State of Montana
Department of Natural Resources and Conservation
1625 11th Avenue
Helena, MT 59620 1601



July 17, 2001

04 00035 61 01071701




Mr. Rod Welch
The Welch Company
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111 2496
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Subject:   SDS and Communication Metrics
Better Way of Working for a New World Order

Dear Rod,

Your letter on April 4, 2001 requested comments on Knowledge Management (KM) presented in the POIMS paper. As I prepare to retire from state government, I want to comment in relation to my experience using SDS and Communication Metrics the past 10 years or so, updating the evaluation issued on April 19, 1990. In sum, SDS provides a new way of working that saves time and money by strengthening communication and the ability to follow up, so that things get done correctly, on time and within budget.
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SDS adds value to information technology (IT) that overcomes weaknesses in communication from email, calls and meetings by strengthening literacy for deliberation and analysis.
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Better listening enables understanding and follow up that are unique advantages of SDS, explained in your record on August 8, 1989, following your assignment with us on the Broadwater Dam project. My experience using SDS shows that the process of continually capturing the record, by writing things down and scheduling follow up in SDS, is a useful "metric" of listening that increases understanding, whether or not we ever look at the record again.
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In other words, crafting language to describe events after the fact both unlocks and constructs memory. Each day new information extends and enriches what we learned previously, creating an expanding Knowledge Space (defined in POIMS). The struggle with editing to shape analysis by examining related context, history and documents to create connections that reveal and preserve alignment of cause and effect, and then, further, creating headings that summarize, and finally assigning contacts, subjects and financial accounts, all improve memory of events through integrated self-reinforcement of key associations. Better memory prepares us to be effective in the next phone call, attending another meeting, writing a letter, etc.
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This is a lot of support for improving daily work that is not available from any other method or technology.
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Additionally, SDS action items are connected to related context that guides communication toward getting things done that maintain progress. There is strong synergy between creating SDS records and using knowledge for continual learning, because the more we write and connect the record to analyze, discover and understand correlations, implications and nuance, the more history is available to help us remember. This daily process of using SDS, for what you call thinking through writing, (see POIMS) improves conventional practice of remembering only the gist of things, so that decisions are well founded, rather than based on cursory, spur-of-the-moment, and often incorrect, understanding.
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This doesn't mean SDS requires writing everything down. SDS enables a better balance between planning and execution by capturing important information for organizational memory, and then adding connections of cause and effect, and alignment with relevant authority, which is not apparent at the time events occur, and which, in turn, disclose needed action that was not contemplated at the original event, but is essential to save time and money.
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That is why I believe SDS is a new capability that enables a powerful new way to work, and justifies a new work role. Rather than sit around and worry about who said what to whom, what was meant, what was overlooked, and who is responsible for things, that time can be more productive by thinking, analyzing, and planning in SDS. You call this adding intelligence to information, which may put some people off; but, SDS clearly adds a lot of fire power to management.
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Organizational memory on who, what, when, where, why and how things occurred is a big advantage of SDS that aids group collaboration. People need a common story that builds and maintains shared meaning in relation to common objectives. I think POIMS is correct in pointing out there is a big risk in communication that is hidden by the pace of daily work, what everybody calls information overload. One of the more exasperating realizations on moving into senior management is that people draw different understandings from hearing and reading the same thing, as in attending a meeting, or getting an email. Even when everybody seems to agree about things in a meeting, a few days later people take conflicting action, because of all the reasons set out in POIMS explaining meaning drift.
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Our legal department suggests solving this problem by keeping letters short and simple to avoid misunderstanding. But, that doesn't work for people in constant meetings that last hours on end.
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People need support in drawing from communication sufficient direction for taking action that is complimentary rather than conflicting. SDS enables quickly and easily organizing a record that triangulates action with historical context and with controlling authority in contracts, regulations, law and correspondence. Feedback from notice issued through SDS continually refines accuracy. The combination of refining accuracy through feedback to develop a common story for organizational memory, follow up on action items that provide context for comprehension, and efficient distribution via Internet, all together help maintain shared meaning that reduces the risk of mistakes.
