🗄️Data Management: Data Culture (Part V: Quid nunc? [What now?])

Data Management Series

Despite the detailed planning, the concentrated and well-directed effort with which the various aspects of data culture are addressed, things don't necessarily turn into what we want them to be. There's seldom only one cause but a mix of various factors that create a network of cause and effect relationships that tend to diminish or increase the effect of certain events or decisions, and it can be just a butterfly's flutter that stirs a set of chained reactions. The butterfly effect is usually an exaggeration until the proper conditions for the chaotic behavior appear!

The butterfly effect is made possible by the exponential divergence of two paths. Conversely, success needs probably multiple trajectories to converge toward a final point or intermediary points or areas from which things move on the "right" path. Success doesn't necessarily mean reaching a point but reaching a favorable zone for future behavior to follow a positive trend. For example, a sink or a cone-like structure allow water to accumulate and flow toward an area. A similar structure is needed for success to converge, and the structure results from what is built in the process. 

Data culture needs a similar structure for the various points of interest to converge. Things don't happen by themselves unless the force of the overall structure is so strong that allows things to move toward the intended path(s). Even then the paths can be far from optimal, but they can be favorable. Probably, that's what the general effort must do - bring the various aspects in the zone for allowing things to unfold. It might still be a long road, though the basis is there!

A consequence of this metaphor is that one must identify the important aspects, respectively factors that influence an organization's culture and drive them in the right direction(s) – the paths that converge toward the defined goal(s). (Depending on the area of focus one can consider that there are successions of more refined goals.)

The structure that allows things to converge is based on the alignment of the various paths and implicitly forces. Misalignment can make a force move in other direction with all the consequences deriving from this behavior. If its force is weak, probably will not have an impact over the overall structure, though that's relative and can change in time. 

One may ask for what's needed all this construct, even if it doesn’t reflect the reality. Sometimes, even a not entirely correct model can allow us to navigate the unknown. Model's intent is to depict what's needed for a initiative to be successful. Moreover, success doesn’t mean to shoot bulls eye but to be first in the zone until one's skillset enables performance.

Conversely, it's important to understand that things don't happen by themselves. At least this seems to be the feeling some initiatives let. One needs to build and pull the whole structure in the right direction and the alignment of the various forces can reduce the overall effort and increase the chances for success. Attempting to build something just because it’s written in documentation without understanding the whole picture (or something close to it) can easily lead to failure.

This doesn’t mean that all attempts that don’t follow a set of patterns are doomed to failure, but that the road will be more challenging and will probably take longer. Conversely, maybe these deviations from the optimal paths are what an organization needs to grow, to solidify the foundation on which something else can be built. The whole path is an exploration that doesn’t necessarily match what is written in books, respectively the expectations!

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🗄️Data Management: Data Culture (Part III: A Tale of Two Cities)

One of the curious things is that as part of their change of culture organizations try to adopt a new language, to give new names to things, try to make distinction between the "AS IS" and "TO BE" states, insisting how the new image will replace the previous one. Occasionally, they even stress how bad things were in the past and how great will be in the future, trying to depict the future in vivid images. 

Even if this might work occasionally, it tends to confuse people and this not necessarily because of the language and the metaphors used, or the fact that same people were in the same positions, but the lack of belief or conviction, respectively half-hearted enthusiasm personified by the parties. To "convert" people to new philosophies one needs to believe in them or mimic that in similar terms. The lack of conviction can easily have a false effect that spreads within the organization. 

Dissociation from the past, from what an organization was, tends to increase the resistance against the new because two different images are involved. On one side there’s the attachment to the past, and even if there were mistakes made, or things didn’t go optimally, the experiences and decisions made are part of the organization, of the people who made them. People as individuals and as an organization should embrace their mistakes and good deeds altogether, learn from them, improve what is to improve and move forward. Conversely, there’s the resistance to the new, to the change, words they don’t believe in yet, the bigger picture is still fuzzy in their minds, and there can be many other reasons that don’t agree with one’s understanding. 

