Business Change and Socio-Technical Systems Thinking in Tech Startup
Intro
Hello, I am Kat! I am a Business Psychologist, with background in business management. Just recently, I acquired an opportunity to help a little Austrian startup company. Initially I was involved as an UX researcher. After a while, I realised that company faces deeper issues and it needs to adopt major changes.
This article summarises proposed business change were I combined theories of:
- hexagonal socio-technical systems framework,
- Lewin’s change model,
- Kotter’s 8 model of change,
- sociotechnical design principles,
- the seven drivers of high alignment of performance management with organisational strategy, values, and goals.
Project Description
The startup is an eLearning platform for architects and other design enthusiasts. Their content is dedicated to controversial futuristic design that is often missing in a universities’ curriculum.
Advantages
- global potential
- support in the architecture community
- existing Facebook page with access to over 50k fans
- a lot of existing content as a base to start with
- beta version of the website that was ready to be tested
Diagnosis of the Systems’ Gaps
I diagnosed the current needs of the company by using the hexagonal socio-technical systems framework developed by organisational psychologists at University of Leeds.
This framework enabled me to have a comprehensive look at key elements that hold an organisation together — goals, people, culture, processes & prodecures, technology, and infrastructure and the role they play in the systems failure.
Picture bellow summarises main factors that might contribute to low performance of the system by each factor.
Change Model
I opted for Lewin’s change model because of its simplicity (just three stages: unfreeze, changing, refreeze) and mixed it with elements of Kotter’s 8 steps model of change.
Unfreeze
In this stage, I challenged the status quo in the organisation by visualising elements of the system and identification of the key issues, using the hexagon framework. In this phase, I raised these issues:
- vague mission & vission,
- vague business goals & objectives.
I reviewed previous materials and market research that the compnay undertook. The research findings were not disseminated in a clear and concise way and were hard to understand. Environmental analysis and market research were operating with information that were not backed up with evidence and market size and research did not reflect accurate information. The company conducted interviews with users to find the problems but these were insufficient and assumed that all potential customers have the same problems and needs.
Mission, vision, and business goals & objectives were ambiguous, derived from marketing perspective and market research that lacked evidence. Competitors analysis failed to recognize real competitors and there was a clear misconception of education and architecture industry, industry trends and market potential. The company had many ideas but lacked prioritisation of activities and was not clear on who to target with their product first.
All of core issues resembled the impact of low alignment within an organisation. I portrayed the urgence of alignment that would contribute to better organisational performance.
“Alignment is the extent to which employees are similarly connected to or have a consistent line of sight to the vision and direction of the organisation and its customers, often encapsualated within its current strategy.” — William A. Schiemann
In order to deliver a product that will bring a value to the customers, I recommended to adopt design thinking that enables the company to empathise with the users and then define the solutions that match users needs. To be successful on the long run, I introduced the CEO to Lean startup methodology that is based on continuous learning process. These processes are based on numerous sociotechnical meta principles.
Vission, Mission & Business Goals
Firstly, I reviewed environmental and competitor analysis and conducted foundational and directional UX research in order to get to know the customers, their needs and pains and then identify the position of competitors and then identified unique value proposition.
Impact
- clear vision & mission & business objectives derived from foundational research and competitor analysis
- defined customer base in line with a product life-cycle — research conducted with early adopters — innovators
- defined user personas & jobs-to-be-done
- defined unique value proposition and competitive advantage
- usability issues with the beta version
Changing
Changing phase was influenced by sociotechnical process principles. In this phase, I addressed these issues:
- lack of awareness about company’s strategy,
- weak cross-team collaboration & communication,
- lack of software supporting daily business operations.
Lack of Knowledge about company’s Strategy
I organised a brainstorming workshop to generate some ideas to resolve identified user’s needs. In this session, the users’ personas were discussed in order to make sure these were accepted by the team. The reason for this was twofold. Firstly, I needed to validate the research findings with experts and secondly, the acceptance of these led to deeper empathising with users. The team was engaged in the decision making about potential solutions from which later the strategy was developed. This way, the team members were reinforced to take an ownership of the system they were going to manage and were clear on the origin of the company’s strategy.
To ensure that company will be transparent with its vision, mission, and strategy with new employees, I created internal wiki page, using Google Sites that will be accessible to all new members of the team. This way every new team member can be clear on the purpose of their actions and behaviours they are expected to display.
Weak Cross-Team Collaboration & Communication
I stressed the importance of multidisciplinary approach. The message I tried to put accross was that we all dispose with relevant but different set of skills and we should communicate and educate each other. This way we can deliver solutions that are effective, valued by customers, technologically feasable, and reflect the latest trends in architecture and education.
I suggested to use a communication tool that would increase communication and facilitate knowledge trasnfer as well as build informal relationships.
