In honor of Robert M. Pirsig’s, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, let’s have a Chautauqua on quality and value how we’re measuring it. We’re part of an AntiFrAgile organization if we’re measuring the right stuff. Are we measuring the right stuff? I’ll share some philosophy and experience to start our discussion. We’ll use a polling tool to make the discussion interactive, participatory, and allow you to share your stories and experience.
Building Real-Time Data Pipelines: Stream & Batch Processing workshop Slide
How do you know you are delivering value agile day twin cities 11-17-2017 with poll results
1. How do we know we’re delivering value,
quality, and having a beneficial impact?
Presented by Kevin Burns
@
Agile Day Twin Cities
November 17, 2017
@kevinbburns, kburns@sagesw.com
1
9. 9
Robert M. Pirsig September 6, 1928 – April 24, 2017
@kevinbburns, kburns@sagesw.com
10. 10
And what is good,
Phaedrus,
And what is not good –
Need we ask anyone to
tell us these things?
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11. 11
The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and
head and hands, and then work outward from there. - Robert M. Pirsig
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12. Is value determined by delivery on time, on budget, and on scope?
Are they using everything we delivered?
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Is the scope delighting the customer?
@kevinbburns, kburns@sagesw.com
13. Assumptions
Challenged?
3 things we wish were true
• Customers knows what they want
• Developers know how to build it
• Nothing will change along the way
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3 things we have to live with
• Impact isn’t known until software is
used in production
• Developers discover how to build it
• Many things change along the way
@kevinbburns, kburns@sagesw.com
14. How transparent is
your org today?
Transparency leads to…
• Accountability
• Psychological safety
• Creativity
• Innovation
• Opportunity
• Ideas
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25. Business resilience isn’t only about innovation and money, it’s also
about social and environmental responsibility.
Does society see us as having a socially redeemable pursuit?
Are we behaving ethically?
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26. Building an ideal work environment
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29. Didactic and binary
challenge
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• Esthetic vs Classical
• Artistic vs Technological
• Subjective vs Objective
• Metaphysic vs Scientific
• Methos vs Logos (myth vs logic)
• Mind vs Matter
• Dialogue vs Rhetoric
• Plutonic vs Socratic
• 0 vs 1
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30. Quality is no longer The Problem…
Analysis is The Problem
The problem is with logic and rational thought.
In order to be able to reason, we need to be able to define things.
Without definition, we can’t reason.
If we can’t define Quality, we have a problem with Analysis.
30Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance page 196. @kevinbburns, kburns@sagesw.com
31. What do you see?
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey
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33. 34
Social economics and unconventional wisdom change the game.
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34. Is Quality subjective? Is Truth Relative? Are Facts
Alternative? Is News Fake?
35Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance page205-223.
“Does this undefined ‘quality’ of yours exist in the things we observe?” they asked,
“Or is it subjective, existing only in the observer?”
Therefore, quality is just a fancy name for whatever you like.
Is what we like truly subjective or has it been programed by society?
Quality is neither subjective nor objective. If it’s defined by the Observer, where did
the observer get his/her thoughts…from society?
It’s monism. It’s above mind and matter.
@kevinbburns, kburns@sagesw.com
35. Are you purposely
injecting chaos into
your environment
to see how resilient
it is?
36@kevinbburns, kburns@sagesw.com
38. If I had an hour to solve a problem
and my life depended on the
solution, I would spend the first
55 minutes determining the
proper question to ask, for once I
know the proper question, I could
solve the problem in less than five
minutes.
Albert Einstein
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44. Indirect Feedback
Methods
• A/B Testing
• Progressive Testing
• Click-through rates
• Abandonment rates
• Conversation rates
• Net Promoter
• Social media
• 3rd party data (Nielsen, Gallup, LexisNexis, etc)
45@kevinbburns, kburns@sagesw.com
45. Be careful about
what you think
you’ve learned
• What people say they would pay, isn’t
what they would actually pay.
• What a user says they want and what
they actually need (or want) are two
different things.
• Users and buyers aren’t always the
same person.
• Users are very different (as are buyers)
• 70% of IoT innovation is stuck in POC
46@kevinbburns, kburns@sagesw.com
46. 47
It’s the unknown unknowns and
epistemic arrogance that kills
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47. 48
Can we learn from our experience and
focus on the signal in the noise?
Bad science is 70% behaviorally based
Half of all scientific research isn’t trust worthy
Lies – Damn Lies - Statistics
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48. Pirsig’s Scientific Method
1. State Problem,
2. Hypothesis cause of problem,
3. Design Experiments to test hypothesis,
4. Predict results,
5. Observed results, and
6. Draw Conclusions.
The real purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn’t
misled you into thinking you know something you don’t actually know.
49Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance page 93. @kevinbburns, kburns@sagesw.com
50. 51
It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say,
"Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.
- Robert M. Pirsig
@kevinbburns, kburns@sagesw.com
52. User, Customer, Client
Business
Valuable
Design Usable
Software EngineeringBusiness Sponsor
Technically
Feasible
Do you have the right balance to deliver Quality, Value, & Innovation?
Quality
Innovation
Value
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53. Do you have the right balance?
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56. How to measure anything – Douglas Hubbard
http://www.howtomeasureanything.com/
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57. Measurement Basics
• A measurement is an observation that quantitatively reduces uncertainty.
• A good object of measurement is something that is clearly defined and it’s observable.
• Uncertainty is the lack of certainty: the true outcome/state/value is not known.
• Risk is a state of uncertainty in which some of the possibilities involve a loss.
• Much pessimism about measurement comes from a lack of experience
• Your problem is not as unique as you think.
• You have more data than you think.
• You need less data than you think.
• An adequate amount of new data is more accessible than you think.
Douglas Hubbard
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58. Select a measurement
method
59
To figure out which category of measurement
methods are appropriate for a particular case, we
must ask several questions:
1. Decomposition: Which parts of the thing
are we uncertain about?
2. Secondary research: How has the thing
(or its parts) been measured by others?
3. Observation: How do the identified
observables lend themselves to
measurement?
4. Measure just enough: How much do we
need to measure it?
5. Consider the error: How might our
observations be misleading?
@kevinbburns, kburns@sagesw.com
59. Conclusion
• Customers don’t always know what they want
• People don’t buy features they buy benefits
• The value you’re offering isn’t unique…it is evaluated in terms of it’s relationship
to what they already have, know or use (substitution cost)
• People will buy your product at a price commensurate with perceived benefits
received at a cost lower than your competitor or some other substitution cost
• Given this, how fast can you find-out whether you’re on the right track
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60. Questions
&
Next Steps
• How many of us know what
business/user outcomes and impacts
we’re trying to achieve?
• Do we have the right people and
metrics in place to evaluate our
progress as well as how successfully
we’re achieving the outcomes and
impacts we’re intending?
• Who want’s help creating some
objective measures?
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