Copyright Ken Thompson 2009 The Networked Enterprise: Cultivating a Virtually Agile Research & Engineering Enterprise Ken Thompson [email protected]

Copyright Ken Thompson 2009

The Networked Enterprise:

Cultivating a Virtually Agile Research & Engineering Enterprise

Ken [email protected]

Creating a Virtual Center of ExcellenceNASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA

May 1, 2009

mailto:[email protected]



The Strategic importance of becoming a Networked Enterprise (Virtually Enabled)

My Hypothesis:

The most successful enterprises in the future will share 4 key characteristics:

1. Agility

2. “Requisite Variety”

3. Networked and Connected

4. Virtual (1. not co-located, 2. using VT, 3. virtual resources)


Stage IDistributed Partnering Enterprise

Stage IIVirtual Enterprise / Network

Stage III Virtual Technology

Stage IV Virtual Working

Practices

Stage VVirtual Worlds

?

A Maturity Model for The Networked Enterprise


The Networked Enterprise:Stage I

Distributed / Placeless / Partnering Enterprise:

Working with people, some of whom you may never meet, with different professional cultures, practices and reporting lines.

The biggest Risk is “Free-Riding”

“You still need a place to eat, greet and meet”Professor Charles Handy, London Business School


Distributed / Placeless / Partnering Enterprise:The demise of co-location, command & control

A Networked Enterprise is a new form of team – a Bioteam: a team with a life of its own

5 Criteria for a bioteam: (www.bioteams.com)

1. The group is not co-located and may only occasionally meet physically

2. No single channel (e.g. email or web) suits the communications of the entire group

3. The group has fluid and/or complex structures

4. There is no unified point of command

5. The group has to be formed via an incubation process


The Networked Enterprise:Stage II

Virtual Enterprise / Network: The enterprise is in fact a network!

“The new enterprise will be defined less by its boundaries or assets, and more as a nexus of data relationships, business process interfaces

and intellectual capital.” VEN Group, UK, 2004.


1. BOUNDARY

3. NERVOUS SYSTEM

2. PROCESSES

4. EXTERNAL COMMMUNICATIONS

“a cell is a membrane-bounded, self-generating, organisationally closed metabolic network; that it is materially and energetically open, using a constant flow of matter and energy to produce, repair and perpetuate itself; and that it operates far from equilibrium, where new structures and new forms of order may spontaneously emerge, thus leading to development and evolution.”

Fritjof Capra “The Hidden Connections”, 2002

12

3

4

“a living system is “ a self-organizing network whose only products are itself”

Maturana and Varella on Autopoiesis

The enterprise is a network!Networks have membranes not walls


The Networked Enterprise:Stage III

Virtual Technology: The key technologies which enable and enhance networked enterprises

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

Arthur C. Clarke, English physicist & science fiction author (1917 - 2009)


Virtual Technology

Web2.0 = An Amazing abundance of useful (& useless) software


Virtual Technology: Social Software

7 key types and 5 key uses to Network your Enterprise

• Blogs

• Micro-blogging

• Social Networking

• Wikis (and Lightweight Workspaces)

• Virtual Communities

• Social Bookmarking

• Social Network Analysis (SNA)



1. Engage internal communities for social Glue

The Virtual Watercooler and Organizational Serendipity



2. Engage internal communities for knowledge management

Internal wikis - excellent for capturing and searching knowledge

Social Bookmarking - great for sharing useful web resources

Sometimes knowledge management is more about finding the who than finding the what

Think of the organization as a very big, very smart collective brain – you need to be able to ask “it” questions

In times of strategic change leadership is more about finding the best questions than finding the best answers



2. Engage internal communities for knowledge mgt, sharing and discovery

Should the banks pay the bonuses?



3. Engage internal communities for better project management

The power of weak ties

Mark Granovetter’s famous 1973 paper “The strength of weak ties” identified two basic types of relationship, Weak and Strong Ties.

Strong ties - very good for getting work done, usually in small tightly bound groups. But, such teams are not generally known for their skills at listening and responding to signals from, and the changes in their external or customer environments.

