Planning Poker Workshop

I put this video together to introduce and document the Planning Poker workshop from 2010.

Planning Poker Estimation. from Allen Higgins on Vimeo.

Exercise: Experiment with a research method

Exercise: Experiment with a research method

Materials:
Copies of the research method protocol template. Use the template to structure your experiment with one or more of the research protocols based on the cards from IDEO.

Choose at least one protocol, but even better if you try more than one, if you have the interest or time available.
Context:
Identify an object or context for field work. Possible examples include:

• Stairs
• Doorways
• Queuing in a café
• Anywhere with a queue
• Parcel drop services
• Anything with a touchscreen
• UCD directional maps online and on-campus
• Dublin Bus website 
• ATM machine 
• Train/LUAs ticketing 
• Supermarket Self-service checkout machines 
• Copier machines at the Copi-Print system 
• UCard Top-up 
• Printer
• Kindle or other E-reader 
• Brightspace (from student’s perspective) 
• Alarm System 
• Airport Self-service Checkin 
• Tesco’s Online Shopping website 
• UCD Library catalogue 

Time:
Schedule field study observations over several days.

Instructions:

1. Write your name and the research context on the form
2. Investigate and propose your own version of the procedure for the research method assigned to you. Base this procedure on readings or your own creative extrapolation of the description on the IDEO methods card.
3. Conduct a trial run of the procedure on yourself first, then involve another willing participant, and another...
4. Make hand-written notes, photos and recordings for later analysis.
5. Keep a record of evidence gathered.
6. Make an archive of data/records (paper sketches and notes, digital folder, website).
7. Present your findings and analysis at the next class.

Evaluation:

In class discussion of findings. 

Questions to ask:

1. Did you write the method protocol (recipe/steps)?

2. Did you identify a method reference (source literature/inspiration)?

3. Have provided a sample/example of data you gathered?

4. Did you try to analyse or interpret the data? (may need to apply some tool or technique)

5. What was learnt from it all? Did I learn anything? Can you decide if the method is feasible, practical, suitable for your project?

Research Protocols

Names and descriptions for the IDEO Method Cards (IDEO, 2003)
Ideo (2003) IDEO Method Cards: 51 Ways to Inspire Design. William Stout.

LEARN

Research Method	Description
Activity Analysis	A description of project relevant dynamics: actions, interactions, tasks, and objects of achieving goals.
Affinity Diagrams	Represent or diagram clustering of design elements with activities, goals, obstacles. Proximity, dependence and relationships
Anthropometric Analysis	Human factors or ergonomics to assess project relevant use factors.
Character Profiles	Personas. Archetypes of real people with real goals, lifestyle, behaviour, identities.
Cognitive Task Analysis	List, summary of all available sensory inputs decision points and actions.
Competitive Product Survey	Collect, compare, and conduct evaluations of extant and competitive products.
Cross-Cultural Comparisons	Personal accounts of differences in situations, behaviour and artefacts in different national or cultural settings.
Error Analysis	Capturing the things that actually go wrong in the project relevant setting.
Flow Analysis	The flow of information in existing and/or new system.
Historical Analysis	Identify trends and cycles of product use, customer behaviour, market, and practice. Relate to timeless goals
Long-Range Forecasts	Narratives of future scenarios complete with social and technological trends to predict behaviours.
Secondary Research	Summary analysis of existing sources and 3rd party data on project relevant areas.

LOOK

Research Method	Description
A Day in the Life	Catalogue a person’s whole day without necessarily focusing on project relevant aspects.
Behavioural Archaeology	Look at use, wear, the detailed arrangement or organisation of use objects in their use setting.
Behavioural Mapping	Map position, movement, and use of space over time.
Fly on the Wall	Observe in context without interfering.
Guided Tours	Ask the user to guide you through project relevant spaces and activities.
Personal Inventory	Ask the user to reflect on and describe the things they view as important or significant
Rapid Ethnography	Participate and experience it first-hand with the user for as long as possible.
Shadowing	Tag-along with people through the day.
Social Network Mapping	Notice the relationships between people, groups. Look for identity, profession, culture, and connections.
Still Photo Survey	Build up a visual record of key use and interaction moments over time.
Time-Lapse Video	A way of summarising activity over time, use of time, space, and location.

ASK

Research Method	Description
Camera Journal	A written and visual diary of project relevant circumstances and activities.
Card Sort	Organise cards spatially in ways that make sense. To expose mental models of device or system.
Cognitive Maps	Create a map of an existing or virtual space. The pathways they know and navigate, mental models.
Collage	Self created collage of arranged images. Used to help verbalise complex or unvocalised themes.
Conceptual Landscape	Sketch and juxtapose social and behavioural constructs from participants. People’s mental model.
Cultural Probes	A visual journal for participants to build up themselves. A self generated reflection. Gathered and compared across many participants.
Draw the Experience	Ask participants to visualise and draw the experience in their own way, with their own associations, order, relationships, theories.
Extreme User Interviews	Evaluate (ask) users at extreme ends of market (early adopters, power users, beginners) to highlight their issues.
Five Whys?	Ask “why?” in response to five consecutive answers. Expose/uncover deeper attitudes perceptions.
Foreign Correspondents	Elicit inputs from others (snowball sample) to build up varied cultural and environmental contexts.
Narration	Users perform tasks and achieve goals while describing aloud. Talk aloud protocol. Stream of consciousness.
Surveys & Questionnaires	Targeted questions to assess design, usage, interaction characterises and perceptions of users.
Unfocus Group	Gather a range of tools or materials and get diverse user group to create things relevant to the design or project.
Word-Concept Association	Users associate words with design. Cluster user perceptions to evaluate design features & concepts. Value and priority.