There are images, memories, views, decisions, objectives of the past and people need to recognize the road from what it was to what should be. One can hypothesize that embracing one’s mistake and understanding, the chain of reasoning from then and from now will help an organization transition towards the new. Awareness of one’s situation most probably will help in the transition process. Unfortunately, leaders and technology gurus tend to depict the past as negative, creating thus more negative emotions, respectively reactions in the process. The past is still part of the people, of the organization and will continue to be.

Conversely, the disassociation from the past can create more resistance to the new, and probably more unnecessary barriers. Probably, it’s easier for the gurus to build the new if the past weren’t there! Forgetting the past would be an error because there are many lessons that can be still useful. All the experience needs to be redirected in new directions. It’s more important to help people see the vision of the future, understand their missions, the paths to be followed and the challenges ahead, . 

It sounds more of a rambling from a psychology course, though organizations do have an image they want to change, to bring forth to cope with the various challenges, an image they want to reflect when needed. There are also organizations that want to change but keep their image intact, which leads to deeper conflicts. Unfortunately, changes of image involve conflicts that can become complex from what they bring forth.  

A data culture should increase people’s awareness of the present, respectively of the future, of what it takes to bridge the gap, the challenges ahead, how to embrace change, how to keep a realistic perspective, how to do a reality check, etc. Methodologies can increase people’s awareness and provide the theoretical basis, though walking the path will be a different story for everyone. 

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𖣯Strategic Management: The Impact of New Technologies (Part III: Checking the Vital Signs)

An organization which went through a major change, like the replacement of a strategic system (e.g. ERP/BI implementations), needs to go through a period of attentive supervision to address the inherent issues that ideally need to be handled as they arise, to minimize their future effects. Some organizations might even go through a convalescence period, which risks to prolong itself if the appropriate remedies aren’t found. Therefore, one needs an entity, who/which has the skills to recognize the symptoms, understand what’s happening and why, respectively of identifying the appropriate actions.

Given technologies’ multi-layered complexity and the volume of knowledge for understanding them, the role of the doctor can be seldom taken by one person. Moreover, the patient is an organization, each person in the organization having usually local knowledge about the patient. The needed knowledge is dispersed trough the organization, and one needs to tap into that knowledge, identify the people close to technologies and business area, respectively allow such people exchange information on a regular basis.

The people who should know the best the organization are in theory the management, however they are usually too far away from technologies and often too busy with management topics. IT professionals are close to technologies, though sometimes too far away from the patient. The users have a too narrow overview, while from logistical and economic reasons the number of people involved should be kept to a minimum. A compromise is to designate one person from each business area who works with any of the strategic systems, and assure that they have the technical and business knowledge required. It’s nothing but the key-user concept, though for it to work the key-users need not only knowledge but also the empowerment to act when the symptoms appear.

Big organizations have also a product owner for each application who supervises the application through its entire lifecycle, and who needs to coordinate with the IT, business and service providers. This is probably a good idea in order to assure that the ROI is reached over time, respectively that the needs of the system are considered within the IT operation context. In small organizations, the role can be taken by a technical or a business resource with deeper skills then the average user, usually a key-user. However, unless joined with the key-user role, the product owner’s focus will be the product and seldom the business themes.

The issues that need to be overcome after major changes are usually cross-functional, being imperative for people to work together and find solutions. Unfortunately, it’s also in human nature to wait until the issues are big enough to get the proper attention. Unless the key-users have the time allocated already for such topics, the issues will be lost in the heap of operational and tactical activities. This time must be allocated for all key-users and the technical resources needed to support them.

Some organizations build temporary working parties (groups of experts working together to achieve specific goals) or similar groups. However, the statute of such group needs to be permanent if the organization wants to continuously have its health in check, to build the needed expertize and awareness about occurred or potential issues. Centers of excellence/expertize (CoE) or competency centers (CC) are such working groups with permanent statute, having defined roles, responsibilities, and processes for supporting and promoting the effective use of technologies within the organization, respectively of monitoring and systematically addressing the risks and opportunities associated with them.

