Every software developer's dream ...

[Q2Do]

... that the app you've devoted all that time to will go viral!

But what's the best way to get an initial buy-in for something that is both a private business application and a free public service?

My "killer app"? A Consensus Decision Making Process (CDMP) to support employee engagement.

Oh I know that for many that won't exactly get the passions flowing, but employee disengagement is a big issue. Staff satisfaction surveys are used quite widely in an attempt to re-engage, and enlightened employers talk about empowering their staff. My CDMP attempts to engage and empower without the overheads of facilitation by paid consultant or taking staff out of the business to take it in turns to have their say.

I believe I'm close to the stage of having a minimum viable product but now comes the hard part - promotion and sales without any real business background.

What are your thoughts on business partnerships? Should I launch the free public service to get proof of concept before attempting business sales?

For the moment giving up the day job is a long way off - I've still a lot of work to do before seriously considering that step.

Will be back at the weekend hopefully to read your response.

Thanks

 

[NickGrogan]

I had to go here http://www.hrmtoday.com/featured-stories/five-ways-to-use-consensus-for-group-decisions-2/ to understand what you were offering.

No idea how you could achieve this with an app, and who your target audience is.

In my experiences most businesses don't really care about their employees, but this is OK, because most employees really don't care about the business. Staff want to get paid and bosses want work done.

Most of my experience has been within a sales environment and trying to build consensus there is going to be a struggle. Not all employees opinions have equal weight and nor should they. Others seem to agree with this. http://www.forbes.com/sites/cywakeman/2013/01/14/its-time-to-rethink-employee-engagement/

I can imagine big companies like Npower, NHS and John Lewis going for something like this, but then I'd expect them to go for a big name consultancy or expert.

I don't see how an app fits into that model, sorry.

 

[garyk]

Yep I just don't 'get it' at all and can't see how an app would help.

 

[Q2Do]

Haha, thanks Nick. There may be some truth in what you say that most employers don't care about their employees and vice versa, but there's a heck of a lot of lip-service being paid in HR departments to employee engagement if nothing more! The way most companies attempt to engage staff is via the staff survey - there's plenty of companies offering this service online and many companies doing it themselves in-house.

You're probably right that it's only the larger companies who are interested in employee feedback and staff engagement that would consider going beyond the survey. Why? Well, time is money and it takes a lot of time to prepare the survey, analyse the results, prioritise the key issues and get everyone's buy-in for allocating resources and taking action.

How on earth could a software application help with that? Well you begin with a voting system to determine what the one key issue of the moment is - and then focus on that! (The app goes way beyond that - it's a fully featured staged process with some key elements described here: Consensus Decision Making --oops can't do links - check wikipedia)

Oh, and what's the key factor in a successful survey? Anonymity! People won't say what they really think when know that they are favoured when they support the boss's ideas and shunned when they don't. An anonymous voting system can go far beyond that suggestion box that everyone forgot about a week after it was screwed to the wall near the notice board.

Anyway, thanks for your reply and the links - that's where I'm headed now!

 

[Q2Do]

Brilliant articles! I believe what I've done is to address the issues discussed and to come up with a solution.

For example ~ not everyone's opinion carries equal weight ~ (I'm paraphrasing)

Absolutely right! That's why the web app I've written has a staged voting system. You filter out the crap until you're left with the idea that is voted the best.

But that's not the end of it.

You then proceed to the consensus stage: what concessions are required to get the buy-in of those who didn't vote for the winning idea? If you don't reach a predetermined super-majority, the proposal doesn't get adopted. All this is timed. It's not an endless discussion, it's a decision forum without having to shut up shop and take the staff out to a venue to hear everyone speak in turn.

The administrator decides how often staff decisions are made. Is it once a year or once a week. Is there one decision forum for the whole company, or one for each department?

Anyway, this isn't complete yet - back to development, but I must keep an eye on how this will be promoted. I'm very aware of the fallacy that "if you build it they will come". Everything needs to be sold, not just built.

 

[NickGrogan]

Two quotes from your messages stand out.

"there's a heck of a lot of lip-service being paid in HR departments"
"it's a decision forum"

Two very contradictory positions.