TRY

Research Method	Description
Behaviour Sampling	Snapshot people’s activities at different times. How do pervasive products intrude in your lives?
Be Your Customer	What is it like to purchase your product? Actual experience of searching, buying, consuming, disposing.
Bodystorming	Act out scenarios with many people, using space, place, sequence, queues, etc. Test performance in context.
Empathy Tools	Experience the range of users capability for involvement under real conditions.
Experience Prototype	Mock up a rough but workable prototype to simulate the experience of using the new product.
Informance	Act out scenarios observed in the field to interpret and analyse in the lab. Builds shared understanding and good for solution formation.
Paper Prototyping	Rapid paper based mock-ups that are manipulated to demonstrate functionality. To articulate design concepts with users.
Predict Next Year’s Headlines	Involve users in future design possibilities. Futuristic, wishing, unmet needs. Help separate what is needed now from what can wait.
Quick-and-Dirty Prototyping	Assemble a very rough mock-up of a new feature or product to help start and refine a design.
Role-Playing	Identify actors/stakeholders involved in design use, enact real activities in real or imagined context.
Scale Modelling	Simulation technique to test arrangements of space, place, context.
Scenarios	A character-rich story, to communicate (simulate) and test a plausible story in probable context.
Scenario Testing	Show depictions of possible future scenarios. Share reactions, refine concepts.
Try it Yourself	Like Microsoft’s famous ‘eating our own dog food’ being the first user.

Pixar (case)

Compulsory Reading: Catmull, E. 2008. How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity. Harvard Business Review, 89, 9.

Listen to Ed Catmull's interview with Paul Michelman on HBR IdeaCast / Episode 109 

(https://hbr.org/podcast/2008/08/harvard-business-ideacast-109)

How Does Pixar Foster Collective Creativity?
One industry compares well with that of software development; film. Both produce information goods, digital or digitisable products (Shapiro and Varian, 1998). Both rely on the highly creative work of their designers. Both are produced by teams and teams of teams. The industries themselves have become intimately interdependent as film studios’ demand for visual effects, modelling, simulation, special effects, post processing etc has driven rapid innovation in graphics and animation software.

John Lasseter at the 2009 Venice Film Festival (src: wikipedia).

Software studios create the tools and techniques to produce effects that are used increasingly in films. Films using more realistic and convincing effects constantly push the boundaries of what is possible, and this in turn drives further technology development. The cross-over between software and entertainment is even ingrained into the culture of film, computing and programming. Computing and computer games have also been used as subject matter and characters, not just as tools, from the earliest days of film. We can even argue that visions of 'computing in film' precedes its realisation in reality e.g. Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927).


Pixar's Cultural Roots
Pixar grew out of Lucasfilm's CGI division which was formed by George Lucas to create the special effects for the first Star Wars trilogy. Lucasfilm's Graphics Group eventually became ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) and ILM in turn nurtured the early Pixar. In the days of Lucasfilm and ILM George Lucas encouraged wider intellectual engagement with academics and industry; the same culture was present in Pixar.

“...a film company that was pushing the boundaries. George didn’t try to lock up the technology for himself and allowed us to continue to publish… This made it possible to attract some of the best people in the industry…” (Catmull, 2008)

From its beginning Pixar considered engagement with others as an expression of their core belief in community and ‘relationships that matter.’

The Creative Crisis: With the Toy Story 2 project Pixar entered a crisis situation when they tried to release two high value projects in tandem; developing and producing A Bug’s Life in parallel with Toy Story 2, which was initially contracted to Disney as a 'release to video' offering. Pixar's ‘proven creative leaders’ had already moved on to the next project, "A Bug’s Life", while a second talented and capable team was working on Toy Story 2. However Pixar found that the second production team was not achieving the high production values, general quality and excellence that was the hallmark of Pixar movies. Pixar's "brain trust" eventually realised the Toy Story 2 team were failing on several levels.

“we had a good initial idea for a story, but the reels were not where they ought to have been by the time we started animation, and they were not improving. Making matters worse, the directors and producers were not pulling together to rise to the challenge.”
(Catmull, 2008)

Different reasons were posited to explain how the situation arose. Perhaps the lower quality production values of a direct to video project were a corrosive influence on Pixar’s values? Was the Toy Story 2 team demoralized by knowing that something less than acceptable was now acceptable? Was Pixar’s culture of excellence and in particular its image of ‘talent’ being corroded by Disney's definition of ‘acceptable quality’?