Weak ties (hubs or connectors) - very good for listening and sensing, - not great for getting things actually done. Hubs are also vital for ensuring the team gets early warnings in time to use them:

• Customer Hubs• Technical Hubs (e.g. get the IT dept. to do short-order favors) • Social Hubs (who know the team’s temperature) • Organizational Hubs (connected to the company grapevine)


www.netmapanalytics.com


3. Engage internal communities for project management

Use SNA to determine:

•Hubs or bottlenecks?

•Who are the key partners for teams?

• What are the key external relationships?

• Does anyone hold these – how strongly?

• Are the right people holding them?

• How can we manage them systematically?



4. Engage external communities to develop Community Advocacy

NASA is a wonderful brand….

….in fact much more than a brand – a social object

So what if ….we thought of NASA… as a band or team?

1. Who are the key external communities?

2. Who are the existing passionate external advocates (fans) in these communities who would love to be empowered?

Open Star Swarm

Closed Peer Swarm

Closed Star Swarm

MyBand (Fans)

MyBandPRI (The Band)

Closed Peer Swarm

MyBandVIP2

Closed Peer Swarm

MyBandVIP3

Closed Peer Swarm

MyBandVIP1• Web Site Widgets• Imported Lists• Known Fan Invites• Short Code Joins• Peer Invites

Are also members of and can broadcast to

MyBandVIP (Top Fans)

FansFansFansFans

Fans Promoted to VIPs

Are also members of and can broadcast to

Also get invited to

Each VIP Member (or Band Member) can have own swarm


Create an Architecture for Advocacy


3 Communities you must nurture

Virtual Professional Communities (VPCs): an association of individuals (typically knowledge workers) explicitly pursuing an economic objective identified by a specific knowledge scope. aims at generating value through members’ interaction, sharing and collaboration.

Open Innovation Networks“No longer can companies win the innovation arms race from the inside-out (internal R&D). They should, instead, buy or license innovations (e.g., patents, processes, inventions, etc.) from external knowledge sources, turning the table to outside-in innovation. In turn, internal inventions should be considered for taking outside the company through licensing, joint ventures, spin-offs, and the like”. Peter Fingar, BP Trends Sept 2007

Enterprise Development NetworksThe essential value proposition for Enterprise Development Networks is to connect small start-up and early stage businesses into virtual support networks, underpinned with practical team collaboration practices and technologies. These networks give them access to the same skills and resources they would have if they were developing as part of a much bigger enterprise.


5. Engage external communities for Resourcing & Innovation


The Networked Enterprise:Stage IV

Virtual Working Practices: Team, Project and Relationship practices when people can’t co-locate or be “commanded and controlled”

“Technology may be necessary but it is certainly not sufficient to become an effective networked enterprise”

“A fool with a tool is still a fool” – popular UK saying


Networked Enterprises need new thinking skills… From Linear Thinkers to Systems thinkers

We are poor at anticipating time-delayed consequences of actions

“One basic error accounts for all the catastrophes: none of the participants realized that they were dealing with a system in which, though not every element interacted with every other, many elements interacted with many others. They conceived of their task as dealing with a sequence of problems that had to be solved one at a time. They dealt with the entire system not as a ‘system’ but as a bundle of independent mini-systems.” Professor Dietrich Dorner “The Logic of failure”

“Why do they (we) think in this short-sighted way? The reason is simple: it is a hardwired part of our Palaeolithic heritage. For hundreds of millennia, those who worked for short-term gain within a small circle of relatives and friends lived longer and left more offspring. The long view that might have saved their distant descendants, required a vision and extended altruism, instinctively difficult to marshal.” Professor Edward O. Wilson, Harvard


Networked Enterprises need new thinking skills… From Linear Thinkers to Systems thinkers

Business Development Effort

Member Recruitment Effort

Network Development Effort

Opportunities to Bid

Members

Network Capital

Contracts Won

Win Rate

DecisionsLeading Indicators

Lagging Indicators

Natural Decays

Success Accelerator!