The great thing about surveys is that anyone can do them, you can load the data into excel or whatever your favorite app is, produce lovely graphs, study trends, and then ignore everything. Great for lip service.

If using your app to make a decision and everyone thinks that moving to a 3 day week, with no loss of pay is a good issue, and everyone then agrees it should be implemented, then what happens? Does the company do it and go bust or?

You hint at this yourself, talking about filtering out the crap.

So you are just left with choose which of the managements ideas you like best and then choose the way that management wants to implement it. Or decide on very minor issues, Gold Blend Vs Kenco in the staff canteen.

I don't see either one adding much value, or how an app fits.

Have you spoken to any clients about what they actually want? Consensus Decision Making in action.

 

[fisicx]

You filter out the crap until you're left with the idea that is voted the best.

That's an awful way to make a decision. An an app is not the way run things.

And there is never one key issue - a holistic approach is needed.

 

[Q2Do]

The key is to prioritise issues and then set deadlines for discussion.

Everyone has an opportunity to make an input, but that doesn't mean the group will value that input. The least popular ideas are eliminated in stages.

Sure, businesses have many issues to deal with, but if you set too many priorities, then nothing is a priority. The decision forum creates focus and leads to group consensus (or not!)

If the group does reach consensus, then it's up to management to decide whether to implement or not.

The other important point is that the ideas can come from anyone - not just from management. The boss doesn't always have the best idea. Anonymity means that all ideas can be judged on their merits alone and not on the status of the proposer.

I didn't understand the contradiction in your post Nick. Employee engagement is a fairly hot topic within HR, and staff surveys are fairly common place. The app goes beyond the survey to employee consensus on matters that they have prioritised.

http:// www. engageforsuccess. org (remove spaces)

Have I spoken to any clients about what they actually want? No ... that's the next step. I'm still working full time and would love the chance to to trial this and get feedback ... and no, I don't intend to flag up what I'm doing to my employer!

Thanks again for feedback.

 

[NickGrogan]

1) Everyone has an opportunity to make an input
2) The least popular ideas are eliminated in stages
3) it's up to management to decide whether to implement or not.

Sounds like X-factor to me.

If a business is going to do whatever employees want them to, so that the employees like them, I wouldn't want to be an investor.

I can see this being ok as a service in some sectors, and I'm sure HR would love it. However in most companies HR are implementers, not decision makers.

What I can't see is any added value in using an app to collect responses and present them. You could do it with Google Docs. The app isn't going to know what a bad idea is, just rank by votes, etc. So what does your app really do?

 

[Excel Expert]

One of my roles at a large insurance company was to empower staff and give them a say in how we implemented changes, systems and procedures. This meant lots of face to face meetings or surveys placed on the company intranet.

We had the people in working in each of the departments to select a handful of staff to represent them at cross department meetings. This representatives would raise questions on behalf of their department and feedback directly on the outcome. It worked great. We had loads of ideas and cross department relationships improved greatly. The staff felt engaged and empowered.

They have been in the Sunday Times top 100 places to work every year since 2000 and have been the top place to work in Wales several times in the same period.

Could that happen via an app? I dont think so. It seems the opposite of engagement, that is almost like saying text me or email me but dont talk to me.

If you are looking at selling this to the bigger companies handing out free versions is not going to grab their attention, in fact it is probably going to put them off as you will appear to be just another low end app.

Advertise your prices but ensure that you have a demo version with limited capability to give away to those that make real enquiries.

Pricing is going to be really awkward on this one. Some companies, but not many these days, have bottomless pockets when it comes to this kind of stuff, but most wont have a budget at all. They will use things like Survey Monkey and other readily available tools.

Then there is the competition out there. What is to stop a company setting up a private Facebook group/page for their staff? 99% of their staff will be on Facebook anyway. They can put up surveys, announcements and engage with many people at once there.

 

[webgeek]

My "killer app"? A Consensus Decision Making Process (CDMP) to support employee engagement.

As others, I've no idea wtf this is without engaging a lot more neurons than I've got free at the moment.