Toy Story 2 was now looking like it needed to be treated like crunch project with the all of the crazy demands of recovering a contracted production schedule that needed 18 months but only had 8. The problem was not in the high concept, but in the details, the coherence and logic of the narrative. Resolving the situation could have wide ranging impacts; much of the work they had thought was finished would have to be revised. Fixing it could impact character development, the storyline, CGI models, artwork, scenery, narrative, dialogue, soundtrack, EVERYTHING! Wouldn't it be easier to just ship a mediocre product? After all, excellence isn't everything?

References and additional sources (thanks to class members for links).

Catmull, E. 2008. How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity. Harvard Business Review, 89, 9.

Lang, F. 1927. Metropolis (link)
Panzarino, M. 2012. How Pixar's TS2 was lost and then found (link)
Stopera, M. 2011. 33 things you probably didn't know about the Toy Story trilogy (link)
Nusair, D. 2011. More things you didn't know about the Toy Story Trilogy (link)
See the introductory section on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story_2) n.b. Most of the content on Wikipedia is from the 2008 book The Pixar Touch by David Price.

Agile at Guidewire videos

Agile Development at Guidewire. 

"What’s good about Agile is it makes process personal."

These videos convey something of the character of work in an Agile software development environment. Thinking in terms of practices, of 'practice theory' try identifying routinized bodily interaction, look at the way these people actively produce and interpret happenings to do with the focus of their work, how things like tools, screens, boards, scraps of paper, proximity, and conversations - occurring in distinctive locations - think about what it takes to know how to perform here, to know how performances matter, how involvement produces knowing.

Guidewire's video archive

Product management - identify the important practices...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0wVEqeEEI4

Testing is the foundation of any successful product
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-myDy3EcEDA

Agile implementation - different groups perceive different benefits, value/values
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtJYCV_tZNk

The big internal shift within Guidewire - cultural, systems, workplace practices
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQuTBp8L_ls

Is it necessary for support roles to work the same way? They say they do but do the?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ5GG7v-dug

Big insurance companies will never do this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nj5IFpoaYc

A philosophy for everyone? - sales, customers, design, production alike?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaJUPJZ07Q0

And the perspective of customer organisations? Or the role for customers in development?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z46xJ1psqWw

Building Creative Teams

A short statement on building creative teams.

https://qsblc.ucd.ie/videos/building-creative-teams-and-collectives/

And a link to the whole collection of Learning Insights from the UCD Lochlann Quinn School of Business.

https://qsblc.ucd.ie/channels/#learning-insights

Data General equipment

"Downtime is the worst of all possible times... Data General, the company that engineered the anxiety out of computers" 

The EMC Westborough Data Centre closes; EMC acquired Data General in 1999 (link).

An earlier model, the Eclipse MV/2500 operating microcode diagnostics; courtesy of Stephen Merrony (link).

Some video footage of a Data General Nova and disk assemblies in operation; courtesy of Andre Schaefer (link).

Running CEO on a Data General MV/4000. CEO (Comprehensive Electronic Office software) was a productivity suite (word processor, mail, display, print, calendar, filesystem, etc); courtesy of Tommy Mademark (link).

This ad from the archives highlights the crucial role that Data General computer systems had in issues of national importance in Ireland; courtesy of Internet Lurker (link).

Kenneth Meates has one of the most awesome responsibilities in all of Dublin, Ireland...

Ken Meates had a career in both industry and in academe. As a Guinness employee at St James’s Gate Brewery he worked as a systems analyst on multiple generations of some of the first computer systems installed in Ireland. As a high regarded member of faculty of the UCD College of Business Ken created and managed the Masters in Project Management up to his retirement. 

https://techarchives.irish/anniversaries-1866-1969/

Must watch: need to know if you're in the business of starting a business

Must watch: need to know if you're in the business of starting a business

— Digital Innovation (@ucddi) August 23, 2017

Cinematic views of software, high-tech, and philosophy

Expanding on a list of key documentary and cinematic views of working in software and high-tech industry (informed by Codemate's post).

Being in the World (2010)
A surprisingly beautiful presentation of the philosophy of human experience, how we apprehend ourselves, others, space, time, action, activity. The film's director and speakers attempt to convey a foundational understanding of our place in the world, our embodied existence. What is true about my being a person, how are we beings, how do I manifest, what it is to be or to exist in the world, how do we encounter and act in the world? Directed by Tao Ruspoli, interviews with the philosophers Hubert Dreyfus, Sean Kelly and many others.

Wittgenstein: A Wonderful Life (1989)

From VHS. A BBC 'Horizon' film about the remarkable life of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Directed by Christopher Sykes.
Code: Debugging the Gender Gap
Documentary dealing with gender imbalance in the tech industry

Triumph of Nerds 1-3
by Robert X Cringely

Something Ventured
by Dan Geller

id software history
by machinima.com

Pirates of Silicon Valley
by Noah Wyle

Revolution OS
by Linus Torvalds

Coding Culture
by Gautam Sonti

Aardvark'd: 12 weeks with Geeks
by Lerone D. Wilson

Indie Game: The Movie
by Merge Games
After watching you will be inspired to play or re-play some of the most influential indie and commercial computer games of the last decades referenced in the film: ICO, Limbo, Zelda (all platforms, all versions), World of Goo, Portal, Slender, etc.

