icon representing case study of using insight landscaping to reflect social digital twin

Insight landscaping to create social digital twins

Case study logo - picture of open file and magnifying glassCase Study: Three examples of using massive online whiteboard templates to create social digital twins of relationships and organisations

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Technically, IBM describes a digital twin as “a virtual model designed to accurately reflect a physical object”. The object in question is often a piece of engineering, or a technical system. And the purpose of the digital twin is to enable people to explore how it will work, and try out different ideas. It enables people to experiment before physical investments are committed.
But what if the object were a social concept? For example a team, an organisation, a partnership, a way of working? Could we create a digital twin to reflect that also? Could we use it to simulate what might happen in the real world? And to make decisions regarding goals, policies and actions on that basis?

a social digital twin

True, the answer wouldn’t be so automated, but the model could still help our thinking, our designs and our discussions. And we could easily return to it to refresh our understanding, adjust things, and try out new ideas.
Over the last few years, we have been using insight landscaping to effect exactly this purpose, but as part of other projects. So this is not so much one case study as a short catalogue of three other case studies which best illustrate this approach. And links to read more on each of the social digital twin examples.

Digital twin of a partnership

Image of Information Landscaping as the basis for Dynamic Partnership WorkshopsIn our case study on partner engagements we explain how we used very large Klaxoon templates to recreate the journey that the partnership would work through together. Firstly, with learning a bit more about the people involved. Then, secondly, developing a shared aspiration for the difference they wanted to make together. Thirdly, how that was clarified into more specific measureable outcomes. And fourthly, developing clear proposals for projects to deliver those outcomes. Finally, clarifying the ownership and the timescales for the priority elements, and agreeing how oversight will work.

modelling the journey of partnership

The journey was worked through, capturing all of the ideas and logic at each stage. In this way people could see how the conclusions developed. And people could follow their own ideas and contributions in developing those outcomes. And, perhaps most importantly of all, the visual cues enabled them to re-access the emotions they experienced as they worked this through.
The landscape for this project carried all of the data for the partners to imagine and understand how the partnership would work in practice. At the end of each section were yes/no panels.

evaluating success

Here people were asked to weigh up all of the data that had been incorporated in that section of the landscape. And then to confirm their confidence (or not) in it working. This enabled the team to revisit what needed to change to increase that confidence.
The landscape enabled people to model the reality in their heads and make adjustments in the model before committing their investment. In this it worked very much as a social digital twin.
The picture above right shows the insight landscape for this case study, which can be read about in more detail here.

Digital twin of an organisation

The overall organisational design sprint process laid out on the whiteboardIn our case study on organisational design sprints we look at how we used massive Mural templates to map the organisational design sprint process. Thereby, replicating in a virtual sense Jake Knapp’s vision of a ‘sprint room plastered with notes diagrams print outs, and more’ Taking advantage of our awesome spatial memory. The room itself becoming a sort of shared brain for the team.
The five day template utilised the maximum 60000 by 60000 pixel space available in Mural. Enabling everyone to zoom out to see the overview. And then to zoom in to work with individual contributions at 400x magnification.

overview to ‘up close and personal’

People were able to map multiple perspectives on the current situation. Develop and modify a wide range of possible alternative organisational options. Understand their likely impact and opportunities in respect of their process goals. Evaluate them, test them with each other, and improve them. Then work these up into clear proposals which they wished to take forward. They were then able to communicate these in the form of prototypes, and to test these with their colleagues.

a lasting accessible record

And the whole flow and history of explanation is perpetually available to them. Reinforcing the quality of their decisions, and providing an agile thinking environment. One which enables rapid evaluations of changes to keep the process in tune with its evolving role. A social digital twin.
The picture above right shows the insight landscape for this case study, which can be read about in more detail here.

Digital twin of a spiritual retreat

In our case study from an online spiritual retreat we look at how we used infinite Conceptboard templates. The lockdown of 2020 meant that our planned physical retreat was unsafe. And so we proposed creating a social digital twin to facilitate spiritual reflection.
The intention was to encompass emotions, humanity, and spiritual components. We wanted to recreate all of the experiences of the physical retreat, but online. In particular, group sharing, listening prayer, reflective walks, and discussions.
Spiritual Retreat Meeting Space on a whiteboard as a social digital twinTo achieve this, we created three main areas. Firstly, a circle area, which represented the circle of chairs in our normal meeting space. This allowed people to imagine that location in their minds, and to post notes and images in the space around themselves and in front of others. Notes and images that reflected their current situation, and blessings they wished upon each other in response to sharing. Secondly, a small groups area for listening prayer, and for dealing with more personal aspects of our own journeys. And thirdly, a walking area.

a literal spiritual pathway

Spiritual Retreat walking and reflection area on a whiteboard as a social digital twinWe populated the walking area with important images from the attendees of times and situations when they felt closest to God. These were curated into a representation of a physical landscape. Meadows, mountains, hillsides, rivers, lakes, coastline, gardens created a backdrop for collections of images, scriptures, songs and blessings. People spent hours in that space, zoomed in, following the pathways, and dwelling where they chose.
The social digital twin was surprisingly effective at modelling its physical twin, and in recreating the connections we make on retreat.
The pictures on the right show the insight landscape for the retreat, which can be read about in more detail here.