There’s also the null hypothesis, doing nothing, relying solely on employees’ professionalism, though without defined responsibility, accountability and empowerment, it can get messy.

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𖣯Strategic Management: The Impact of New Technologies (Part II - The Technology-oriented Patient)

Looking at the way data, information and knowledge flow through an organization, with a little imagination one can see the resemblance between an organization and the human body, in which the networks created by the respective flows spread through organization as nervous, circulatory or lymphatic braids do, each with its own role in the good functioning of the organization. Each technology adopted by an organization taps into these flows creating a structure that can be compared with the nerve plexus, as the various flows intersect in such points creating an agglomeration of nerves and braids.

The size of each plexus can be considered as proportional to the importance of the technology in respect to the overall structure. Strategic technologies like ERP, BI or planning systems, given their importance (gravity), resemble with the organs from the human body, with complex networks of braids in their vicinity. Maybe the metaphor is too far-off, though it allows stressing the importance of each technology in respect to its role and the good functioning of the organization. Moreover, each such structure functions as pressure points that can in extremis block any of the flows considered, a long-term block having important effects.

The human organism is a marvelous piece of work reflecting the grand design, however in time, especially when neglected or driven by external agents, diseases can clutch around any of the parts of the human body, with all the consequences deriving from this. On the other side, an organization is a hand-made structure found in continuous expansion as new technologies or resources are added. Even if the technologies are at peripheral side of the system, their good or bad functioning can have a ripple effect trough the various networks.

Replacing any of the above-mentioned strategic systems can be compared with the replacement of an organ in the human body, having a high degree of failure compared with other operations, being complex in nature, the organism needing long periods to recover, while in extreme situations the convalescence prolongs till the end. Fortunately, organizations seem to be more resilient to such operations, though that’s not necessarily a rule. Sometimes all it takes is just a small mistake for making the operation fail.

The general feeling is that ERP and BI implementations are taken too lightly by management, employees and implementers. During the replacement operation one must make sure not only that the organ fits and functions as expected, but also that the vital networks regained their vitality and function as expected, and the latter is a process that spans over the years to come. One needs to check the important (health) signs regularly and take the appropriate countermeasures. There must be an entity having the role of the doctor, who/which has the skills to address adequately the issues.

Moreover, when the physical structure of an organization is affected, a series of micro-operations might be needed to address the deformities. Unfortunately, these areas are seldom seen in time, and can require a sustained effort for fixing, while a total reconstruction might apply. One works also with an amorphous and ever-changing structure that require many attempts until a remedy is found, if a remedy is possible after all.

Even if such operations are pretty well documented, often what organizations lack are the skilled resources needed during and post-implementation, resources that must know as well the patient, and ideally its historical and further health preconditions. Each patient is different and quite often needs its own treatment/medication. With such changes, the organization lands itself on a discovery journey in which the appropriate path can easily deviate from the well-trodden paths.

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🛡️Information Security: Data Privacy (Definitions)

"Right of an individual to participate in decisions regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of information personally identifiable to that individual." (Reima Suomi, "Telework and Data Privacy and Security", 2008)

"Current United States laws provide protection to private data, including students’ performance data. Online distance education environments need to address privacy issues though design of courses and security features built into record keeping systems." (Gregory C Sales, "Preparing Teachers to Teach Online", 2009)

"Personal data should not be automatically available to other persons or organizations. Even if data have been processed, each individual should be able to exercise his or her right to control access to data and related information." (Astrid Gesche, "Adapting to Virtual Third-Space Language Learning Futures", 2009)

"The right to have personally identifiable information not disclosed in any unauthorized manner." (David G Hill, "Data Protection: Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance", 2009)

"The limitation of data access to only those authorized to view the data." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"The legal, political, and ethical issues surrounding the collection and dissemination of data, the technology used, and the expectations of what information is shared with whom." (Jonathan Ferrar et al, "The Power of People: Learn How Successful Organizations Use Workforce Analytics To Improve Business Performance", 2017)