The Social Network
by David Fincher

Designing Interactions
by Bill Moogridge

The Pixar Story
by Leslie Iwerks

Connecting: a documentary about UX and ID
by Basset and Partners

The Design Makers - Inside Ford Design
by the Ford Design Center

Helvetica
by Gary Hustwit

Objectified
by Gary Hustwit

Crocodile in the Yangtze (2012)
by Porter Erisman

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What does a product manager do? What is value?

An hour of reflection by Jez Humble

Value is what gives your life meaning... The trouble with estimates is that they're wrong. Especially as predictions they're terrible as they set up the wrong expectations. 

Estimation is not just valueless, it actually has negative value because people have the wrong expectations. People expect your estimates to be right! And the one thing I can tell you about your estimates is that they will be wrong! And that sets up bad expectations.

What estimation does do, is estimation helps create a shared vision of what you're going to build!

Of interest for Digital Story Telling...

A chairde,

tá súil agam go bhfuil sibh go maith.
Our recently completed half hour documentary on Branar Téatar do Pháistí will have it's first TV broadcast tomorrow night on TG4 at 8pm.
In the film, we follow Branar as they bring their production of Clann Lir to Cologne. It's a big step for them - their first time bringing their work foreign. They're a great company, it's a nice little story!
As well as offering a window into their quiet and magical world of children's puppetry, the film includes music from a range of contemporary / underground Irish musical acts, inc. David Kitt, Tieranniesaur, Karman Line, Halves.
Here's a brief trailer for the film, please feel free to view / circulate: http://ow.ly/qXWdh
For those of you who are Twitter inclined, the tag is #PuipéadBeag
The full episode can also be viewed on the TG4 player http://nasc.tg4.tv/1c7QKyc

Ádh mor,

James
. . . . . . . . . . .
James Kelly
Feenish Productions
26 South Frederick St
Dublin 2

Fionnuala - Puipead Beag Ar Thuras Mor - airplane landscape

Digital Storytelling: Skills Workshops for Video Production

Two Skills Workshops for Video Production covering basic points leading to introductory level knowledge.
These workshops consist of two practitioner led 2hr sessions in video skills and digital storytelling.

Dates: Afternoon Sessions 3pm-5pm: Tuesday 29/10 and Tuesday 5/11
Location: Lecture Theatre 1, Blackrock.

REGISTER HERE (http://goo.gl/VSTolu) PLACES ARE LIMITED

A Google maps reference with room location and suggested parking zones.
https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zI3tiisSQK_k.kqOUvhH4ARXE

And a link to UCD's official Blackrock map
http://www.ucd.ie/maps/Blackrock_Campus_Map_2011.pdf

Context:

To engage in the contemporary digital social networked environment organisations have adapted to new modes of communicating and engaging with clients, partners and markets. Training, explaining, persuading, and just communicating through video offers the potential for more direct and personal impressions of engagement with others. Video blogging has become a mainstream genre for communicating and engaging; the arena of organisational leadership has shifted to presentation and presentations are repurposed as videos. 

Agenda

First session - preparing to film, and filming;

• preparation & visual approach - e.g. shot list.
• employing slideware (Powerpoint or Keynote) to mock/prototype/storyboard the project
• how to shoot - i.e. basic guidelines for framing, camera movement, lighting etc.
• how to get good audio
• scripting and recording a voice-over

Between sessions – homework
shoot footage between classes, to be reviewed at the beginning of the second class.

Second sessions - using your footage - editing;

• review of footage shot by students
• overview of different editing options (mac, pc, iPad etc)
• basic principles of editing
• pacing and rhythm
• use of soundtrack
• uploading options - YouTube, Vimeo

References

Exercise: a 30 second video

As modern workplaces go Wordpress is at one end of a spectrum

Scott Berkun's book ``The Year Without Pants'' is an insider account of working in Wordpress, itselft a largely virtual endeavour.

"The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of work" (link) 

Exercise: a 30 second video

"I like (something) because..."

Goal
To get 'hands-on' experience creating a video presentation.

Instructions
You have 30 minutes to produce a 30 second video.

1. Form groups, at least one member of each group to have a laptop computer on the wireless network.
2. Each use your own smartphone with video function
3. Announce the objective
• To create a video addressing a defined theme "I like the (something) because..."
• Completed video to be 30 seconds duration or less.

Tips First try producing the video in a single take (to avoid merging different shots or doing complicated edits). Planning a video... Start by brainstorming different ideas in the group. When brainstorming:

1. Let each member provide 2 or 3 ideas, capture each ideas with a post-it notes.
2. Suspend your judgment until everyone has stated their idea.
3. Next build on ideas, some ideas will be put aside at this stage.
4. At all times be aware of your own and other's personal safety.
5. Criticise the idea not the person.
6. Use serial discussion, everyone has a turn, no one person dominates.
7. Consider taking on roles but keep it democratic.

Producing a video Videos have a beginning, middle and end so consider writing a brief script. Assign roles...