For an elevator pitch, I've got to say, please stick to the debugger and leave the marketing/sales to whoever you put in place for it

Seriously though, if you would have piqued my interest if you said that your killer app would:

Reduce Employee Absenteeism, Increase Satisfaction and Productivity, while Improving the Office Emotional Climate via a Voting and Polling App​

Exposing the masses to your minimum viable product? How about making sure it's ready for prime time, then offering a limited free beta (exclusive)? There's a lot of ways of launching, hopefully you team up with a team that's done it a few times before, whether you pay them with hard earned cash or equity in a JV, that's up to you, and them.

 

[fisicx]

Make the app freely available to UKBF members and use it to determine the best way to get buy-in. According to your posts the collective should come up with the best solution.

If it doesn't then it means the app may not be quite as good as you think it is.

 

[Q2Do]

Wow ... a lot of input there, thanks folks. Let me try and deal with a few of the points raised.

What really stands out is webgeeks's point about the elevator pitch. I'm painfully aware I'm not a salesperson, although the few people I've discussed this with (family and friends admittedly) have been very positive about the concept. (They would be wouldn't they?). I thought my problem was marketing and sales, not the concept!

Nick's point: Sound's like X-Factor? I've made the comparison myself! It's the X-Factor for ideas rather than for personalities. However, there is no personality or status in the process - it's all about the idea which is put forward anonymously - how much weight does the idea carry in the group? Anonymity may be a USP. Most people see anonymity as a problem, particularly on public forums, however in voting systems, anonymity is essential (is anyone thinking of getting rid of the secret ballot? Ballot_Act_1872) Similarly, Lady Justice wears a blindfold to be impartial to status and privilege. Let's judge the idea on its merits, not by who said it, how good they look, how confident they are, how polished their rhetoric, or how many friends they have.

The system allows the boss to put forward an idea for adoption alongside the security guard or cleaner.

Think about it, as a leader how confident are you that your ideas always trump those of your staff? Is there any situation where you'd value the honest feedback of your team rather than unquestioning, unconditional support? How can they give that feedback if they fear a negative response to an honest appraisal?

Similarly, which organisations are going to thrive? Those that depend on the great leader for all the good ideas, or those that have a culture of engaging everybody to contribute to the pool of ideas that get considered? The Wisdom of Crowds suggest it's the latter.

Excel Dragon's point about engagement via an app being the opposite of engagement. (Incidentally it's currently a web application as opposed to a website or smartphone app, although I have played around with the latter, but as a one-man band I can't do everything now ) ... I really get this honestly. In most situations face to face is best. We're human beings (well techies like me approximate to being being human anyway) and we can gain so much meta data from tone of voice and body language and all that stuff that NLP'ers rave about. However, times are changing Mr Dragon sir. How much interaction between humans is done via keyboard and screen? Enough I'd say to be worth tapping in to for more than cute kittens, celebrities and porn.

Pricing? I've hardly even begun to think about it. 5,000 companies worldwide at a tenner a year. That'll do nicely. I'm laughing, my hosting fees and database are a fiver a month. Should I be more ambitious?

Does SurveyMonkey allow participants to set their priorities, ask their questions, put forward their proposals for solutions? Nope, it's a pre-prepared survey. (Apologies if this is too dismissive of a very successful service, but I do believe what I'm offering is next generation surveys).

fisicx - haha love the moniker and I'm sorry to say you wouldn't get to keep it in my world. (All input is anonymous!) Make the app freely available to UKBF members? ... yeah, like it. It's more than a work in progress, now let's see whether the link above is accepted to determine whether I can post a link to my site ... nope, not there yet, gotta undo wikipedia link to Ballot Act 1872.

Cheers.

PS Glad to report my sister has been given all clear after mastectomy. That's totally irrelevant, please don't let it sway any opinion you have about the above response.

 

[NickGrogan]

Wisdom of Crowds?

In his book You Are Not a Gadget, Jaron Lanier argues that crowd wisdom is best suited for problems that involve optimization, but ill-suited for problems that require creativity or innovation. In the online articleDigital Maoism, Lanier argues that the collective is more likely to be smart only when

1. it isn't defining its own questions,
2. the goodness of an answer can be evaluated by a simple result (such as a single numeric value), and
3. the information system which informs the collective is filtered by a quality control mechanism that relies on individuals to a high degree.
Lanier argues that only under those circumstances can a collective be smarter than a person. If any of these conditions are broken, the collective becomes unreliable or worse.

