Bertrand Duperrin's Library tagged quantification → View Popular, Search in Google

Jan

2012

Gouvernance de l’information et entreprise 2.0 : perspectives 2012

"La gouvernance de l’information, c’est un peu comme l’entreprise 2.0 (et ce n’est pas un hasard) : on en parle beaucoup, mais on la “réalise” peut être un peu moins !

La gouvernance de l’information est un élément indispensable à la construction de l’entreprise de demain car elle est déterminante pour la CONFIANCE.

Pour beaucoup, la gouvernance a été jusqu’alors une stratégie de défense, de protection et les mises en oeuvre de solutions ont été principalement faites pour répondre à des litiges !
C’est peu dire que la gouvernance n’est pas encore directement “intégrée” dans notre quotidien !"

infgov.net/...treprise-2-0-perspectives-2012

- Preview

governance informationgovernance decisionmaking enterprise2.0 socialbusiness roles accountability responsibility quantification risk riskmanagement

la gouvernance de l’information doit être réfléchie principalement en tant que soutien aux affaires et non pas seulement comme une stratégie de défense décidée par les “risk managers” et les directions juridiques.

Jul

2011

When Management Misdirects Employees

"Yesterday Ben Horowitz published a solid post "When Employees Misinterpret Management," which should have been titled "When Management Misdirects Employees."

He gives three examples, the most fun of which is him trying to get his sales team at Opsware -- the company he and Marc Andreessen famously rode through the bust to a huge, huge win -- to not cram all their sales into the quarter's last week."

launch.is/...s-my-response-to-ben-horo.html

- Preview

incentives sales management goals target quantification quality

I've long learned to embrace this dynamic at new companies by setting
a) absurdly low base salaries (think $30K to 60K)
b) absurdly high commission structures (10% to 25%)

Why?

It's a filtering mechanism for me to get the most insane, rabid and self-confident sales folks -- and filter out the lame "professionals.
Those sales folks are death at startups. They lack the drive and creativity to sell new products because they are -- largely -- old, fat dogs.
4 more annotation(s)...
- At some big company with 300 sales folks, they're great for managing existing accounts. At a small company with under 10 sales folks, those "professional" sales types are the kiss of death. They need everything handed to them on a silver platter, and they can't close deals because of the product, the marketing kit or the fact that we're doing something new.
- Bottom line: People who lack quality products focus on quantifying them.
- That's your job as a manager: get folks through the self-imposed barriers.
- 1. Read Ben's piece.
  2. Be careful what you incent for.
  3. If you use quantitative incentives, be sure to complement them with qualitative ones.
  4. The best systems are the ones that constantly evolve, challenge, change and layer incentives and goals, while constantly communicating why.
  5. Most of the time when a team misinterprets a manager, it is the manager's fault for not anticipating the ramifications of his behavior or monitoring the system he put in place. It could also simply have been a bad idea on the manager's part.
  6. Even if it is the employees' fault, the manager should take ownership since that's the easiest way to move on (e.g., "Listen, I set the wrong goal here. Let me reset the expectation and you tell me if you think it's correct.").

May

2011

The Risks of Quantification

"Quantification — describing reality with numbers — is a trend that seems only to be accelerating. From digital technology to business and financial models, we interact with the world by means of quantification.

While we all interact with the world through more-or-less inflexible models, mathematics contributes to this lack of flexibility because it is seemingly precise and objective"

blogs.hbr.org/...e_risks_of_quantification.html

- Preview

predictions quantification predictabiliy

Statistical models are all based on the notion of randomness, but no one can really understand randomness.
Because they are logically consistent, mathematical models screen out ambiguity. Ambiguity is real, but business and financial models have little to no room for it. Ambiguity arises whenever there are two (or more) courses of action that are equally important yet conflict with one another.
2 more annotation(s)...
- Putting a situation into numbers enforces the belief that things are linear and events are necessarily comparable
- Any system that involves human behavior, like economics or finance, is inherently self-referential.