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The distinction in POIMS between knowledge and information distinguishes work with SDS from work with other software programs. They are complimentary. We need both information and knowledge. Information technology (IT) for email, wordprocessing and spreadsheets, are excellent for creating information in documents, like a book, article, memo, report, a letter, or Powerpoint presentation. Advances in groupware the past few years aid collaboration with document version control and change history. SDS has a different purpose. You describe in POIMS a continual process of converting information into knowledge that strengthens management. I personally hesitate to characterize SDS in that way, because cognitive science is not my field.
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There is no doubt that SDS is a different kind of software program that produces markedly different work product from what is popularly called IT. Used according to the design, SDS implements a continual process that immediately and directly improves management, and this improves collaboration in very tangible ways that people feel and appreciate, if not always in the beginning, then within a few months, as results improve.
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Preparing documents for a contract, for project requirements, specifications, or a report for publication in the public record, all require managing work by others, similar to building a bridge, an office or hydroelectric facility, as we did on Broadwater dam, when SDS was introduced to DNRC in 1988. Our report on April 19, 1990 noted that SDS improved group management, which saved us money. Based on having used SDS myself, since that time, I agree with your record on July 9, 2000 reporting a conference call with Bill DeHart at PG&E and Morris Jones at Intel. The SDS design of plan, perform, report provides a natural organization that aids thinking by connecting chronologies of cause and effect.
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SDS aids traditional literacy, making it easier to write because the connected environment provides ideas about what to write, and SDS improves reading to guide action, with structure that organizes and summarizes meaning in relation to objectives and context. None of this is available in other programs. A simple way for me to explain it is that information in documents is fixed, while knowledge in SDS is constantly growing to manage evolving context. This makes relevant context instantly available for planning the work day to day, and for understanding details needed to perform the work quickly and correctly.
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I learned SDS mostly on my own using the online Help system. Improvements over the years have reduced the learning curve, but in my opinion SDS takes more than 20 minutes to learn, because it improves the entire craft of management, rather than isolated bits and pieces. SDS is more like learning the alphabet, or driving a car. Everyone can do it, but if we already know how to get by in our daily work, the effort to improve takes commitment. For one thing, it requires learning to use tools for tasks like planning, tracking commitments, setting objectives, organizing our thoughts in relation to objectives and relying on experience, all of which executives accomplish mostly in their head, on the fly, moment to moment.
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Sure, Stephen Covey says successful people keep a diary to sharpen understanding, and Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, says in his book Only the Paranoid Survive that taking copious notes and asking a lot of questions to get feedback strengthens understanding to avoid mistakes. But how many of us keep a diary, or take copious notes that are legible? How many of us can find relevant notes a week later, a month later, 10 years later? How many of us have the time, the authority and skill to ask a lot of questions during and after a meeting?
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There is an invidious dynamic explained in POIMS between thinking to understand and taking action to get things done. Asking questions and writing out copious understandings in a diary to avoid mistakes is most often overwhelmed by the desire on the one hand to use information for taking immediate action, and, also, by social pressure that resists feedback. As a result, when people finish a meeting we want to go home, go to the next meeting or make a phone call and talk things over with other people.
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SDS makes it fast and easy to analyze communications, but limited time and culture say go to the next meeting and rely on what pops into the mind at the moment. This makes daily work spontaneous, impulsive and cursory, rather than deliberative, analytic and intelligent. Many people excuse spontaneous work that causes continual mistakes, as the necessary cost of being "empowered" and "creative." My experience shows that "intelligence" enabled by SDS supports creativity, while reducing mistakes.
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Historically, impulsive, cursory work has been good enough, and so people tend to resist SDS, because using information from meetings, calls, email and other documents takes less time than adding intelligence to create knowledge of cause and effect. On the other hand, it seems that in the past number of years traditional methods of relying on conversation and email causes too many problems due to growing information overload, which grows the need for SDS to enable good management practices called out by experts and top executives, like Covey and Grove. Demand, however, is latent, because nobody believes good management is possible.