1. to write the script.
2. to plan the shots.
3. to film.
4. to act.
5. find/create props.
6. to edit.

Do dry runs!

Perhaps you might

• Upload your video to Vimeo or YouTube?

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Further reading

• My piece on storyboarding ideas (managingsystemsdevelopment.blogspot.com).
• Storyboarding is also used as a user-design technique for systems development. For examples see The Importance of Storyboarding Your iPhone App by Josh Clark and Storyboard technique for software projects by Adam Musial-Bright.
• Reynolds, G. (2008) Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery, Berkeley, CA, New Riders.
• Sawyer, B. (2009) The Learner's Journey in Practice. (blogs.oreilly.com)
• BBC video editor (link)
• Camista screen recorder (link)
• Quick and Easy Video with a Flip Cam (dspace.ndlr.ie)
• A Guide to Student-Generated Videos(www.studentgenerated.com)
• MINO HD FLIP CAMERA USER GUIDE (dspace.ndlr.ie)

Here's my pitch for you to 'storyboard' and some tips on how to do it.  Storyboarding from Allen Higgins on Vimeo.

My pinterest collection of video exercises and related presentations

Bringing it all together: Agile Product Management

Henrik Kniberg's Agile product ownership in a nutshell video: brings it all together nicely. It provides a great overview of how agile systems development actually works from the product management perspective.



Should we build the right thing? Build the thing right? Build the thing quickly?

Another take on Creativity...

A nice video on the topic of ideas & brainstorming. Note the shift to an essentialist vision of the superiority of ideas; ideas as entities that function, that can be generated, contrasted and combined. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU

Critique: While not explicitly stated in the video the stance conveyed is the commonly held view that ideas are contained in individuals, the inventors that conceived them.

I would however like to caution against appealing to explanations that resort to the notion of a singular inventive genius at the centre of an innovation. I would try to avoid or at leaset be conscious of the 'essentialist turn of phrase'; that creative ideas are out there jostling for attention, that half an idea can become a full idea in combination with another half etc. Appealing to this kind of 'obvious' way of dealing with ideas is an easy naturalistic way of thinking about the creative process however it mingles the 'idea' with a kind of technical agency, that is it attributes essential qualities to the conceptual object of an idea. This then leads to a kind of teleological explanans for why the final condition of a successful innovation is achieved. Fitness, technical superiority, and a kind of Darwinian competition between ideas in networks that produces a new innovation. This way of describing ideation, while easy to understand, is not founded empirically; ideas and innovations do not have their own lives therefore employing this mode of understanding innovation  seems to me to make for bad policy and management. Why? Because it does not explain the underlying phenomena. What I observe, in the field, is a much messier, involved, uncertain, porous, negotiated and tenuous process that unfolds progressively in an un-plan-able manner. The creative process is more an artistic process than a decision making process of playful discovery, aesthetics and judgement mixed in with inspiration, serendipity and sweat. Ideas aren't atoms of meaning that can be combined into new elements or molecules. Rather, they emerge in contexts, from experience, and through interaction with others.

Kanban objects and interaction

看板

In Japanese; Kanban: Literally, a ‘watch over – board’: a billboard, poster or sign. The first character (reading "kan") combines the primitive elements of heavenly/above and eyes/see to convey watch over or oversee. The second character (reading "ban") combines the elements of wood with bending/resistance meaning which together are taken to be 'board'.

A time-lapse video of a physical kanban/scrum board being used by the Vodafone Web Team in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The underlying mechanism for Scrum is based on kanban which originated in the Toyota Product System. We see these Kanban boards in many workplaces. Kanban is just a board but it becomes a focal point, a social/organisational device. The operation of a Kanban is based on two principles: Pull system, and Visibility.

The other essential aspect of a Kanban in software development is design collaboration; collective involvement in design decisions. Kanban and collaborative design are complementary practices. They act to flatten hierarchy, and enable communication. But 'flat' and democratic, while reducing propensity for individuals to ‘dominate’ also reduces the opportunity to for them to ‘hide’. Agile teams can be very tricky to run as they bring issues of power, control, reputation, face, failing and succeeding into the public sphere of work.

Outsourcing

Henry Ford’s Model T was the emblem of modern manufacturing systems characterised by suppliers and integrators working together to create value.
Industrial production, contracting, subcontracting and contracting out have been defining features of modern organisational forms since the industrial revolution and perhaps prior.
Two main organisational forms have prevailed in the modern era:

1. Vertical integration, managing and owning the whole value chain process from procurement of raw materials through to production of end product.
2. Horizontal specialisation, focusing on crafting/creating/delivering excellence at once core stage of the process of production before passing the processed good onto another stage.
3. Fordist manufacturing created conditions for interfaces between different tasks, activity, input, output, or stages of transformation making up the manufacturing process.
4. Japanese Kanban system is one extreme of layered specialisation from many small suppliers coming together under the umbrella of the main supplier/contractor/manufacturer in the manufacturing environment.
5. Inter-firm information/data process specialisation was enabled by EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) standardisation initiatives from the 1970s through to the turn of the century, now continuing under the aegis of XML and newer standards.

