Recorded Webinar: Opportunity Marketplaces

Brought to my attention by Michael Schrage, a correspondent at MIT:

Organizations constrained to offer workers financial incentives might consider a new approach: opportunity marketplaces.

The COVID-19 crisis has made organizations vastly more aware of the need for greater flexibility, adaptability, and communications in the distributed workplace.

Getting work done well and on time is job one, but what needs to come next? How do you quickly, cheaply, adaptively, and thoughtfully set yourself up for a future requiring unprecedented workplace and workforce agility? One promising idea revealed by recent MIT SMR research is opportunity marketplaces. These internal project marketplaces offer transparency and visibility around opportunities within organizations and use data and assorted analytic techniques to make matching recommendations between opportunities and people.

In a time of reduced pay increases and constrained travel, what do most organizations have to offer workers to retain and motivate them over the next 12 to 18 months? The answer is opportunity.

Related Reading
M. Schrage, J. Schwartz, D. Kiron, R. Jones, and N. Buckley, “Opportunity Marketplaces: Aligning Workforce Investment and Value Creation in the Digital Enterprise,” MIT Sloan Management Review, April 28, 2020.

Watch this webinar with Michael Schrage, research fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and MIT SMR editor in chief Paul Michelman and learn:

How top leadership — not just HR — defines and articulates an opportunity vision for the enterprise: These are the opportunities for personal/professional development and accomplishment they want their people to have as we come out of the crisis.
What digital/platform/network investments do companies need to make to support key opportunity market use cases?
How to effectively use data and analytics to support and improve the use cases for opportunity markets, and which parts of the process are best suited to automation and which to humans. ... 


ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Michael Schrage is a research fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and guest editor of the MIT SMR-Deloitte research report, “Opportunity Marketplaces: Aligning Workforce Investment and Value Creation in the Digital Enterprise.” Paul Michelman is editor in chief of MIT Sloan Management Review. He moderated the session.  ... 

Futures in Focus Podcast

Was linked to this podcast through it's mention of correspondent Michael Schrage of the Media Lab.   Just starting to examine, will pass along things of interest.

Futures In Focus Podcast - A Look Inside Our World 10 Years From Now That Only 19% Of Us Think About
Thought Leaders
Michael Gale   WSJ bestseller, A.I. influencer, podcast host about the world in 2030.

Welcome to Forbes Insight’s Futures in Focus podcast, where we explore the world of AI, travel, entertainment, 3D printing, sports experiences in to 2030, healthcare developments, the environment, digital transformation, the nature of good, animal cloning, and many other advancements that have the potential to change what life, business, and society could be like in ten years.  We even tap into the mindset of growth hacking to see if major corporations can grab one of the secrets of startups with the CEO of Growth Hacking and best selling author Sean Ellis and the world of precision medicine with Professor Sah-Shen Orr and David Harel of Cyto Reason.

These and our many other guests give us their best ideas, years of thinking, and a sense of the possible futures in store for us all of which is extremely exciting.  I ask some tough questions about potential choices into the future that guests like Bruno Sarda, the US CEO of CDP who is charged with measuring carbon footprints around the world, and he gave us some incredibly enlightened answers.  Even the sustainability officer for Campbell's soup talks about sustainable food design. In just about thirty minutes, whether you are on your commute, eating lunch, or some other down moment, Forbes Futures in Focus is designed to give you a peek through the window into the futures we could be part of.  ... "

Make KPI's Great Again says Sloan Study

Via Michael Schrage ....

In Forbes.com  
Make KPIs Great Again, Study Urges   Joe McKendrick , CONTRIBUTOR

For every technology effort worth its salt, the output is tied to some form of key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure its effect on the business. Now, a new MIT Sloan Management Review-Google study calls these vaunted metrics into question. Despite this being the information age,  filled with data-driven organizations, nearly 30% of business leaders don’t even bother to use KPIs to drive change in their organizations.

"Our research indicates that KPIs are mismanaged and undervalued,” according to Michael Schrage, a research fellow at the MIT Sloan School’s Center for Digital Business and a coauthor of the report. The survey of 3,200 executives finds only 26% of senior managers strongly agree that their KPIs "are aligned with their organization’s strategic objectives." That's consult speak, by the way, for "only 26% have a clue as to what the heck the KPIs are supposed to be telling them." ... " 

Thinking Platform vs Process

Clever way to think about this.

Instead of Optimizing Processes, Reimagine Them as Platforms   by Michael Schrage in HBR

Process optimization can transform user experience. Rethinking process optimization — visualizing processes as platforms — can transform your business model.

One applications outsourcing team, for example, proposed a clever UX tweak to help optimize a global fulfillment process their company managed for its biggest client.

