-
Volatility is the permanent trigger of anxiety.
Often reduced to the field of bets like decisions.
As far as business intelligence itself, present and future scenarii appear as "Volatility Inside " simulators.
Changing positions is considered as a must.
Almost a belief. Staying still becomes suspect and perceived as a lack of imagination.
Customers demand and competition are historical drivers of volatility.
Its new face, modern look is boosted by information velocity, driving shifts in financial movements.
Simplification can mitigate or drift part of it.
V as a Value Added materialization ? or evaporation ?
It takes both very detailed views and data and step back global picture snapshots to get a better evaulation of the changes nature.
We open doors together about how to drive effective value and balance the costs of re-alignments.
Showing probabilities about the "true north" location.
Even when moving erratically..
Volatility is almost a given.
At least its own volatility.
No joke.Looking at its own unstability is already the right attitude to imagine soltuions.
It increases another specific set of pressure points and streams put on parts of the organization.
Do we need to come back on our agreement for a test or approval of a solution of previous innovation stage gates bets ?
Does it still apply into the tested scope or should we review all former extrapolation ?
Is it a temporary approval, a suddenly obsolete policy ?
What happens with Roles and Responsibilities ? Is it worth to update for every change ?
Same impact and questions about "Empowerment" level and duration.
May financial warrants be obsolete ?
Volatility leads and quizz : Is it a set of replication of similar and aligned vertical occurences or do we miss a change in direction, a new trend?
Metaphor of the V-suite (Take 1)
Sebastien Zanello, the artist. Copyright 2017.Photo FJ Leconte 2017
Datascience results and insights simplified for business executives?
Did we have enough data, and context understanding, or the right viewpoint to make a fair representation of the business evolution for next quarter.
Even when longer term strategy is clear? Next quarter is the obsession under the shadow of volatility.
Can we decide with so much volatility?
If we come back to the proposal about decision gates illustration, can we be fooled by the shadow of what the new products are supposed to bring as far as features, or value ?
First four bars shows somme kind of beat, a pulse although quite regular change in a trend.
While fifth and sixth are a period of pure flat, growthless era.
Do we have enough data, and context understanding, or the right viewpoint to do anything about it? To act or react.
To speed up and delegate decisions. At very early stages, like gates 1 or 2 of innovation funnels, even in agile development modes.
Problem becoming : how can we mitigate that risk and balance the collateral damages of the direct costs of volatility ? The costs of regular re-alignments and re-work.
Reducing the waste and the insurance costs to face it, with limited and controlled exposure and liability.
Showing some probabilities of the "true north" location or "north star" position or benchmarks, at least meaningful axis and zones.
As it is so insecure to navigate and decide through the uneven flows of winding rapids surroundings.
Moving our drilling machine along the V dimension.
Still not following the acronym order, but pursuing with the first letter.
At first sight, it seems useless to act on volatily within the framework of transformation, and even more when leveraging simplification.It is all about reactivity;Agility;
Like in Plan, Do, Check, Act. Rings a bell ? PDCA is one simple tool able to extract simplicity out of volatity.
Check and Act are the critical steps.
The only simple answer is to reset the pulse of the Check/Act loops.
Because where uncertainty is quite static and longlasting, volatility is all about a given yet unpredictable rapid change, followed by other erratic inflexion, with chaotic pace or so it seems.
It is the point where individuals and sub part of organization can be supported to be set free of frozen attitude.
All VUCA planets aligned for the first time, not for the best.
Metaphor of the V-suite (Take 2)
Proximity of the 2 (V and U) elements requires some practical illustration of the difference within management areas
Volatility hint : What is it ?
Do we have enough data, and context understanding, or the right viewpoint to do anything about it?
To act or react.
Like in Plan, Do, Check, Act. Rings a bell ?
PDCA is one simple tool able to extract simplicity out of volatity.
Check and Act are the critical steps.
The only simple answer is to reset the pulse of the Check/Act loops.