Your systems appears to fail all 3.

If you want to PM me the link to your project, I will post it here for you.

 

[Q2Do]

Thanks Nick,

I'll haven't come across Jaron Lanier before, but will find time to read the article in full and make a decision whether the book will be useful background reading.

The bit I did read seemed to be critical of Wikipedia. Sure Wikipedia isn't perfect, but many people find it quick, convenient and useful. Of course you always have to bear in mind that the writer may not be the world's foremost authority on a subject, but there aren't many people who prefer the annually updated printed encyclopedia.

If I dare make the comparison to Wikipedia, the technology enabled Consensus Decision Making Process I'm proposing won't be right in all cases either, but if the user has it available as a resource they can be better informed about what a group thinks as a whole and what proposals the group are prepared to back with either simple majority, super majority or unanimity. (The group owner sets the decision making basis).

I think an earlier poster made reference to the workplace not being a democracy, that's why the group owner gets to decide whether any group decisions are binding. The process is there to help leaders make better decisions not to replace the leader. (Although many are advocating delayering management structures and introducing group decision making - Flat Army by Dan Pontefract and Never Mind The Bosses by Robin Ryde are both good reads).

(I can't comment in detail on the conditions for when the collective is more likely to be smart as I'd need to read more, however I do believe I have satisfied the conditions that James Surowiecki identifies in the original Wisdom Of Crowds).

I will PM the link to my site, however you should note that it's not easy for one individual to assess a process designed for group decisions. (That will have to be tomorrow however as I have a meeting at 8pm.)

Thanks again.

 

[Q2Do]

Digital Maoism? It's a fairly long article and hopefully interspersed with as much humour as the early part - I'll continue to read, however it strikes me that Lanier's opinion is maybe just a health warning on the use of a power tool rather than a strong case for ridding the world of power tools.

OK. here goes, here's the link to the web application as I prefer to call it, but maybe just website as most will understand it. (there is the beginnings of a mobile app in development, but completion of that is some way off).

First of all, please note:

This is still a work in progress (I have been advised by artistic friends never to share a work in progress, maybe I'll regret this, maybe UKBF members will offer nothing but constructive criticism?)

I have focused on functionality - the engine of the site. At some point in the future, if I can achieve any kind of traction in the market place I'll be able to employ the services of a web designer.

Private groups won't be visible to you even after registration - you have to be invited.

There's no user generated content yet, only my test data.

I haven't written the user guide yet nor the principles behind the Consensus Decision Making Process, but just to give you the briefest of a head start, there are four phases to the process:

Prioritisation of issues - and issue selection
Discussion - Q&A period
Proposal selection - staged elimination of proposal for a solution to the issue
Consensus - a period of negotiation between the proposer and anyone opposed to the winning proposal, in order to make any concessions necessary to achieve the required majority (or unanimity)

Finally as previously mentioned, this can only be truly assessed in practice with a group of people. It's hard to use the site to come to an agreement with yourself!

With that in mind here's my work in progress:
the izavit co uk

Work at 10am, gotta go. Will pick up any feedback later. Cheers

 

[NickGrogan]

Took a quick look at the site, seems ok. As you say a group of 1 is not ideal for voting, etc.

But I think you need to focus on what you are actually offering.

Reading through your posts and the website, there are too many grey areas.

Does the group decide issues or the manager.
Are group decisions implemented or just suggestions.
Who is takes responsibility. The group decides anonymously, so who takes the blame when the decision is wrong?
You talk about information being shared, but I don't see this happening. e.g. management are considering closing an office next year or scrapping a project. They are not going to share this with the people who are affected until the decision is made.

I don't think the site is a problem, but I think you should nail down exactly what it is you're offering and whether anyone wants it in this form.

 

[Q2Do]

Hi Nick, thanks for taking a look at the site - the first person beyond immediately family and friends to see what I spend so much time doing!

In answer to your questions:

Does the group decide issues or the manager?

For public groups anyone can raise an issue.

In private groups, the owner gets to decide whether everybody does, or just a select few allocated to the role "Issue Creators".

Issues get voted on, and only the top priority issues gets discussed within a given timescale. The timescales are set by the group owner.