The idea was simple: Instead of making buyers go through the entire online ordering sequence only to find stock-outs or delivery delays, why not alert them to product availability upfront? A little dab of inventory data would enhance both customer expectations and process efficiencies. Surely this cheap, customer-centric, and data-driven innovation would impress the client. .... " 

Multiple Selves vs Better Bots

In Linkedin:

'Multiple Selves,' Not Better Bots, Is AI's 'Personal Productivity' Future

Published on April 3, 2017 Featured in: Big Ideas & Innovation, Productivity, Technology

by Michael Schrage,   visiting fellow at imperial college business school, innovation & entrepreneurship

MIT Sloan School's 'Initiative on the Digital Economy' recently published some of my new work on how the future of (inter)personal productivity inside the enterprise and out belongs to 'digital selves.' My essential argument: AI's true algorithmic impact will come more from 'Augmenting Introspection' than 'Artificial Intelligence.' We'll see 'Quantified Selves' emerging from the 'Quantified Self' as talented individuals and ambitious firms mash-up all manner of data and 'workplace analytics' in their collective quest to become more valuable and more productive. ... " 

Virtual Agents as Selvesware

Correspondent Michael Schrage on the nature of help by virtual agents.  It used to be these took over a kind of 'executive assistant' role.  Got to see these in action, and at their best they were better than the execs themselves.  Not as much baggage.   But now will be closer to twins of ourselves?  With all the capabilities and negatives?   Augmenting at least I think, and in the future, making us very much smarter. And as he says, monitoring carefully to make adjustments.

Bots Won’t Just Help Us Buy Stuff. They’ll Help Us Become Better Versions of Ourselves
by Michael Schrage in the HBR.

" .... Virtual agents like Alexa and Siri only perform tasks; our digital selves will actually determine and define those tasks. Think of them as “selvesware,” analogous to recommendation engines for books to read or movies to watch. Selvesware will deliver actionable, data-driven insight and advice on what to say, when to speak up, and with whom to network, for example, suggesting bespoke options for better communication, collaboration, and facilitation. Selvesware invites workers and managers to digitally amplify their talents and attributes, while monitoring and minimizing weaknesses. Simply put, selvesware helps people identify, manage, and measurably improve their best, most productive selves. .... "

AI Changing the 80/20 Rule

Interesting and perceptive thoughts about the implications of AI  In the HBR:

AI Is Going to Change the 80/20 Rule
by Michael Schrage

Many high-performance organizations remain passionate about Vilfredo Pareto, the incisive Italian engineer and economist. They continue to be inspired by his 80/20 principle, the idea that 80% of effects (sales, revenue, etc.) come from 20% of causes (products, employees, etc). As machine learning and AI algorithmic innovation transform analytics, I’m betting that next-generation algorithms will supercharge Pareto’s empirically provocative paradigm. Here are three important ways that AI and machine learning will redefine how organizations use the Pareto principle to digitally drive profitable innovation to levels beyond conventional analytics. ... " 

Designing Processes as Platforms

Always interesting Michael Schrage makes some good points in the HBR.  Thinking of examples of implementing this.  We were always interested in improving, even optimizing process with analytics and data.  We considered what he is suggesting, but better embedding it early in the design does make sense.   Thoughts?

Instead of Optimizing Processes, Reimagine Them as Platforms   by Michael Schrage
Process optimization can transform user experience. Rethinking process optimization — visualizing processes as platforms — can transform your business model.

One applications outsourcing team, for example, proposed a clever UX tweak to help optimize a global fulfillment process their company managed for its biggest client.

The idea was simple: Instead of making buyers go through the entire online ordering sequence only to find stock-outs or delivery delays, why not alert them to product availability upfront? A little dab of inventory data would enhance both customer expectations and process efficiencies. Surely this cheap, customer-centric, and data-driven innovation would impress the client. 

But the more rigorously the use cases were modeled, the more complicated enhancing expectations and efficiencies became. Would buyers abandon purchases if they couldn’t get exactly what they wanted? Would they defect to competitors? Might product bundles or incentives meaningfully shift demand and production flows?  ... "

More Data Changes Decision Making

Good thoughts about who is in control, and how. Will this be solved by more autonomy of the organization to react to changes in data?

How the Big Data Explosion Has Changed Decision Making
by Michael Schrage

Organizations I work with increasingly struggle to straddle two painfully polarizing operating principles. On the one hand, they desperately seek greater agility; on the other, they genuinely want to include all the right stakeholders in their processes. This conflict uncomfortably transcends traditional “centralization/decentralization” debates. Customers and clients demand greater agility, and employees and partners expect greater empowerment. So the companies push hard to provide both. ... " 

Data Explosion and Decision Making

In the HBR, useful thoughts on decisions,  data and organization.

How the Big Data Explosion Has Changed Decision Making
by Michael Schrage

Organizations I work with increasingly struggle to straddle two painfully  
polarizing operating principles. On the one hand, they desperately seek greater agility; on the other, they genuinely want to include all the right stakeholders in their processes. This conflict uncomfortably transcends traditional “centralization/decentralization” debates. Customers and clients demand greater agility, and employees and partners expect greater empowerment. So the companies push hard to provide both.