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SDS enables using good management like a microscope that looks deeper into daily communication than is possible with other means. Since communication for planning the work occurs through meetings, calls and documents, e.g., email, the SDS process of showing alignment with controlling authority, like contracts, regulations, commitments, etc., provides an effective metric that predicts problems, which can be avoided by changing course to prevent actual mistakes. Communication Metrics is an advantage for saving time and money; but, it clearly creates social tension. We saw this on the Broadwater Dam project. The contractor objected to your work using SDS. However, contract notice provisions forced response. This arrangement yielded feedback that enabled adjusting course to improve the work, as related in our letter on April 19, 1990.
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Since you were technically employed by our engineer, there was no feedback at that level. To make a long story short, we accepted the engineer's recommendation to terminate Communication Metrics, on the grounds that the main problems had been solved. It turned out later that far greater problems were yet to come, which caused delays, defects, extra cost and years of litigation. You discussed these future issues, but at the time our perspective was on saving time and money by cutting cost and reducing paperwork, under advice of the engineer.
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Until people gain experience using SDS, there is a huge disparity in perspective about the seriousness of future risks. Welch was hired to defend against contractor claims, so we were aware of actual problems, which we wanted solved. The character of Communication Metrics, however, is looking forward by understanding the present in relation to history, under the rule past is prologue, as set out in POIMS. But, people who do not actually use SDS day-to-day, cannot have the save level of insight about the degree of risk, because the time horizon is much narrower than is available from working with SDS that has command of history and controlling authority. This disparity makes people uncomfortable. In a contract setting, it is effective because notice provisions mandate response that enables discovery of problems that can be addressed, before actual mistakes occur.
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One of the more enlightening ideas from Com Metrics came up in our meeting on September 7, 1988, discussing the advantage of negative responses, as a "metric" of communication, by focusing early attention on issues, and providing a record that can be used to guide conduct by showing lack of alignment with controlling authority. At the time, I was skeptical, because managers strive mightily to get people to say "yes," to agree to our point of view, and are loathe to air disagreement. Lack of disagreement, i.e., silence, is welcomed, even coveted, as agreement that preserves deniability. You pointed out that disagreement is an asset, and this turned out to be correct, when managed properly in the record.
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SDS discovers big problems when they are small. People don't like to work on small problems. For example, there is enormous pressure not to stop the train and change the bolts on the wheels, just because SDS reports that an invoice shows the bolts are out of spec. Everybody sees the train is running fine. We cannot see any wobble in the wheels, because in the beginning it is very slight, so people get mad at having to think about a future a train wreck. Someone recalls a meeting six (6) months ago when the lads were sent to the store and told to get the correct bolts, so maybe the invoice is a mistake. Good thoughts make us feel good.
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With a big reception waiting up ahead, the social pressure is enormous to keep the train running, and ignore alignment problems in SDS by assuming the invoice is a mistake, rather than the bolts. Someone else recalls that the lads were, also, told to get 6 lbs. of 10 penny nails, but came back with 10 lbs of 6 penny nails, and two weeks later all the siding blew off the building in a big storm. Maybe they got the wrong bolts, as well? It might take an hour to stop the train and change the bolts. That's not a lot, but the governor's schedule would be inconvenienced having to wait around at the reception just so we can change a few bolts that seem to be working at the moment. There is talk about being a team player. These social dynamics increase pressure to ignore the record. Looking back, there were a lot of unhappy faces when SDS reported things were amiss on various matters, and so everyone felt better when SDS was stopped. To me, when we speak in terms of Knowledge Management, the proposition that stopping intelligence is a relief, must rank as a dilemma of the ages, right up there with your friend Prometheus, reported on November 8, 1999.