"A compliance program aimed at protection of personal information about any individual the company may poses." (Svetlana Snezhko & Ali Coskun, "Compliance in Sustainability Reporting", 2019)

"Data containing information about a person should be treated with special attention according to the organization’s data privacy policy and legislation." (Lili Aunimo et al, "Big Data Governance in Agile and Data-Driven Software Development: A Market Entry Case in the Educational Game Industry", 2019)

"The term refers to the confidentiality of information that one has and other parties are not allowed to share it without a consent of the data owner. Privacy is a measure of control for individuals about their personal information." (M Fevzi Esen & Eda Kocabas, "Personal Data Privacy and Protection in the Meeting, Incentive, Convention, and Exhibition (MICE) Industry", 2019)

"This term relates to the individual right to restrict access to their personal, health, political/philosophical views, religious affiliation and educational data. In the case of students, schools and districts have the responsibility to control access to student data, providing it is available only to those who play a role in the learning process and for a defined time span." (Beatriz Arnillas, "Tech-Savvy Is the New Street Smart: Balancing Protection and Awareness", 2019)

"Protection of personal privacy during data acquisition, storage, transmission, and usage." (Hemlata Gangwar, "Big Data Adoption: A Comparative Study of the Indian Manufacturing and Services Sectors", 2020)

"the protection of any representation of information that permits the identity of an individual to whom the information applies to be reasonably inferred by either direct or indirect means." (James Kelly et al, "Data in the Wild: A KM Approach to Collecting Census Data Without Surveying the Population and the Issue of Data Privacy", 2020)

"A person’s right to control how much information about her/him/them is collected, used, shared by others." (Zerin M Khan, "How Do Mobile Applications for Cancer Communicate About Their Privacy Practices?: An Analysis of Privacy Policies", 2021)

"Deals defining what data may be lawfully shared with third parties, by an individual or organization." (Nikhil Padayachee & Surika Civilcharran, "Predicting Student Intention to Use Cloud Services for Educational Purposes Based on Perceived Security and Privacy", 2021)

"Is the aspect of information and communication technology that deals with the ability an organization or individual to determine what data and information in computer system can be shared with third parties." (Valerianus Hashiyana et al, "Integrated Big Data E-Healthcare Solutions to a Fragmented Health Information System in Namibia", 2021)

🛡️Information Security: Privacy (Definitions)

"Privacy is concerned with the appropriate use of personal data based on regulation and the explicit consent of the party." (Martin Oberhofer et al, "Enterprise Master Data Management", 2008)

"Proper handling and use of personal information (PI) throughout its life cycle, consistent with data-protection principles and the preferences of the subject." (Alex Berson & Lawrence Dubov, "Master Data Management and Data Governance", 2010)

"Control of data usage dealing with the rights of individuals and organizations to determine the “who, what, when, where, and how” of data access." (Carlos Coronel et al, "Database Systems: Design, Implementation, and Management" 9th Ed, 2011)

"Keeping information as a secret, known only to the originators of that information. This contrasts with confidentiality, in which information is shared among a select group of recipients. See also confidentiality." (Mark Rhodes-Ousley, "Information Security: The Complete Reference" 2nd Ed., 2013)

"Control of data usage dealing with the rights of individuals and organizations to determine the “who, what, when, where, and how” of data access." (Carlos Coronel & Steven Morris, "Database Systems: Design, Implementation, & Management" 11th  Ed.", 2014)

"The ability of a person to keep personal information to himself or herself." (Jason Williamson, "Getting a Big Data Job For Dummies", 2015)

"The protection of individual rights to nondisclosure." (Mike Harwood, "Internet Security: How to Defend Against Attackers on the Web" 2nd Ed., 2015)

"The right of individuals to control or influence what information related to them may be collected and stored and by whom, as well as to whom that information may be disclosed." (William Stallings, "Effective Cybersecurity: A Guide to Using Best Practices and Standards", 2018)

 "The right of individuals to a private life includes a right not to have personal information about themselves made public. A right to privacy is recognised by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. See data protection legislation." (Open Data Handbook)