Lack of Software Supporting Daily Operations
Problems with the strategy execution and low productivity and low teamwork originated in incomplete team and lack of understanding of everyone’s role and daily responsibilities. There was no tool that would visualise company’s goals and execution.
I suggested to use project management online tool (Asana) and visualise all ongoing activities. Set goals were SMART — specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. This way, all team members were kept in the loop and understood what, why and how we are working and when to expect results. For example, in the empathise stage of the process, it was important to create short-term targets so the team could see the results of ongoing change quickly.
To ensure effective cross-team collaboration, I used an online workshop tools that enabled us to work together in real time (Miro, Mural).
To address weak communication, we agreed to create a team in MS Teams, where we could discuss business operations on a daily basis. We established regular meetings and discussed all the issues as a team.
Recommendations
Changing
- values
- incomplete team
Values
It is very important to agree on values within founding team and then translate these to all new team members. As vision and mission specify where we are heading, values describe what behaviours are desired to express in work with colleagues and other stakeholders.
Incomplete Team
The major misconception in the company was the team organisation. For the CEO it was unclear, what teams are needed in a tech company. At the time, there was just the CEO and the content creator. There was no CTO, CFO, product manager, or UX designer.
The absolute priority has to be to complete the team and bring together all the skills and knowledge needed so business, product, marketing, and financial activities can be aligned and deployed.
Refreeze
In the last stage of change, company should adopt measures that would stabilise the change and create new norms.
- easy knowledge transfer
- regular directional research & user feedback
- assign tasks quarterly & adjust flexibly
- employees’ selection & training
- define desired outcomes & avoid job fragmentation
- performance management
Easy Knowledge Transfer
For maximal performance and better decision making that look at the problems and opportunities from various angles, good communication and cross-team collaboration should become a norm. Considering company size, this can be simply done by regular updates of the latest activites in form of a meeting or an internal newsletter.
Employees should be encouraged to maintain work but also informal relationships that would facilitate knowledge transfer. Especially in times of remote working, it is hard to build informal relationships with new hires. Newbies should be introduced to the existing team in an induction workshop. The company’s business strategy would be presented and a trainer would make sure that new employees on board have a clear understanding of it. This workshop could include an ice breaker game to release the tension that incoming employees might experience.
Regular Directional Research & User Feedback
In order to align the company’s goals with customers, regular feedback should be collected in order to understand constantly changing customer’s expectations. UX metrics should be implemented to better understand user’s behaviours and interactions with the platform. Users should be encouraged to share their thoughts and experience with the platform.
Product team should run regular usability tests and identify new opportunities driven by users. The solutions could be deliver quickly by organising design sprints.
Define Goals & Avoid Job Fragmentation
The product roadmap should be reviewed regularly in order to track the progress towards set goals and make sure that activities are aligned. Set tasks should relfelct the current business and user’s needs. To make sure this requirements are met, the user story maps should be regularly reviewed and updated. This should be done collaboratively so everyone working towards current goal will be on the same page.
Job design in the well-funcioning system should avoid fragmentation that takes out the accountability and leads to job disatisfaction and decline in motivation (Job Characteristic Model). Employees should focus on desired outcomes (goals & objectives) but company should not be too restrictive/prescriptive in ways to achieve them. These principles encourage innovation and give the employees control and ownership over their jobs.
Company should also give employees necessary resources to achieve desired outcomes such as providing online tools to facilitate remote collaboration & communication or remove unecessary bariers in decision making (e.g. the right to solve the problems with necessary team members without seeking the CEO’s approval). Employees should be given challenging yet achievable goals and the CEO should seek a feedback from employees and enable them to have a control over their environment and tasks. This might result in greater motivation and better job performance. (look at Goal Setting Theory; Job Demands-Resources Model).
Employees’ Selection & Training
With every created position, a thorough job analysis should be conducted in order to identify tasks that are needed in order to perform the job effectively. Job analysis identifies job responsibilities that along with well-defined values help to attract right people and increase person-environment fit that yields desired organisational behaviours such as high organisational commitment or low turnover.
“While alignment captures the notion of focus, it will be difficult to deliver on those goals (and their measurable targets) without developing the right talent (for example, knowledge, skills, and abilities), information and resources.” — William A. Schiemann
With well-defined job descriptions and employee’s specifications, it is easier to assess and measure employees’ performance and help to identify training needs and design better appraisal systems and performance standards.
Performance Management
Benefits and rewards should be linked to company’s goals and values and overal organisational performance. This way, employees do not deviate from the desired behaviours and their performance can be measured against specific criteria. Employees can receive regular feedback on their work and receive relevant support and training. This has a big advantage to manage expectations of employees and adds up to the fairness of the process. Both of these factors contribute to greater motivation. (Read more about Vroom’s Expectancy Theory and Organisational Justice theory).