EDI enabled ‘e’ interfaces to be constructed between firms in a similar way to the input/output models of staged manufacturing.
Along the way it demonstrated the overcoming of geographical, spatial and temporal barriers to data exchange.
The modern global supply chain is an extreme case whereby a process’s implementation is facilitated by data exchange between a diverse array of firms thereby creating the very possibility of an integrated supply chain.

---

As an outsourcing destination Ireland has lost appeal throughout the last decade.
Rising costs and competition from developing countries has eroded many of the advantages that Ireland once held.
Consequently Ireland has itself become a net consumer of outsourcing services.
A driver of this trend is the steady erosion in competitiveness in Ireland at country level, a trend which has been in place since the mid-1990s.
The Irish Central bank quarterly bulletin January 2010 provides harmonised competitveness indicators (HCIs) for the Irish economy. Cost driven deterioration in Irish competitiveness has been partially compensated for by increases in productivity but only it appears by shifting lower cost lower value added activities and processes offshore.
The picture for IT outsourcing is however less clear as Irish based offices of multinationals move up the value chain.
Like all mature markets Irish firms and multinationals based in Ireland often outsource organisational function activities to local or international-based outsourcing providers; for example traditional areas like payroll, accounting, finance, legal, HR, purchasing, and logistics, but also such as marketing focused on SEO (search engine optimisation), web development, website hosting, IT services like e-mail and spam filtering, virtualised storage, and telephony services.
Core or primary value processes may also be outsourced but at a higher risk or for reasons other than cost reduction alone.
Whether providers of outsourced services based in Ireland themselves source their activities offshore or not is a matter for their own operations.

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Claims for the size of Ireland destined outsourcing activities and Ireland generated outsourcing vary, range widely between 100s of millions and billions.
Helpdesk and international call centre operations is one area where firms still see value in Irish based operations, particularly where multilingual skills and addressing the European market are important requirements.
In 2003, the value of the outsourcing market in Ireland passed €209 million ($234 million).
Irish banks have outsourced considerable operational activities to third-party providers (e.g. Bank of Ireland's multi-year deal with HP followed by the switch to IBM).
The public sector in Ireland also has long experience with outsourcing services particularly IT (e.g. The Irish Revenue Commissioners and Accenture).
Regardless of the provisioning destination (whether onshore or offshore) the trend is for organisations to increase the investment in outsourcing projects.
Even so firms experience with the outsourcing phenomenon is mixed as expectations to deliver higher levels of service grow and priorities change from simple cost reduction towards valued added.
Regardless of the experience with individual projects outsourcing is likely to remain a popular option with over half CIOs in Irish firms having budgets cut in 2009, cost saving will remain a huge driver or outsourcing initiatives.

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HP Video Podcast: Be "on the business" for strategic IT and outsourcing
Tim Hynes, IT Director Europe, Middle East & Africa, Microsoft

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Why Global Sourcing?
I argue that the sourcing phenomenon is an intrinsic feature of human societies that is amplified by scientific advance, manufacturing innovation, technology more generally, and accelerated in the modern era of computer based infrastructures, high-tech products and services.

What organizational activities and products are amenable to sourcing beyond the traditional boundaries of organizations? And if activities and products can be sourced beyond the boundaries of the organisation what models or modes can be used?

Outsourcing isn't a business fad, it is a fundamental part of modern industrial production. Capital based manufacturing and production of goods and services is predicated on the basic idea of a division of labour. Specialised stages of manufacture, in other words a supply or value chain exist when skilled work is applied to some material, goods or activity to add value until an end point when the good or service is consumed. All industrial and professional specialisation represents therefore a kind of outsoucing. No one organisation, firm or individual has within its power the totality of knowledge, skills, resources, effort and time to produce everything we need or desire. Sourcing has therefore been and remains an intrinsic aspect work (labour and production) in society, from the most rural to the most metropolitan.

What therefore is sourcing? Consider the following definition:

“Sourcing is the act through which work is contracted or delegated to an external or internal entity that could be physically located anywhere. Sourcing encompasses various in-sourcing and outsourcing arrangements such as offshore outsourcing, captive offshoring, nearshoring and onshorning.” (Oshri et. al, 2009)

In light of the prominence and pervasiveness of inter-firm sourcing what are the advantages and disadvantages of different sourcing modes and how are they justified and applied in historical and contemporary settings? The current situation is never completely estranged from its historical contexts. Historical trends in global sourcing lead in to current topics and help to explain how local conditions have evolved.

For one reason or another various sourcing modes have proved more successful in particular industries and in particular locations. The relationship between technology trends and the emergence of expanding arrays of options around sourcing of product components and services offer one set of explanations, explanations such as the irresistible imperative of technology driven change or particular organisational structures. Other ways of understanding the success of sourcing through uncertain contextual conditions and processes of emerging knowledge adapting to and taking advantage of unique situations and knowledge.