Because where uncertainty is quite static and longlasting, volatility is all about a given yet unpredictable rapid change, followed by other erratic inflexion, with chaotic pace or so it seems.
Soultion is to take some control back by giving clarity to rules for reaction.
It is the point where individuals and sub part of organization can be supported to be set free of frozen attitude.
Solutions do exist : to control the effects of volatility.
With a very natural counterpart and balance by the name and domain of agility gains.
Daily management is a zero cost implementation.
For what ?
For giving a different pulse to collective flash analysis and implementation of tests or solutions.
All about collective time shorten synchronization.
With a goal of clearing ambiguity about who is suppose to take the leadership for the times of high frequency change.
Understanding, deciding, remove clogged gated processes with stressful roadblocks and delays.
At very early stages, like gates 1 or 2 of innovation funnels, cearly in the zone of agile development modes.
So the first step toward the solution is to face the puzzling multiple choices carried into ambiguity parameters.
The solution is a change plan driving a transformation requiring muscles, heart and a collective mind.
A plan identifying the set of 1% individual decidors and all governance instances and visiting and convincing each of them individually and as groups in decision making stages.
Heart and mind are the main focus to make it a real transformation leap and DNA addition.
Set of useful tools to face a large diversity of situation combining V and U.
Lessons learned show clearly that the success factor and winning tactical choice is to give real decision making empowerment closer to the surface of the water level on the rapids streams.
It took us 3 years to change our minds.And find some interesting leads and valuable hacking zones.
Volatility in business undermines and slow down decision making . Minus.
Volatility in governance and in roles&Responsabilitlies increase agility. Plus.
As far as business itself, present and future are heading toward "volatility friendly" eco-systems.
Changing positions is considered as a must.Almost a belief.
Staying still becomes suspect and perceived as a lack of imagination.Long term thinking a weakness.
Practical impact of re-designing active and re-active modes are managed on a daily basis.
Behavior impact is addition to the DNA and culture features.
It is the name of the game in most of the cases.Innovation is all about it, before, during and still long after start up and scale up.
Same as uncertainty, volatility translates into variation in pressure, into each different elements a of the global structure.
It is very disturbing, and a call for strategic inflexion.Up to a complete "pivot".
Also a call to revisit the budgeting timelines and horizon.
Volatility is at work even in very small businesses, early stages, start ups.
Customers demand and competition are historical drivers of volatility.
Its new face, modern look is boosted by information velocity, driving shifts in financial movements.
And simplification can mitigate or drift part of it. Process control is not a difficult remedy to put in place.Quite practical actually.
V as a Value Added evaporation or materialization ?
It is a non mandatory consequence of the acceleration of the flow and pace of innovation.
Especially new categories of products, services, flows, trades and tribes.
Because we do not have background data and baseline for such new value propositions and offers..
....while a necessary maturity step is to go upstream from uncertainty to reveal one of its root cause : volatility .
Metaphor of the V-suite (Take 3)
Volatility is a root cause of Uncertainty. The two are entangled.
Both are also aligned with fed and get a boost from Ambiguity.
Whenever a move from any of the two, it affects the second one. In the same direction, up or down.
Sebastien Zanello. Copyright 2017.
Photo FJ Leconte 2017
1. Resignation : executive and managers ofteh believe that decision is the onl and "unevitable" answer to uncertainty.
While it is likely so on short term firefighting or overload context.
Or a belief strong enouch there is nothing else to do.
2.Overcome natura fear : confusion do exists between agility presented as an excuse for unprepared and not communicated tactical pivots (into a stage gates process for instance).
It is fair to recognize a change in data or in decisions, although accountabiity should go back to decidors about simplification of the number of options chosen in advance and revealed into contengency plan, back up plans and back up people namely defined in RACI tools.
3. Anti-KM : "We, I don't know what you don't know " plus any other possible combination of U and I. Knowledge Management is a skill that can be developped.
As it is a skill about dealing with complexity, and capability to share it and give the feeling it is simpler than it is.
