position a maker within the triangle where you feel it best describes the session. The
closer the X to any one corner, the stronger that statement describes the session.
Good Delivery
Good
Content
Good
Environment

Attitudes towards change in the story were…
keep as is enthusiastic
thoughtful
keep as is enthusiastic
thoughtful
Effect On Business

@danielwalsh
Employee and Management Alignment
Position a marker based on the level of support or opposition for the main theme of the story for
yourself and your manager.
strong
support
strong
opposition
me
my
manager
strong
support
strong
opposition
me
my
manager
Misaligned Aligned

@danielwalsh
One Measure of Permafrost
Employee and
Manager Alignment
Attitudes towards
change were…
thoughtful or
enthusiastic.
keep
as is.
Misaligned Aligned

@danielwalsh
One Measure of Permafrost
Employee and
Manager Alignment
Attitudes towards
change were…
thoughtful or
enthusiastic.
keep
as is.
Misaligned Aligned
Measure of progress is
shifting stories over time

@danielwalsh
Interventions
Employee and
Manager Alignment
Attitudes towards
change were…
thoughtful or
enthusiastic.
keep
as is.
Misaligned Aligned
How do we get
more stories like these and
fewer stories like those?

@danielwalsh
Lessons Learned
Results
• Hard to ignore stories
• Detect troubling weak signals
• Quantify and measure a complex adaptive system without
knowing what success looks like in advance
Methodology Challenges
• Framework design: too long, survey overload, iteration needed
• Collection: champions and work processes over mass marketing
• Analysis: Convenience sampling - Do we have sufficient evidence
in order to act?
• Interventions and Feedback: continuous capture vs. one-time
pulse + sponsorship

Sensemaking applications for agile, combining qualitative & quantitative metrics by daniel walsh nu cognitive slides

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