The point is to focus people's minds on what the group considers to be important, not to open up a forum for endless discussion. Time is money and no business owner will adopt the system if they don't envisage getting the decisions they seek in a more efficient way.

Are group decisions implemented or just suggestions?

Again, the group owner (the person with the resources to allocate) sets the rules here. I could perhaps get the owner to flag their intentions to the group for everyone to see before taking part. (Binding or advisory ... could there be any other options?)

Who is takes responsibility. The group decides anonymously, so who takes the blame when the decision is wrong?

If consensus is achieved on an issue and the group owner adopts the proposal, there is collective responsibility. I think any organisation interested in group consensus is unlikely to be in a blame culture anyway. Furthermore, it allows for future revision of a decision without the single owner of an idea feeling the full weight of not having made a perfect decision in the first place.

Comic strip break: http:// search dot dilbert dot com/comic/Change%20Mind

You talk about information being shared, but I don't see this happening. e.g. management are considering closing an office next year or scrapping a project. They are not going to share this with the people who are affected until the decision is made.

There are definitely decisions that cannot be made by everybody!

PS I'm about half way through the Jaron Lanier article ... at a quick glance the respsonses look very interesting too.

 

[Q2Do]

OK, let me take a step back. The readers of this thread must be few and far between now!

Despite the thread going in a direction I hadn't intended, it has been massively useful to me and a big thanks to everyone who has contributed.

The intention was to ask for advice on how my site could be promoted, however the discussion focused almost entirely on whether the concept was a good one or not. That's also an important question to me, so that's why I have engaged with it.

After reading the Jaron Lanier article, I'm more convinced than ever that I have addressed the concerns anyone considering employing a Consensus Decision Making Process would have!

Jaron Lanier's concerns are often about entirely different things (I'm not developing a wiki and I'm not proposing an aggregating site or developing some form of Artificial Intelligence).

What is of massive importance to me are his concerns about the "hive mind", the balance of power between the individual and the group and the conditions where we should either

1) defer to the powerful leader or better informed individual and when
2) we should trust the group consensus.

Answering this alone could lead to another very long post, so let me try to be very brief.

Lanier's conditions for when the collective decision is better were as follows:

1. the group isn't defining its own questions

2. the goodness of an answer can be evaluated by a simple result (such as a single numeric value)

3. the information system which informs the collective is filtered by a quality control mechanism that relies on individuals to a high degree.

Maybe I didn't read the article carefully enough, but I didn't pick up on the reasons why a group can't ask questions of itself. Maybe he meant exclusively? The CDMP model I'm proposing would allow the group leader and invited experts to ask difficult questions, indeed the ability for everybody to be able to ask difficult questions is essential to avoid group-think (Groupthink: The company ‘A-Hole’ and why you need one http:// greg2dot0 . com/2012/02/27/groupthink/)

His second condition I would tend to agree with. You can't fly a plane by committee. However that doesn't mean to say the captain is always right. You only have to watch a few episodes of Aircraft Investigations to realise that. The airline industry has learned from this and adopt Crew Resource Management. Everybody has a responsibility to keep the plane and its passengers safe.

From wikipedia (haha): "CRM can be defined as a management system which makes optimum use of all available resources - equipment, procedures and people - to promote safety and enhance the efficiency of operations." In CRM, you don't always defer to the boss and your expertise is valued alongside that of your superior in the hierachy.

I think Lanier undermines his own third point. Whereas there was a time perhaps when the media was more independent and could be trusted to challenge powerful vested interests, in many cases we can no longer rely on the impartiality of the media as our sole source of information. There is a place for unfiltered information to paint a bigger picture. We no longer rely solely on the professional journalist for the truth.

http:// www youtube com/watch?v=Otm4RusESNU

There's development work to be done!

I'll be back soon to ask about promotion and marketing!

Cheers!

 

[bgravenell]

A lot of companies adopt the roll out a freebie service/app to get a buy in first then when people have taken it up after a period of time move the chargeable route and eliminate the free service.

 

[Q2Do]

I'm more than happy to do this, however, my situation is that I still work full time and I don't think an out of hours approach would work (?) (I know that at some point I'm going to have to get out of my comfort zone and make some kind of approach that will feel awkward at first.)