Including more people, alas, typically increases coordination costs and response times. But, almost paradoxically, greater organizational agility requires greater responsiveness and improved coordination. The more stakeholders involved, the more likely that decisions are delayed. But effective agility frequently demands inclusive stakeholder involvement.

In other words, more people want to make more-agile decisions more often. This tension drives my clients mad. At one Fortune 1000 company, for example, “flame wars” broke out between customer support units, desperate to respond faster to customer complaints, and the technical design group, equally desperate to avoid ad hoc fixes. Neither group could effectively solve the problems without the other, but their overlaps quickly became sources of conflict rather than collaboration. That pathology isn’t uncommon.

The digitally networked enterprise — whether Slacked, Chattered, Skyped, Google Doc-ed — sharply exacerbates tensions and pain points: More stakeholders can instantly access, and share, actionable information. Technology facilitates greater transparency and visibility throughout enterprise ecosystems. Real-time situational awareness dramatically increases. But the managerial and operational ability to act on that data-driven information may not.

By far the best and most useful approach for managing those tensions is Michael Jensen’s path-breaking work in decision rights a quarter-century ago. Simply put, decision rights clarify authority and accountability for decisions and decision making. Decision rights are about how organizations “decide how to decide” who is empowered to make decisions. Think of it as a governance model for enterprise decision.  .... "

Testable Ideas vs Good Ideas

By Michael Schrage in the HBR.  Good point that is rarely directly first considered in innovation.  How do we test this idea?   " ....the successful innovators I observed spent less time on identifying and developing good ideas and more time testing their hypotheses. In fact, these teams and groups made the testable business hypothesis the center of their innovation effort. ... " 

Civilizing Customer Behavior

In the HBR Blog Network:   An anonymous, large  network of commenters can lead to some nasty and self serving behavior.   We all read customer reviews with an element of skepticism about their motivation.  Always interesting Michael Schrage takes on the problem: " ... Accountability and transparency cut both ways. There's no question that consumers have more power than ever before to call attention to bad products, services, and experiences. But it's equally true that companies also have greater power to call attention to bad customer behaviors. The same social media platforms that can viralize customer complaints can similarly share unflattering aspects of customer excess. That may be a powerful incentive for better behavior. ... " 

Surprise in Innovation

Correspondent Michael Schrage in the  HBR Blog.  He talks reactive and proactive surprise.  Ans how the difference can pay big dividends.  With the example of DARPA, a group I worked with in the 70s.   " ... Anticipating and enabling "technological surprise" has become even more challenging, DARPA director Arati Prabhakar recently told an MIT audience, because more people in more places have more access to more technology that ever before. Surprises can come from anywhere. In an era of greater global trade, knowledge transfer and transparency, Prabhakar unsurprisingly reports DARPA's core value proposition demands disproportionately greater imagination and ingenuity. Predictability breeds complacency. Predictability is DARPA's cultural, technical and organizational enemy. ..." 

Michael Schrage

Just started to review some of Michael Schrage's posts in his HBR blog that had to do with analytics, data visualization and the digitization of business.  Well worth reading. We followed him in the simulation space a number of years ago, encouraged by his book: Serious Play.

Ask Fewer Questions

Michael Schrage talks about a fundamental  tool of our industry:  Asking questions.  Sometimes its verbal, sometimes via an email or a store survey. It happens a lot.   I have frequently been horrified by the length and numbing complexity of even professionally constructed questionnaires.  He makes a good case for simplification.    Bottom line for us, don't ask, but observe behavior in context.

P&G Minimizes Management Meddling

By Michael Schrage in HBR Blogs:

Was somewhat both proud of and  surprised by this revelation.    I saw some of both behaviors.  And still think more could have been done with even less meddling.  Yes, though to innovative analytics, which we always pushed:

" ... With not a little pride, Procter & Gamble CEO Bob McDonald and Filippo Passerini, his CIO, told Fortune Brainstorm conference attendees that digital investment had successfully transformed their company's transparency and agility. New networks and innovative analytics gave top management greater visibility into Procter's people, processes, and anticipated profits. These technologies were making the world's biggest consumer products firm quicker, nimbler, and more responsive.   ...  "

A good article overall about micro management, read it all.

Practicing the Google Rule

Michael Schrage asks why many people do not use the information easily available to them. Obvious, but also worth repeating. We were always taught that before any first meeting, client or interviewer, we should do a search of that persons background, company and work. Today's technology makes it very easy to do. The bigger problem today is separating truth from fiction.

On Poka-Yoke

We often spoke about Poka-Yoke in the enterprise. Also known as fail-safing. Designing the process so it is impossible or much harder to make big errors. Despite recent errors in car accelerator design, the Japanese pioneered this method:

From Voices - HarvardBusiness.org by Michael Schrage
Every manager and executive should perform a "poka-yoke audit": What are the persistently simple — and simply persistent — dumb mistakes we make that our technologies can help us catch and destroy? (If you have trouble coming up with five or six, I'm sure your bosses, colleagues, subordinates, and even a customer or two might constructively suggest a few...)