"to seclude certain data /information about oneself that is deemed personal." (Analytics Insight)

⛏️Data Management: Data Protection (Definitions)

"The protecting of data from damage, destruction, and unauthorized alteration." (Tom Petrocelli, "Data Protection and Information Lifecycle Management", 2005)

"Deals with issues such as data security, privacy, and availability. Data protection controls are required by regulations and industry mandates such as Sarbanes-Oxley, European Data Protection Law, and others." (Allen Dreibelbis et al, "Enterprise Master Data Management", 2008)

"A set of rules that aim to protect the rights, freedoms and interests of individuals when information related to them is being processed." (Maria Tzanou, "Data Protection in EU Law after Lisbon: Challenges, Developments, and Limitations", 2015)

"An umbrella term for various procedures that ensure information is secure and available only to authorized users." (Peter Sasvari & Zoltán Nagymate, "The Empirical Analysis of Cloud Computing Services among the Hungarian Enterprises", 2015)

"Protection of the data against unauthorized access by third parties as well as protection of personal data (such as customer data) in the processing of data according to the applicable legal provisions." (Boris Otto & Hubert Österle, "Corporate Data Quality", 2015)

"Legal control over access to, and use of, data in computers." (Lucy Self & Petros Chamakiotis, "Understanding Cloud Computing in a Higher Education Context", 2018)

"Data protection is a task of safeguarding personal or sensitive data which are complex and widely distributed." (M Fevzi Esen & Eda Kocabas, "Personal Data Privacy and Protection in the Meeting, Incentive, Convention, and Exhibition (MICE) Industry", 2019)

"Process of protecting important information from corruption, compromise, or loss." (Patrícia C T Gonçalves, "Medical Social Networks, Epidemiology and Health Systems", 2021)

"The process involving use of laws to protect data of individuals from unauthorized disclosure or access." (Frank Makoza, "Learning From Abroad on SIM Card Registration Policy: The Case of Malawi", 2019)

"Is the process in information and communication technology that deals with the ability an organization or individual to safeguard data and information from corruption, theft, compromise, or loss." (Valerianus Hashiyana et al, "Integrated Big Data E-Healthcare Solutions to a Fragmented Health Information System in Namibia", 2021)

"The mechanisms with which an organization enables individuals to retain control of the personal data they willingly share, where security provides policies, controls, protocols, and technologies necessary to fulfill rules and obligations in accordance with privacy regulations, industry standards, and the organization's ethics and social responsibility." (Forrester)

♜Strategic Management: Storytelling (Definitions)

"Narrating sequences of events in an artistic manner for a group of audience orally or in written words." (Mehrak Rahimi, "Digital Storytelling in Language Classes", Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology 4th Ed., 2018)

"The act of sharing a tale or a series of events, often in a trajectory that give perspective on context and culture." (Catherine Hayes & Ian Corrie, "Learner-Centred Pedagogy Framing Authentic Identity and Positionality in Higher Education", 2020)

"Art of conveying events or phenomena in different formats, in order to entertain, inform, instruct, demonstrate, or persuade." (Tamara E Martin et al, "The Use of Storytelling to Promote Literacy Skills in Biology Education: An Intervention Proposal", 2021)

"Storytelling is a communication tool that creates meanings and emotions on audience. It is a tool to create and maintain bonds for humans as well as organizations." Beris A Özoran, "Digital Storytelling and Public Relations: An Analysis Through Case Studies", 2021)

"Storytelling is one of the most effective communication methods in telling the organizations themselves. Corporate stories are powerful and permanent narratives that express the corporate identity. In stories, perceptions are reshaped. The vision, mission, and values of the organization are narrated." (Deniz Özer, "Corporate Cults: Corporate Identity and Storytelling in the Context of Archetypal Symbolism", 2021)

"The art of telling tales and a great tool to teach language incorporating culture." (Carmela B Scala, "How to Foster Equality in the Language Classroom", 2021)