I thought about writing some kind of press release to the local paper, but I'd need to think of an angle that would make this newsworthy rather than just the launch of a new service.

I've also though about approaching independent business consultants who may be able to offer this as an extra service to new and existing clients.

It won't be long now until the time is right for this next step, I just wondered if there was another approach I'd not thought of that would make a great first step into marketing the service.

Oh, I also wondered whether I might "recruit" a commission only sales team. Could that work? Does anyone have any experience of this?

 

[10032012]

@Q2Do I had tried last year to recruit a commission only self-employed sales team of 4-5 people and failed. I couldn't get anyone local, as I wanted them all based in an additional room in a serviced office block, whilst doing work in the field and at home where applicable. It might be something you can achieve more remotely. The commission on offer was crippling but the contracts were a maximum of 2 years (1 year plus possible 1 year extension); so I had planned to replace the team longer term with a basic salary (employee) plus bonuses once the ball is rolling. This said, I was looking for more than someone to phone up a directory of numbers to generate leads, so I was offering large commission to get the talent needed. Someone else here might have had more success in this arena.

 

[Q2Do]

I've worked commission only for a fairly large Health Cash Plan Provider and felt totally shafted and wouldn't wish it upon anyone else.

I've also worked commission only for a friend on a very informal basis and know that it isn't that satisfactory (to say the least!)

If I was to offer this, I'd only feel comfortable offering generous commission. In fact at this early stage, despite having put so many hours (over a 3 year period) into this project, I'd say any sales person without any other income should get close to 100% of the sale. Could I realistically expect anyone to devote their time to such a venture on anything less? I couldn't offer any office space or expenses.

If the service ever reached a stage where it "sold itself", obviously the commission rates payable would be very different.

Whilst the basis of "employment" was commission only I'd expect any "contract" to be very loose indeed, but to be honest, despite some personal experience, I'm a little out of my depth on this matter.

 

[NickGrogan]

@Q2Do I had tried last year to recruit a commission only self-employed sales team of 4-5 people and failed. I couldn't get anyone local, as I wanted them all based in an additional room in a serviced office block, whilst doing work in the field and at home where applicable. It might be something you can achieve more remotely. The commission on offer was crippling but the contracts were a maximum of 2 years (1 year plus possible 1 year extension); so I had planned to replace the team longer term with a basic salary (employee) plus bonuses once the ball is rolling. This said, I was looking for more than someone to phone up a directory of numbers to generate leads, so I was offering large commission to get the talent needed. Someone else here might have had more success in this arena.

I can see why you had problems, trying reading your offer from the salesman's point of view.

 

[NickGrogan]

I'd say any sales person without any other income should get close to 100% of the sale.

The commission level should reflect the value the salesman is adding, it has nothing to do with their other income. You are unlikely to find a salesman to work on this exclusively, this is more like an add on product than a main sale.

The biggest issue I can see is who is your target market and what is the price? If you want to sell this to HR within multinationals for £10,000s you need a very different offering. salesman and commission structure compared to selling to SMEs for £10s.

 

[Q2Do]

Thanks Nick, I do need to spend some time coming up with a strategy for the next stage. I need to identify a niche and pursue that. It would be hard to begin to develop a brand with credibility if there's lack of focus.

If this is to be an add-on service rather than a main sale, then I'd need to establish contact with individuals and organisations who currently provide some form of consultancy in a similar area where my site becomes a vital tool to achieve the goal.

The goals I'm thinking of relate to employee engagement, empowerment, efficient decision making and team performance.

That's about as much clarity and focus as I have at the moment! My strategy document is still pretty much a blank sheet!

 

[Q2Do]

Flatter management structures and new empowerment models are getting more and more attention. They may not be mainstream and may not be suited to many companies, but in the drive for employee engagement and administrative efficiency, some are prepared to take on quite radical experiments, such as Holacracy (at Zappos and Medium in the States). I'll be watching with interest but pursuing something a little less revolutionary!

http:// www . cnn . com/2014/03/05/opinion/logan-zappos-holacracy/

http:// search . dilbert . com/search?day1=03&mth1=03&yr1=2014&day2=03&mth2=03&yr2=2014&x=50&y=16