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Organisational Design Sprint empowers agile self-reorganisation

Case study: How a team designed, planned & agreed their own reorganisation in 5 days using agile and organisational design sprint methodology

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Every cloud has a silver lining, so they say. But sometimes it can be difficult to see it. Until you change your perspective.
As we get busier and busier in our roles, it seems that everything has to be done quicker and quicker. And I, for one, have been doing all I can to push back against this. Like most of us, I have seen the consequences in bad decisions, poor preparation, stress, and inefficiency.

The organisational design sprint perspective

5 chevron image of design sprint methodology that was applied to organisational design sprintHowever, recently I have been involved in an experience that has turned this upside down, in one regard at least. Earlier this year,
I applied the principles of Jake Knapp’s Design Sprint process (illustrated above) to one of my normal Organisational Design workshops.
The client, an international process control company, is an adopter of Agile approaches. Thus, with their agreement, it seemed the right fit. As a result, I discovered that ‘too little time’ can have an amazing catalytic effect on engagement, creativity, commitment, ownership and even the quality of the outcome.

time constraints can have a catalytic effect

That said, this wasn’t just a matter of halving the time to achieve the same outcome. It definitely wasn’t about doing more with less. And it is here that the shifts in perspective come in.
The first shift in perspective is that the outcome of a Design Sprint is not actually the design. It is a team of people who can readily deliver the design many times faster than would otherwise be possible.

the people are the product

The second shift in perspective is to deliberately not take things too seriously. This is in order that the discussion doesn’t get bogged down in debate. This was reflected in two key principles: “80% right is good enough” and “We are ‘tourists’ into a range of potential futures”
3 minute quadrant timerThese shifts in perspective meant that timeboxing the activities (e.g. “Off the bus, you have 3 hours to do Florence – go!”) forced strategies which prioritised and covered a lot of ground quickly.
We used a lot of timers (like the one on the right) and the process actually felt Agile.

Utilising our collective unconscious

From this it will probably be obvious that the early decisions were not taken as a result of rational analysis and detailed evaluation. ‘Gut feel’ and intuition played a big part in the selections being made.
Therefore, there is an act of faith implicit in this approach: That people’s collective unconscious knows more of the situation than they realise. This is particularly true given the design team included the customers of the design. This close subconscious understanding (in the right mix, and with the right tools) will naturally develop alignment to viable answers.

the unconscious knows more than we realise

To many reading this, this will be an anathema, even heresy. And yet, much of recent management wisdom is recognising the importance of our unconscious and emotions in dealing with the emergent complexity and uncertainty of the future.
Furthermore, the result is not totally dependent on ‘feeling’. There are checks and balances applied within the later stages of the process. The resulting conclusions are thoroughly tested and evaluated through more-obviously-rational processes.
And the surprise is, they pass!

Creativity not conflict

In addition, we notice that by proceeding at pace, had other Agile advantages. Debates that would have cost a lot of time in the early stages are often rendered moot by insights from later work.
Idea touring ideation within the agile design sprintBy ‘touring’ into possible futures, we can suspend early decisions. We can hold them open to a point where we have the data and insight to resolve them. And by holding solutions lightly, we can maintain our options, and our speed.
This tends to highlight the irony in the idea that our
normal, protracted debates are somehow more rational than the Design Sprint process. The fact is, as everything becomes more complex, we rarely have all of the facts. As a result, the entrenched debates we find ourselves in often owe more to opinion and emotion than we may be willing to admit.

The power of paradigms

To be fair, adopting this approach was actually not as big a step for me as it might at first appear. I was already more than half-way there on the ‘people are the product’ thing. As past articles on the purpose of meetings, and their role in developing potential will attest.
However, the interesting thing about paradigms is that the roots can go far deeper than we realise. I thought I truly believed in the product being the people. And yet I now realise that I still clung on to the safety blanket of securing proven tangible outcomes.

when we release paradigms we release potential

Once I had let go of that safety blanket, amazing things were released alongside it. And in this I have to commend my clients, whom I have found to be astonishingly open, forgiving, and enthusiastic in embracing the possibilities of things. Agile by nature. Without that, my fear of the potential consequences of failure would not have allowed me to fully let go of a sense of responsibility for the tangible.