"The process of using fact and narrative to communicate something to your audience. Some stories are factual, and some are embellished or improvised in order to better explain the core message." (Stavroula Kalogeras, "Transmedia Storytelling Edutainment and the New Testament Lesson", 2021)

"The social and cultural activity of creating and sharing stories. Today, it is re-considered as an important communication tool useful in many domains such as organizational leadership and branding." (Laura R Grünberg, "In Need for More Tailored Feminist Stories in a Time of Crisis", 2021)

🌡️Performance Management: Organizational Learning (Definitions)

[single-loop learning:] "This is adaptive learning which involves detecting and rectifying errors or exceptions within the scope of the organisation’s existing practices, policies and norms of behaviour." (Bernard Burnes, "Managing change : a strategic approach to organisational dynamics" 5th Ed., 2009)

[double-loop learning: "This process involves challenging the appropriateness of an organisation’s basic norms, values, policies and operating procedures." (Bernard Burnes, "Managing change : a strategic approach to organisational dynamics" 5th Ed., 2009)

[triple-loop learning:] "This involves questioning the rationale for the organisation and, in the light of this, radically transforming it." (Bernard Burnes, "Managing change : a strategic approach to organisational dynamics" 5th Ed., 2009)

"This term describes the process of collective, as opposed to individual, learning in an organisation. Its aim is to improve the performance of the organisation by involving everyone in collecting, studying, learning from and acting on information." (Bernard Burnes, "Managing change : a strategic approach to organisational dynamics" 5th Ed., 2009)

"A set of concepts, methods and tools popularized in Peter Senge’s book The Fifth Discipline that enable both individual and collective learning in the context of an organization or social network." (Aldo Romano & Giustina Secundo (Eds.), "Dynamic Learning Networks: Models and Cases in Action", 2009)

[enterprise learning:] "Any system that delivers instruction that is critical to the entire organization and must be disseminated to a large number of people dispersed over a wide geographic area." (Joan C Dessinger, "Fundamentals of Performance Improvement" 3rd Ed, 2012)

"A discipline concerned with the way individuals, groups, and organizations develop knowledge." (Project Management Institute, "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)", 2017)

"A theory proposing that an organization adjusts to changes in the environment through the learning of its employees." (Thomas L Wheelen & J David Hunger., "Strategic management and business policy: toward global sustainability" 13th Ed., 2012)

🖌️Tim Brown - Collected Quotes

"A culture that believes that it is better to ask forgiveness afterward rather than permission before, that rewards people for success but gives them permission to fail, has removed one of the main obstacles to the formation of new ideas." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009) 

"Although it can at times seem forbiddingly abstract, design thinking is embodied thinking - embodied in teams and projects, to be sure, but embodied in the physical spaces of innovation as well." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"Although it might seem as though frittering away valuable time on sketches and models and simulations will slow work down, prototyping generates results faster." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"Anything tangible that lets us explore an idea, evaluate it, and push it forward is a prototype." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"Design has the power to enrich our lives by engaging our emotions through image, form, texture, color, sound, and smell. The intrinsically human-centered nature of design thinking points to the next step: we can use our empathy and understanding of people to design experiences that create opportunities for active engagement and participation." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"Design thinking taps into capacities we all have but that are overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. It is not only human-centered; it is deeply human in and of itself. Design thinking relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas that have emotional meaning as well as functionality, to express ourselves in media other than words or symbols." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"Just as it can accelerate the pace of a project, prototyping allows the exploration of many ideas in parallel. Early prototypes should be fast, rough, and cheap. The greater the investment in an idea, the more committed one becomes to it. Overinvestment in a refined prototype has two undesirable consequences: First, a mediocre idea may go too far toward realization - or even, in the worst case, all the way. Second, the prototyping process itself creates the opportunity to discover new and better ideas at minimal cost." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"Mostly we rely on stories to put our ideas into context and give them meaning. It should be no surprise, then, that the human capacity for storytelling plays an important role in the intrinsically human-centered approach to problem solving, design thinking." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"Prototypes should command only as much time, effort, and investment as is necessary to generate useful feedback and drive an idea forward. The greater the complexity and expense, the more 'finished' it is likely to seem and the less likely its creators will be to profit from constructive feedback - or even to listen to it. The goal of prototyping is not to create a working model. It is to give form to an idea to learn about its strengths and weaknesses and to identify new directions for the next generation of more detailed, more refined prototypes. A prototype’s scope should be limited. The purpose of early prototypes might be to understand whether an idea has functional value." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"Prototyping at work is giving form to an idea, allowing us to learn from it, evaluate it against others, and improve upon it." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"Prototyping is always inspirational - not in the sense of a perfected artwork but just the opposite: because it inspires new ideas. Prototyping should start early in the life of a project, and we expect them to be numerous, quickly executed, and pretty ugly." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"Since openness to experimentation is the lifeblood of any creative organization, prototyping - the willingness to go ahead and try something by building it - is the best evidence of experimentation." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"The project is the vehicle that carries an idea from concept to reality." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"Traditionally, one of the problems with architectural design is that full-scale prototyping is virtually impossible because it is just too expensive." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"To be sure, prototyping new organizational structures is difficult. By their nature, they are suspended in webs of interconnectedness. No unit can be tinkered with without affecting other parts of the organization. Prototyping with peoples’ lives is also a delicate proposition because there is, rightly, less tolerance for error. But despite this complexity, some institutions have taken a designer’s approach to organizational change." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

