Q18 How Can SM Drive Agility?

[Julian Keith Loren]

Thanks for the opportunity to kick-start the conversation. It's a real honor and pleasure, and I'm looking forward to gaining some further insight from all of you tomorrow!

First a little fuel ...
"Framing Blog Post"
Social Media and Agility: Is there a Link? http://ow.ly/nDNP

... And then the topic for the broader conversation:
Q18: What role can SM play in increasing Agility (Agile Innovation, Business Agility, Agile Development, etc.)? How?

Looking forward to our discussion tomorrow!

All the best,

Julian

[ajmunn]

This looks to be a great topic Julian. I am glad I have read your framing blog post and I urge everyone else to do the same. It is a good launch pad and will ensure we are all talking about the same things, well... at least initially.

Social media, like traditional marketing is a broad topic, covering many organizational functions. There is a tendency for people to only concentrate on the most visible elements of social media which are, more often than not, PR based. Focusing today's chat on agility is a most welcome and refreshing divergence. Thanks for the work you have put into this.

[PaulEllisUK]

Hi Julian

Firstly I think we should all agree to accept your description of 'agile' as the delimiting scope for the chat - I for one have a tendency to be quite broad and inclusive in my approach to 'labels' and 'trends' and rather focus on the demonstrated charecteristics rather then definitions. As such your framing blog clearly describes the characteristics you are associating with agility.

Secondly, I think there are perhaps a few areas we could focus our discussion on;

1) How could/ does a multi-partite input process aide agility - (pseudo brainstorm)
2) Could an SM debate accelerate the vetting / idea sifting process to improve quality of initial course setting and subsequent course correction - thus driven more efficient decision making and resource utilisation?

Another idea I have been toying with is whether you can explore possible scenarios / simulated decision paths with SM before actual execution - the challenge here is, as ever, protection of innovative ideas. However the process of thought models / experiments for simulation is a powerful tool for agile strategy.

[Julian Keith Loren]

Thanks, Alasdair. Yes, I'm really looking forward to discussing SM from this angle. I'll be a few minutes late, but will join in as soon as possible.

[Julian Keith Loren]

Paul, I'm working on integrating a SaaS business process platform with a SM platform to create a next-generation, collaborative ideation / innovation / co-creation solution that serves the entire innovation cycle. If that business process platform supports ad-hoc / dynamic process modification, then the final platform would certainly support the kind of collectively-refined simulated decision flows that I think you're referring to.

If the innovations are part of a large cluster of mutually-reinforcing innovations (which is what you typically have for a complex innovation initiative), then you don't have to worry too much about people running with the individual ideas. Outside of the larger context, those ideas are unlikely to go very far. Apart from simple product innovations, most lone ideas don't "have any legs" by themselves.

I'd definitely love to discuss this further with you. It also sound like something that Andrew Townley would be interested in and some of his projects might dovetail in nicely.

[Chris Jones]

Sorry we had to pull the plug on SMCHAT yesterday, delays were ranging from 3m to 30m !! No way to have a convo in those circumstances. Many have asked & offered to keep the convo going here via threaded discussion, to give us a running start for Q18 LIVE on 9/9. Looking forward to getting your thoughts ..

[Julian Keith Loren]

Sinan "Si" Alhir (Twitter: @SiAlhir) wrote a great posting that goes into more detail on the essence of Agile. http://tinyurl.com/kuh95m

The Agile patterns that he discusses might also be a good point of departure for further discussion on how social media can support Agility.

Another good reference point might be the four short "relative value" statements of the Agile [Software Development] Manifesto:
http://agilemanifesto.org/

Looking forward to Wednesday!

All the best,

Julian

[Chris Jones]

Great conversation today, 9/9. Here's what I have on my notes. Please feel free to amend w/ any corrections, updates, or questions .. let's keep our thoughts on "SM & Agility" up to date here.

Q18a. AGILITY & SM Definitions
- context: multi-functional business benefits, as driven by SM
- time to market, time to value (@jkloren)
- optimizing outcome, minimizing waste
- not being reactive, has a negative connotation (@ajmunn)
RT @hacool "Agility requires us to plan in advance, so we know who reacts to what, when"


Q18b. Course Correction
- more quickly shift direction, learn on the fly
- don't want to rely upon restrospective alone (@ajmunn)
- trigger (1): access w/ near real-time data & up to date info (@ajmunn)
- trigger (2): input from reliable, authoritative source (@hacool)
- scope creep a potential issue (@uyendang)
- time and priority allocation are issues
- risk of changing course TOO quickly; need control systems in place (@joekikta)
- understanding of tools to monitor (@stevencorush)
- is "faster" enemy of "better"? (risk of trade-off) - possible future topic
RT @ajumn "agility is not about reacting, it's about having the ability to make informed decisions - knowing to act or not is key"
RT @amysbryant "Need an agile personality to carry out SM plans & adjust those plans when listening requires change"

Q18c. Crowdsourcing & Vetting
- focus groups, pulse of customer (@hacool)
- targeting group or community is part of social media
- there is a certain bias (@joekikta)
- need to manage bias, or is that part of the value?
- see dichotomy: general public vs. pool of SME's (@sourcepov)
- have to avoid reliance on a narrow funnel (@ajmunn)
- levers (structure): framing, makeup of crowd & back end evals (@renee_innosight)
- is it possible to self-organize? - possible future topic
RT @hacool "It depends on the tools, if crowd is open, then you must judge which opinions are most accurate/relevant/reasonable"

Q18d. Ideation & Brainstorming
- structure adds value
- diversity & interdisciplinary ideas (@amysbryant)
RT @keithprivette "If an internal capability, imagine the possibilities; I can !"
RT @joekikta "More ideas from wider range of people has to be good, right? Esp gov"

Q18e. Simulations, Idea Testing
- prototyping, taking ideas for "dry run"
- SME's as alpha testers (controlled environment)
- public as beta testers

Q18f. Finding SME's
- finding target groups quickly: hashtag (themes), search (keyword)
- Twitter, better than most .. serendipitous aspect

Again, please update w/ any and all inputs, including your top RT's; I'm sure there are some good ones I missed !! Chris 9/9 p.m.