Transformational impact

The Organisational Design workshop was conducted with a fairly junior team. Many of these were opposed to change at the start of the workshop. But by working in the ways described above, they:
  • defined cleaner slicker processes and committed to a major reorganisation of reporting structures to achieve it
  • designed multiple practical changes to support this, and developed the skills to replicate this approach
  • tested the ideas with their colleagues, included their feedback, and gained their approval and support
  • shocked the MD with how much their attitudes and understanding had changed from Monday to Friday
  • felt empowered, confident, trusted, successful and proud of what they had achieved and who they had become
As a consequence, we did get ‘proven tangible outcomes’. Actually, more of them than I would expect from my normal workshops. But these outcomes arose naturally out of people’s growth and development. Which, I guess, is sort of inevitable in hindsight.
However, I do feel obliged to repeat that this was not driven by seeking to do more with less. This was about seeing time constraints as a tool, as a catalyst, with the requisite thinking to make it so. It was not driven by seeing time as a cost to be minimised.

Efficient design-thinking processes

In reality, the team actually spent more time on thinking, but they did not dwell on things, or get entrenched on isolated details. Each ‘too little time’ episode was part of a greater thinking strategy. A strategy which ensured a more systemic and efficient consideration of the whole issue and its context.
This was rooted in proven thinking tools. Without such tools it is all too easy for the mind to revert to its hidden biases. And for teams to disappear down rabbit-holes of debate.
The overall organisational design sprint process laid out on the whiteboardIn fact, most of the activity and discussion took place within or around visual thinking tools of one type or another. These enabled people to better see the details within the context of the wider picture. And thereby to regulate their own input. Furthermore, the visual element enabled people to see their own ideas within the flow of the overall process, and their part in the conclusion. And it created a permanent structured pictorial record of the journey to get there. A record that can be used as a digital twin of the organisational changes.

as humans our short term memory is not all that good but our spatial memory is awesome – Jake Knapp

The picture above illustrates the overall process and the wide range of thinking tools used. However, for reasons of client confidentiality it conceals the detail. It may look complex, but it is worth noting that many of the people who took part in this workshop held junior administrative roles. And yet they used the layout to win their colleagues  over to the proposed solutions.

A creative environment

The five days were help in a state of the art conference facility. It consisted of a central room with a U-shaped table, enabling easy facilitation. This was surrounded by four comfortable breakout rooms, each with their own screen. The facility was light and airy, with a lot of glass and white uncluttered walls. Ideal for putting up flipcharts and templates for teams to work on. And yet the walls remained largely unused until the last day.
Mural whiteboard visible on laptop screenInstead, all of the group work, plenary sessions, sticky-note generation, and moving things around, took place on a virtual whiteboard. Every member of the team was equipped with their own laptop. These they took with them into breakouts, and brought back into plenary. All of their ideas and exploration was conducted through the laptop, empowering everyone to contribute at once. Discussions took place face to face, but input was captured and assimilated via the whiteboard.

the best of virtual and physical combined

Everyone could see all aspects of what was emerging for themselves. But to aid discussions, breakout leaders could project their view onto a large screen, as could the facilitator in the main room. The overall result was the best of both worlds. Easy activity and engagement with templates and visual content. But with physical proximity and human contact.

Agile self-reorganisation

The conclusions arrived at by the team in just one week have been quickly accepted and implemented. This illustrates the speed and power of the design sprint process. And it also demonstrates a number of Agile principles applied to self-reorganisation. In particular: Delivery in 5 days; close daily co-operation; motivation and trust; co-location; energising pace; good design; prioritisation and focus; daily reflection; and (quite literally given it was the intended outcome) self-organisation.
Furthermore, the process and the designed outcome are a living electronic document (whiteboard). This enables the process and the outcomes to be easily reviewed and repeated. See insight landscaping.

tools are key to constructive thought in a complex context

The tools and the layout have been key to ensuring that everybody was able to contribute constructively and efficiently.
But all this still required that act of faith. So, perhaps I should leave the final words to the wisdom of St Augustine, who said: “The act of faith is to believe what you cannot see. The reward of faith is to see what you believe.” I have a sense that this idea is going to become increasingly important to all of us as our collective future unfolds.
Helpful Resources: Virtual Flipcharts | Timers | Participation Hacks

Does your vision inspire adventure? If not, you may be missing something very important.

Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but what sort of strategy are you feeding it?
Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?