🖌️Jay R Galbraith - Collected Quotes

"Organization design is conceived to be a decision process to bring about a coherence between the goals or purposes for which the organization exists, the patterns of division of labor and interunit coordination and the people who will do the work." (Jay R Galbraith, "Organization Design", 1972)

"The basic proposition is that the greater the uncertainty of the task, the greater the amount of information that has to be processed between decision-makers during the execution of the task. If the task is well understood prior to performing it much of the activity can be pre-planned. If it is not understood, then during the actual task execution more knowledge is acquired which leads to changes in resource allocations, schedules, and priorities." (Jay R Galbraith, "Organization Design", 1972)

"If the organization is faced with greater uncertainty due to technological change, higher performance standards due to increased competition, or diversifies its product line to reduce dependence, the amount of information processing is increased. The organization must adopt at least one of the four strategies when faced with greater uncertainty." (Jay R Galbraith, "Designing complex organizations", 1973)

"Organizations make two responses to deal with the behavior control problem. The first change involves the substitution of craft or professional training of the work force for the detailed centralized programming of the work processes." (Jay R Galbraith, "Designing complex organizations", 1973)

"[Task uncertainty is] the difference between the amount of information required to perform the task and the amount of information already possessed by the organisation." (Jay R Galbraith, "Designing complex organizations", 1973)

"There is no one best way to organize [...] Any way of organizing is not equally effective." (Jay R, Galbraith, "Designing complex organizations", 1973)

"If management can identify the negatives of its preferred option, the other policies around the star model can be designed to counter the negatives while achieving the positives. (Jay R Galbraith, "Designing organizations: an executive guide to strategy, structure, and process", 2002)

"Metrics help align individual behaviors and performance with the organizational goals." (Jay R Galbraith et al, "Designing Dynamic Organizations", 2022)

"Organization design is the deliberate process of configuring structures, processes, reward systems, and people practices and policies to create an effective organization capable of achieving the business strategy." (Jay R Galbraith et al, "Designing Dynamic Organizations", 2022)

"Organization design is the means for creating a community of collective effort that yields more than the sum of each individual’s efforts and results." (Jay R Galbraith et al, "Designing Dynamic Organizations", 2022)

"Strategy is the cornerstone of the organization design process. If the strategy is not clear, or not agreed upon by the leadership team, there are no criteria on which to base other design decisions. Without knowing the goal, it is impossible to make rational choices along the way." (Jay R Galbraith et al, "Designing Dynamic Organizations", 2022)

"The strategy determines what types of skills, competencies, and other capabilities are required of employees and managers." (Jay R Galbraith et al, "Designing Dynamic Organizations", 2022)