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Of course it turned out two years later there were a lot of defects on Broadwater Dam because the engineer did not bother to approve the contractor's drawings. That may explain the earlier recommendation that we terminate SDS to save money and avoid paperwork. While it is only speculation, I suspect that, if SDS had not been terminated, there would have been early warning in SDS paperwork that engineering paperwork did not align with requirements. It would have cost some money to pay for the SDS paperwork, and it would have taken a little time to fix the engineering paperwork, plus a lot of emotional capital, as with stopping the train against the engineer's wishes to install the correct "bolts," under the analogy above.
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Yet, that remedy would have been a trifle compared to the delay, expense and emotional capital that was ultimately expended to correct problems that were overlooked, because intelligence was terminated. The discussion on March 24, 1989 in which the engineer notes that SDS makes it harder to talk your way out of accountability for mistakes, illustrates the desire for deniability that resists good management. It is a major dilemma, because working by conversation that avoids SDS in order to enable deniability, greatly increases the chance of overlooking alignment that causes the wheels to come off later, which then gives rise to the need for deniability; while using SDS to avoid mistakes, necessarily increases accountability in the event that people refuse to take corrective action. Of course this is the precise purpose of business metrics. We've all been to a hundred seminars with various titles that promise Managing for Accountability. The whole quality movement promotes this idea. TQM, ISO and other management standards require accountability; yet, experience shows that SDS is resisted, because it enables accountability. So, go figure???
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This all boils down to the fact that SDS technology enables using good practices consistently, but there is enormous cultural pressure that resists good management, partly from ignorance, as occurs with any new method that upsets the apple cart, and partly to avoid accountability, explained in POIMS. Often the accounting department is not a welcome partner when reporting budgets are exceeded; but, culture has learned to live with this intrusion over the past several thousand years by developing strong communication skills to talk our way out of accountability. This may account for the "kill the messenger" perspective that resists Communication Metrics in order to preserve deniability.
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Proactive notice enabled by SDS that sounds the alert to adjust course for alignment with objectives, requirements and commitments is the core task of management. Our experience suggests that implementation requires strong leadership and support using SDS to transition through the period of discovering that the light of knowledge to work correctly is a better strategy for success, than relying on the darkness of ignorance for avoiding accountability. Under new realities of expanding complexity due to globalization and accelerating information, any strategy that avoids proactive alignment, will increasingly grind down productivity, earnings and stock prices in a morass of continual mistakes.
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I took up SDS, because I saw over a period of time that it solved difficult problems on Broadwater Dam. It took several years for this to sink in, actually seeing on a daily basis the effects of SDS on two separate occasions over a period of months. In my view the power of SDS is so removed from the daily lives of people, that it is very difficult to grasp from reading or even seeing a demonstration. Recent implementation on the Internet, makes more clear that SDS is a different kind of application that in large part emulates the connections of cause and effect that comprise human thinking.
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I, also, think the role of Communication Aide or Manager, some kind of analyst role to use SDS, is a good idea. These past years I have used SDS myself, without support. This experience indicates that a stronger solution would be to have help.
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Learning to use the SDS program is aided by the transitioning you provided while on site at the end of 1991. The design that integrates time, information, contacts, subjects, documents and accounting is a hefty load, so I recommend training. Most managers and executives learn their craft over a lifetime. We are not aware of how much we know. But, in learning SDS, we are confronted with having to learn to do things with tools that we already know how to do. That is at least distracting, and it likely causes many people to give up in order to avoid the frustration of doing things awkwardly for a short while, which we can do immediately by relying on only the gist of things from personal memory. On the other hand, it is enormously satisfying, and even fun, to exercise the gift of time and the power of knowledge that SDS brings, because, like the alphabet, learning SDS greatly leverages innate mental power, i.e., intelligence. see POIMS
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There are two or three big tasks that need dedicated support for implementing SDS.