So to make it accessible to a greater happy few and actionable to a wider scope of people or business cases.
Paradox is about something looking complex, and uncertain, but giving the sense that it is possible de read, or decipher, or break the code, plus put some process control and triggers for re-alignment at a reasonable premium cost.
It has very little or nothing to do with ambiguity, to the contrary.
It is somehow in the range of the idea of "Anti -Fraigile " developped by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
.
-
Volatility is the permanent trigger of anxiety and panic.
The first driver of aversion to risk.
Often reduced to the field for casino bets and outrageous insurance premium.
Nothing much you could do anything about. Really ?
Hackers must and can challenge. such a belief.
As far as business intelligence itself, present and future are heading toward eco-systems. "powered by V capital ", or "Volatilty Inside " simulators.
Volatility is a frequent excuse either to postpone a decision or to urge pivots manoeuvers.
Something a second shield after undertainty against accountability.
Facts give evidence about how it piles up and blocks decision making processes that are gates and loops plugged into the whole organic system
It is becoming a thick and inefficient nervous network of sensors.
It increases lead time and processes times with frictions, pain points and "W as Waiting", one of the 8 categories of waste.
Overprocessing is a second victim on the crime scene.
Nt to mention "Mis-use of human capital/ skills" when the right people are not empowerd and everybody must waith for approval from an overoaded, bottleneck decidor.
Simplification can mitigate or drift part of it.
The hackers mission is to open doors to drive effective value and balance the direct costs of re-alignments.
To push and pull for Value Added (VA) materialization ? and ficht again (Non) Value Added evaporation (NVA).
Showing probabilities about the "true north" location.
Even when environment such as customers request, or tevhologies, or financial means and costraints suddenly shifting from South-East smooth to West and downhill roller coaster.
Aa a summary of previous sections : 3 practical steps are easy first shots
1. the use of RACI grids, but it needs t go down to a ratio calculation in order to target a 50% reduction of RA steps and people involved (a RACI score), by a transfer to Consulted category, and another move to Informed (easier categry to manage at a time of costless share of information
2. The addition ot formal decision of additional inputs and details such as the scope limits and links to time (temporary or new rules to spread).
Decision must
1. bring clarity about alternative plans
2.reduce ambiguity about the trgiggers for alternatives
3.double check moves do not add additional ambiguity. Some good complexity is OK if bringing agility to face uncertainty..We must proceed to the acid test : " Did we make it simpler ?"
Meaning that next people moving into the value chain will not be misled on a 4-ways street.
It is about anticipation, a much safer game plan for execution than resignation or wish upon a star.
Or planets alignment.
4. Training and coaching of executives and managers.
Plus all in charge of teams or decisions to request change management plan, that do include pivots option selection.
This isto face volatility and uncertainty with NO ambiguity.
It is adding a small premium of complexity and anticipation work (of the different work, but the safe and efficient way to build in agility.
As well as simpification in Plans A solutions.
Metaphor of the V-suite (Take 4)
We can give many more details about Volatility control in further drilling hacks.
I do provide Advanced Time Management to training and simple tools to keep pace and higher pulse in times of higher variability, to our transformation leaders.
Activity based optimization helps for instance to eliminate useless tasks switching or desynchronized steering committees, not matching the needs for pivot in tactics.
We hope it is already a lot of food for thoughts and inspiration for your own first step to wash some of the lack of flexibility hurting your decisions workflows.
Next episode will link and bridge to combination of all elements merging with the highest toll introduced under the name of VUCA power of Cube, and propose the complete package of solutions, including a fresh look to the so called "Hoshin Kanri' tool,...stay tuned.
Again, : not for sale, just a gift.
Somehow Complex, to be evaluated on your personal scale, but without Ambiguity as far as my own intent.
As a fine tuning and continuous improvement, I added an illustration of a package of tools and methods into the solution section.I wish it helps.
- Log in to post comments
You need to register in order to submit a comment.