An interpretation of global sourcing discourse that managers can use effectively should be more than the straight application of technological recipes, formulas, methods, rules, and organisational templates. Reflective actors will always seek to identify the interests involved, to be aware of who benefits (or looses) in order to juxtapose and evaluate among the various strategic decisions between in-house and outsourced delivery. Sourcing initiatives may proceed smoothly but if not what remedial measures can be employed addressing the organizational and technological issues relating to global sourcing?

The reflective manager has a broad palette of concepts and frameworks for interpreting and deciding sourcing cases. However this area of organisational operations is constantly evolving and changing and so the manager must be adept at identifying emerging trends in sourcing relationships that are likely to be important in the future with implications for current situations. In this way involved actors can merge theory with context, against a historical backdrop, extrapolate and justify the implications of changing sourcing arrangements in complex inter-organizational relationships.

Case: Bank of Ireland Outsourcing 2000-2011
Irish banks have, in the past, outsourced considerable operational activities to third-party providers. Bank of Ireland's multi-year deal with HP followed by the switch to IBM exemplifies one particular case of the benefits and risks of adopting a deep outsourcing strategy in a digital 'information' industry.

(24 February 2003: article-link) BOI license desktop and server software from Microsoft.
(4 April 2003: article-link) BOI announce 7 year deal with HP for IT services worth ~500M, over 500 bank employees to be transferred to HP.
(2 July 2003: article-link) BOI announce multi-million deal for banking software products.
(3 November 2010: article-link) BOI announce 5 year deal with IBM for IT services worth ~500M,

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References
Oshri, I., Kotlarsky, J. & Willcocks, L. P. (2009) The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring, Palgrave Macmillan.

Why the Irish are the business.

Robert Short from RTÉ interviews Bono after the Global Ireland Economic Forum concluded. He asks about Bono's perspective on Ireland as a place to live and a place to work, considering the character of Irish people, their fighting spirit, self belief, and what he suggests is an openness to thinking different.



Robert Short recalls Bono's earlier reflection on ideas around anarchic mind, Bono replied...

"That really is the key to the digital age..."

"To write code, to write software, to crack the problems of the digital age, you have to think different!"

"In the information revolution, thinking different, smartness; India particularly there are some amazingly brilliant software writers - Ireland this is who we are... That anarchic spirit, it's actually, that's what makes us good at the future."

"We live on a small rock in the North Atlantic Ocean, it is pissing rain here, a lot! We have to be very smart about how we bring people, to want to work here and live here."

"And then think it's other things. It is culture, it's, you know, walking around Temple Bar and there's something in the air."

Bono (Paul Hewson)

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And consider this short promotional video from IBEC, the Irish Business and Employers Confederation, on why Ireland is a good place to do business and to be a base for business with the rest of the world. Naturally IBEC has its own take on the financial crisis, Ireland's position in the world, and the kinds of values we should hold, however it does present a compelling view on 'why Ireland'.



(for more on IBEC see ibec.ie)

Theories of Organisation

THEORIES OF ORGANISATION
What theories underpin contemporary coordination and communication approaches? How do are these theories arrayed and structured organizationally, what tools, and knowledge are assumed and necessary to manage the implementation/delivery mechanism? How might we interpret or theorise the underlying processes taking place in this cycle of learning and adaption, because of course technology and systems don’t evolve of their own accord. If we can assume that the organizational system for high tech development is itself a knowledge intensive system, with some (but only partially) immutable structure, then we can employ organizational theory to make sense of (and perhaps manage) these systems.

MAKING SENSE OF ORGANISATION
Organisations are a kind of social order that we ourselves take part in constructing to give shape to special forms of collective action. As Max Weber observed, take away the people and organisations are nothing (Weber, 1949). However sociologists remain divided on the topic of the structural status of organisations and even society. We generally treat social structure as if it is real. Indeed there may be as yet unidentified physiological/psychological mechanisms bases for social patterning, they remain at the moment however, mere conjecture. But even if the human mind produces society and social structure through some as yet unknown intricate biological mechanism, the putative extrapolation of such a function from the individual up to the level of organisational forms, indeed to cultural, social and societal forms (Compte, ), is still the realm of science fiction rather than of science.

Whatever about the status and debates in organisation theory and sociology we still want (and need) to understand and make sense of organisations, especially as we are all in various ways involved in their production. Understanding how we go about doing this is important because our very understanding is in some way bound up with our experience of organisations. The ways we make sense of organisations attunes us to how we interact with others. The language we use, the ways of thinking about events and contingencies encountered from day to day predispose us to ways of interpreting work and our working lives.

METAPHOR
Assuming that there is as yet no unambiguous physiological or functional mechanism underlying the phenomena of social organisation; how then do we make sense of organisations even as they appear to surround us and constitute the fabric or our organisational lives? Metaphor is one way. The language and concepts we use in everyday speech govern to some extent our perceptions, distinctions and decisions. Metaphor is one way of interpreting and making the complexity of everyday situations comprehensible. A metaphor can represent a working hypothesis, a theory of what is happening, how it happens, who is involved etc. Metaphor is an approach we all use, almost without thinking about it, to interpret and simplify everyday realities. Lackoff & Johnson (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) argue that organisational realities are constructed in language, and that metaphor is a pervasive and necessary element of this.

“Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the work, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities.” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980)
“Metaphor pervades our normal conceptual system” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980)

The prevalence of metaphor and its role in constituting organisational meaning may be a crucial instrument for interpreting and managing social interaction and (potentially) organizational design. Skilled and effective managers and professionals appear to have an innate ability to ‘read’ organisational situations, analyse and diagnose them by forming theories of what is happening and devising strategies to address situations (Morgan, 1986). There may be a direct association between a manager’s abilities to ‘read’ situations and their operating theories of organization. A metaphor lends a particular view or insight into a situation, one that ‘frames our understanding’ (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) of what is going on; it is an operating theory of the situation.

Gareth Morgan (1986) offers eight images of organisations for interpreting and diagnosing conditions and situations (Table below).
Table: Eight Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986)


Lets look at three of these images (organisations as Machines, as Organisims, and as Brains) as ways of interpreting organizational systems and thinking about how to organise systems development.

ORGANISATIONS AS MACHINES

“When managers think of organizations as machines they tend to manage and design them as machines made up of interlocking parts that each play a clearly defined role in the functioning of the whole.” (Morgan, 1986)

The machine metaphor has become so pervasive that it is often simply unquestioned. Mechanistic models are one of the foundational concepts of organization theory although the software development industry appears at times to have a special attachment to it.

Functional mechanistic organisation design may be a direct analogue of the organization’s dominant product architecture or be based on process specialization. Product analogue organization maps the macroscopic structure of the development firm along functional lines to the functional organization of the product. Process specialization is where rather than the organisation's product determining the design of the organisation, the organisations processes (chains of activities) determine the structure of the organisation. These processes (e.g. maintenance, new product development, consulting) govern the divisional structure of the firm even though at the micro level (in sub groups or teams) individuals may still apply a mapping between the product design and their own roles and responsibilities. For example specialist engineers will own specific code modules for new development, fixes etc.

ORGANISATIONS AS ORGANISMS

“The problems of mechanistic visions of organisation have lead many organization theorists away from mechanical science and towards biology as a source or ideas for thinking about organization.” (Morgan, 1986)

The metaphor of the organisation as an organism presents a view of the organisation as having needs and existing within the wider environment that impacts it. The organism itself consists of interdependent organs and is situated within an environment or ecology. It may have relations with other organizations and belonging to a type or species.

Certainly the ideas of biology have also, like those of mechanisation, filtered into popular discourse. Biological thinking has become one of these background assumptions constituting modern thinking. Organisation theorists have adapted the idea of an organism to that of organization; existing in an open system, adapting to its environment, interacting with other organisms, and applying the notion of fitness, surviving, and evolving over generations. The organism metaphor conveys ideas of a life-cycle, health, reproduction, predators, prey, food, waste, etc.

ORGANISATIONS AS BRAINS: LEARNING
Organisations as mechanistic or as organisms assume and encode very specific models of learning and knowledge. Mechanistic feedback control loops are goal driven error minimising functions. The classic negative feedback loop is the underlying theory for many organisational principles. The Plan Do Check Act model (ISO, 2000) achieves product conformity by first planning, acting, detecting the error between what was desired and what was achieved, and then adjusting (Figure below). The organisational system applies an adaptive approach to achieving convergence with some defined objective or goal. Such cybernetic or feedback systems in organisations apply this kind of action/learning method to dealing with uncertain situations.

Figure: PDCA single loop learning of the Demming cycle

Single loop learning is characterised by negative feedback, assessing the difference between what was desired and progress to attaining it. The error or difference is measured and then minimised, further action is dictated and the process continues until the goal is achieved. This kind of cybernetic feedback loop may be explained by the example of picking up a pen. In a sense we pick up an pen by ‘avoiding not picking it up’ (Morgan, 1986: 85). The argument goes that iswe make a guess or approximation of where the pen is then gradually adjust our hand’s position towards it.

PDCA is a kind of ‘single loop learning.’ (Argyris, 1977) A single loop learning organisation designed around PDCA is good at producing and refining well defined products efficiently, predictably, and within high quality tolerances (think Six Sigma) but they may not be as effective at responding to changing requirements and dynamic competitive environments. One problem with simple learning models is that they can be inherently incremental, focused on perfective rather than more radical adaptive learning. The PDCA or the single loop learning model is perfective rather than adaptive.

Throughout the 1990’s Kodak “kept making the process of manufacturing and distributing chemical-based film more efficient instead of devoting attention to making the shift to digital photography” (Amabile and Khaire, 2008)

Put another way, the single loop learning model doesn’t tell us much about adapting the organisation to changing circumstances, new goals. An intelligent person for example, situated in a particular context treats learning in a fundamentally different way. We can conclude that as with individuals, organizations can step out of single loop cybernetic goal directed action by reflecting. According to Morgan, overcoming the organisational limitations of single loop learning involves: Institutionalising review, challenging norms, challenging policies, challenging operating procedures, reporting on change in the operating environment, and encouraging on-going debate, encouraging innovation (adapted from (Morgan, 1986)). All of which will however generate organisational tensions if single loop learning is institutionalized through the organizations structures and procedures.