In this first blog post about Hacking the Enterprise, we will to introduce the concept behind the Whispr platform we are working on. The concept
of hacking the enterprise is about unlocking the knowledge within your human
capital and building highly efficient communications models to allow you to make decisions and get business done. The value of roles, clearly defined lines
of communication and process is becoming universally recognized as the single
most important factor in building effective teams. It seems almost
illogical that such a quintessential component of an enterprises’ success has
been long neglected yet nothing much has changed with respect to the way people
work together in the last four decades. To understand more about Hacking
the Enterprise and optimizing the effectiveness, we have to look back to 2001.
Research started to look at the failures of effective team
communications after the tragic events of September 11, 2001 when an internal
audit of communications and knowledge sharing was spearheaded by psychologists
who sought to understand where the intelligence community could have done
better. The Harvard based team was led by the late Richard Hackman and they
approached the work with a question of what made certain intelligence units
functionally effective while others were not.
Richard’s team interviewed, observed, surveyed and watched
hundreds of individuals operating across sixty four different intelligence
organizations. By watching them up close, he learned how most are viewed
as solo or individual contributors yet have to function within the greater
collective by collaborating with their colleagues. Throughout all
this research, the team identified a comprehensive list of factors and models
that seemed to be factor’s in the cohesiveness and effectiveness of groups.
Within the context of the intelligence community, these groups can
sometimes be ad hoc and survive only to address a very specific decision.
Cultural, regulatory and other factors cannot always be accounted for
within this context however there were some startling revelations that had a
much broader applicability of use.
Graphic courtesy Julian Partridge (via Flickr - CC License)
While the work is summarized in a book aptly named
Collaborative Intelligence
(http://www.amazon.com/Collaborative-Intelligence-Using-Problems-Business/dp/1605099902
) Richard’s team noted that the critical factor wasn’t as simple as just having
a set of static team members, a clearly defined vision statement nor was it
singularly due to human endearments or egos. It turned out that the
single strongest predictor of group effectiveness was the amount of help that
analysts gave to each other.
As with most enterprises, the highest-performing teams place
a great emphasis on collaborating, coaching, teaching, and consulting with
colleagues. Those who shared little resources and did not effectively
communicate with their colleagues for enhanced problem solving embodied the
anti-pattern of this success. Hacking the enterprise is a conceptual hack
embracing the collective pattern of good collaboration to facilitate these good
patterns. Much like a set of synaptic relays making connections to each
other for the first time in a small child’s brain, hacking the enterprise is
about bridging gaps in knowledge and communication.
Individuals and enterprises benefit the most when they
freely contribute their knowledge and skills to others and do so with clearly
defined roles. Whispr is build on that premise and facilitates the
hacking the enterprise mentality by allowing ad hoc teams to create powerful,
focused task forces to solve specific problems and preserving that knowledge.
So what is the call to action? Whispr is a platform that allows distributed teams to set up decisions ("Whisprs") and add contributors based on the roles defined in a RACI Matrix. Whispr is open for a very limited time for alpha testing at http://whis.pr. If you have a decision to make and have a
distributed team, this is the perfect tool for hacking your enterprise. You can signup at http://whis.pr/signup. Those who come in now can use it for free for a limited time.