Inductees

Delay

Delay

The basic system dynamics of a VENExplosing Espoused V In-use Mental models

Thompson, K., “A Management Flight Simulator for Virtual Enterprise Network Incubation”, 10th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising, ICE2004 Seville, Spain, June 2004

Improves


Networked Enterprises need new decision-making skills… The way a team decides to decide is one of the most important decisions it makes!”

“Why Teams Don’t Work”

Leader Decides

(Dictating)

or

The Wisdom of Crowds

(Averaging)

or

Collective Intelligence

(Delegating)


Networked Enterprises need Exceptional Collaboration Skillse.g. “3 Greens” Practice – the mathematics of Fairness

3 Questions everyone should ask and answer for themselves at the end of each collaborative meeting:

1. Did it work for us all?2. Did it work for me?3. Does it feel fair? Imagine three parties A, B and C that individually can achieve x, y and z respectively

and R is the result of them collaborating:

A 3-Greens collaboration produces 3 outcomes:1. A collective outcome that is greater than the individual player outcomes combined.

R > x+y+z 2. A better individual outcome for the majority of the players and a worse outcome

for none of them. RA > x & RB >y & RC > z

3. Perception among the participants that the individual outcomes are all in proportion and fair. RA RB RC

3-greens Rule:R > x+y+z & (RA > x & RB >y & RC > z ) & (RA RB RC)


The Networked Enterprise:Stage V

Virtual Worlds:From Vanilla Sky to Turing Test

“In the learning organization of the future microworlds will be as common as business meetings are in today’s organizations.”

Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline.

“….only do things in 2nd life you can’t easily do in your 1st life”

Second Life web Site


Learning technologies have not yet delivered their potential

A lack of Authentic social experience?

For example, UC-Berkeley philosophy professor Hubert Dreyfus (“On The Internet”) talks about the need for eye contact and risk in any pupil-teacher relationship and its absence over the web.

In his view:

"distance learning will produce only competence, while expertise and practical wisdom will remain completely out of reach"


Learning technologies have not yet delivered their potential Too little emphasis on experiential learning?

http://www.ldu.leeds.ac.uk/ldu/sddu_multimedia/kolb/kolb_flash.htm


The future of Organization learning and Strategy Development An Exciting Convergence of 3 Key Components

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games

(MMORPGs)

Management Flight Simulators

(MFS)

Online / Offline Communities

Physical Environment / Space

Virtual RealityExperiential Learning


Example: Embedding An MFS/Virtual Community in a MMORPG

3D Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games

(3DMMORPGs)

Management Flight Simulators (MFS)

Rigorous Systems Languages

Management Dashboards

•Profiles / Avatars•Immersive UI / Scenes / Backgrounds•Views (e.g. 1st v 3rd) and Game Types•Digital Assets (videos etc)•Teams/ Rewards/ Levels / Scores

Online / Offline Communities

•Messaging/Teams/•Game to Player•Admin to Player

•Inter Player•Player to Team•Inter Team


A 3D Microworld (e.g. inside Second Life)

Lobby & Room Map

Overall Operations Control Room

Library & Training

Observatory Competitive Intelligence

Region 1 Room

Region 2 Room

Region 3 Room

Game Scenarios

Config

External FactorsSetup

New Scenario

Devel

RESTRICTED ACCESS FLOOR

STRATEGY FLOOR

OPERATIONS FLOORS

HR Room R & DRoom

SalesRoom

Supplier Room

Materials Room

Investors Room

LIFT Teams Work Here

Game Admin Only Here

Everyone Enters Here


New Metaphors for serious gamesMaintain thine Satisfied Customers lest the firmament riseth up and smites thee

Revenue(Altitude)

Customers(AirSpeed)

Innovation(Direction)

Quality(Direction)

Cash Flow(Fuel)

Profits(Attitude)


Stage IDistributed / Non-Physical Enterprise

Stage IIVirtual Enterprise / Virtual Capacity

Stage III Virtual Technology

Stage IV Virtual Working Practices

Stage VVirtual Worlds

?

The Evolution of the Networked Enterprise (Virtually Enabled)

Documents

Copyright Ken Thompson 2009 The Networked Enterprise: Cultivating a Virtually Agile Research & Engineering Enterprise Ken Thompson [email protected]