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DEFINING THE PROBLEM
Inconsistent processes
hamper profitable decision-making. Information passed through the organization could be
incomprehensible, wrong, or simply not applicable. Yet decisions based on such information have to be made, usually
under time constraints.
The inability to re-use proven
expertise degrades three basic work activities:
Daily information processing
At some point errors will
cause information flow to become turbulent - rework and extra communications consuming the majority of employees' time.
Error-related information processing will grow exponentially from excess information.
Group decisions
There can be little confidence in any group's decisions
without agreement on the task and its most relevant information. It is costly to waste the participants' time and knowledge capital
in misguided collaboration.
Managing information assets
Using bad or irrelevant information decreases the risk-adjusted return on existing information assets and managerial practices.
If decisions are interlocked then the low returns will cascade throughout the entire organization.
If all three activities suffer from knowledge loss then the organization will be unable to function properly.
The accumulation of faulty decisions can lead to failures such as the breakup of the Space
Shuttle Columbia.
SUGGESTING A SOLUTION
By stopping and thinking about the information needed to understand
a specific task (solve a problem or seizing an opportunity to improve), irrelevant information can be eliminated and the remainder fused. The analytical result,
a portable set of knowledge known as an infosphere, can be easily communicated and re-used. Ongoing decision-making will improve.
Using employee knowledge
capital to simplify information produces infospheres that optimize the organization's unique pattern of information use.
The Stop&Think process has three steps: tasking, fusion, and valuation.
Tasking
The first step, and potentially the most difficult, is to explicitly
identify the task. The task process can be either an on-going operation or a special project; is possible for tasks to be nested inside one another.
Tasks are framed according to goals, conditions, measurements of success, and timing; these criteria are drawn from the military's After Action Review.
For an example see
[ Apollo 13: Focus on Recovery ]
Fusion
Once the task has been identified,
it is expressed as a series of questions that fall into the following
categories: WHO, WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN (fact representation) with data source and quality specified.
Next, employee knowledge and pattern
recognition skills determine the relationships between the facts
(information representation) which in the final step are fused into WHY-type or cause and effect reasoning keywords (knowledge representation). These knowledge keywords form the infosphere.
The Language is the Solution™
The fusion process rests upon the group knowledge building structure of language.
The keywords can be used to build data models, act as metadata, or form the basis of an ontology (task-specific language) used to mark up documents using XML.
For more information see the
Fusing Information For Expertise
white paper.
The elements in the infosphere can be combined in different ways to derive a variety of testable solutions. Once the best solution is determined the infosphere is used to perform the task.
For an example see
[ Kosovo Peacekeeping Crisis: Improved information Points to a Solution ]
Valuation
The ST-Index measures the infosphere's usefulness in terms of the task's probability of success (which includes abandonment).
The index is calculated using Bayesian inference which combines a subjective, experience-based score with test, simulation, or utility function results.
The ST-Index can be input into a real options pricing mechanism in order to determine the dollar value of the infosphere, individual infosphere elements, and associated information assets.
In addition, a risk-adjusted return and associated analytics can be calculated for the task.
The ST-Index also serves as an input to Flow Potential, a measure of potential information velocity.
For more information see the
Valuing Information
white paper.
For information on difficult-to-value tasks see
Estimating ROI Using A Measurement of Expertise.
For valuing organizational flexibility see
Pricing Operational Flexibility to Maximize Equity.
Valuation is completed with a review of the task once it is finished, surveying the infosphere for weaknesses. Based on this analysis, the Task Team identifies how successes can be sustained and shortcomings improved.
For an example see
[ Nuclear Bomb Recovery: Measuring Knowledge ]
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Model of Process
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