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One is creating, maintaining and applying organic structure for managing the record. SDS has a powerful and unique solution, that applies traditional spreadsheet methods for Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), a chart of accounts for financial control, and a CPM schedule for managing a big project, all rolled into one, except SDS organic structure is applied on a vaster scale, and it is ongoing. Most organizing methods are figured out once, by experts, and then implemented by everyone else. Revisions are rare in common practice for most business systems. SDS provides tools that enable people to manage subjects based on the dynamic evolution of context in daily work. Every day new subjects can be added to SDS, quickly as needs arise, similar to the way DNA grows organic structures in living cells. Reducing the time and effort for organizing information dynamically makes context management fast and easy enough to become a practical new dimension for getting things done correctly, on time and within budget. (see New World Order...)
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Applying SDS methods for organic structure takes training and time for learning to use specialized tools, and experience is needed for constructing representations that adequately manage the context of complex daily work, so that finding mission critical information is fast and easy. It would be a good issue for research to develop standardized knowledge structures. Perhaps one day technology will figure it all out for us, but that would deny people the understanding derived from creating the structure. Maybe a compromise is possible that continues to leverage our mental biology. SDS is a good start.
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The second skill needed for SDS is to write an effective story that builds shared meaning in carrying on the work to meet objectives, requirements and commitments. Many people do not want to do this task; they want to complete a call and go home, or call somebody else, rather than write up the record to craft meaning that disclose action items. Many, if not most, of us do not want to discover and work out conflicts that were overlooked in discussion or sending an email. So, not only does analysis in SDS require writing skill, it, also, takes awareness about the fragility of human memory that makes communication inherently cursory, incomplete and erroneous, such that more time is saved by investing, what you call intellectual capital, than by consuming information in constant meetings, calls and email.
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Since demands for attending events and doing other tasks that spawn information overload are often imposed externally, e.g., the boss says go to this meeting, or a customer calls, etc., support for writing up the record is the most cost effective solution for busy managers to ensure adequate scrutiny is given to communications so that critical details and action items do not fall through the cracks, as we discussed on December 5, 1991.
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The third skill a Communication Manager needs might be classified as dialog, probative and stability skills. Diplomacy comes to mind. This role requires getting feedback during meetings and calls in order to refine accuracy of the record. Ability is needed to frame questions in a constructive, professional manner that is not threatening, so that people are forthcoming. It requires persistence to recast questions when answers are incomplete or are avoided, and it takes skill to craft a record that is useful for those in authority to recognize when unanswered gaps remain, yet does not accuse anyone of bad faith.
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SDS is a good environment for leveraging these traditional skills of diplomacy, because it is a fast and easy way to keep track of everything, so that corrections can be tried later when the opportunity may be more conducive to solutions. Psychological stability is a must for this role for two reasons. Asking questions to get feedback is stressful, and writing up the record that discloses continual small mistakes that require giving notice to busy people, who don't want to be bothered, is also very stressful.
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In summary, SDS is a powerful solution for saving time and money. It supports using good management practices consistently, which we have all heard about and read about, and dreamed about using. Culture and social norms for consuming information in meetings, calls and email that cause mistakes, do not accommodate very well to good management that delivers knowledge, until people gain experience to discover they get credit for better work, and so need not fear accountability.
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SDS takes more than 20 minutes to learn, because it makes a big improvement in management, which is a highly complex craft. If it made little or no improvement, SDS would be easier to learn, but then it would not save time and money. It is easy and fun to use SDS, because the integrated design gives enormous power to understand cause and effect, and to get things done, which is the life blood of enterprise.
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An aide or analyst, Communication Manager, role is needed for major implementation. Similar to the way an accountant uses a spreadsheet program, SDS is a spreadsheet for knowledge, so everyone needs basic skills. In our case, only one person used SDS on Broadwater Dam, and that improved collaboration among everyone In years to come, experience will show that dedicated support along a continuum from secretary, admin assistant, engineer, project manager, up to a Communication Manager, make SDS an endemic part of daily work. I think you have worked out good management science for implementation through Communication Metrics. Leadership that supports good management and better productivity will remain the key ingredient, as we discovered.
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Sincerely,

Department of Natural Resources and Conservation




Wayne Wetzel, Ph.D.
Deputy Director
406 444 6699