How to Identify Gaps in Business System Activities

We learned in class that "business system" is "a line of activities that need to be performed to produce desired business result and to deliver the result to customers". When I talked with Shirin regarding my business system in the last class, I found out that she could point out some gaps in between business activities in my proposed business system. That is, although I initially thought that my business system would be sufficient in terms of process, from other people's perspective, they can see gaps between activities. Then, the points that I would like to study here is: how can I identify gaps in business system?

One possible method that I can think of is: as we did class activities last class, we can ask around other people what they think about our business system. Ask people what they think; ask our enterprise advisors what their opinion is; ask any experts in our business environment (e.g. agriculture, Pakistan, Korean business environment) whether there are any missing parts in our initial business system models. They could pinpoint any lacking steps and any gaps in our business system.

Some other method is using if-then analysis. It would be a qualitative method, rather than quantitative method. For example, we say, "if" an activity "A" happens, "then" would the next activity "B" naturally occur? Is there any subset of "if-then" statement would be between activity A and B? Is an effect between A and B lapping too much? From this if-then analysis, we can get more complete set of activities in business system.

Another possible method could be: to check with existing models that have "similar or identical processes in other organizations" so, as a new entrepreneur, we can identify any discrepancies in our business system and gain insights from the existing models (Source link: http://sourcemaking.com/uml/modeling-business-systems/business-processes-and-business-systems).

The last possible method I can think of is: to come up with "business process concepts", using business process requirement, modeling technique, and standard (Source: Rukanova, Slooten, and Stegwee. "Business Process Requirements, Modeling Technique and Standard: how to Identify Interoperability Gaps on a Process Level. University of Twente. The Netherlands).

 

 

If there is a gap between the business process concepts, covered by the requirements, the modeling technique, and the standard, is the gap that we need to address. 

 

 

The below table would explain how the gaps can be identified through analyzing the concepts under the three elements:

Class, do you have any more suggestions to identify any gaps in business system? I think it is very important to have a comprehensive business system from the beginning in order to run the enterprise smoothly, if we are not going to fix the process once after confronting a problem in the system. What would be your suggestion or any sources that I can look into? Thank you!

Tessa: Business blueprint babbles blog siete

I have spent a fair amount of time developing Race Place’s vision and reason for exisitence. I have turned my thinking to more concrete matters, now.

• ·      What is Race Place going to look like?
• ·      What is a rough development outline?
• ·      What are some tangible outcomes?
• ·      What metrics of success can I use?
• ·      What has to be done to start a pilot Race Place program?
• ·      Who is going to do it?

My thoughts have hinged on the last question. Who is going to do it? What am I going to be looking for when hiring someone? Can I run this program alone? Is outsourcing an option? What will the Race Place team look like?

I found this article rather helpful, as it is very concise: http://startupcollective.com/three-key-hiring-lessons-growing-startups/

The article identifies three main things to consider when hiring talent:

1. 1.     Clearly define your goals
2. a.     Race Place has a very specific objective. It will be especially crucial for potential employees to “buy in” to its goals. This social venture will not succeed if the people working for it don’t believe in it with every fiber of their being.
3. 2.     Make sure diversity is a priority
4. a.     I think this point is really important for Race Place. Our workforce has to be diverse. Groupthink would be dangerous for a venture like this. In order for the program to evolve people from all backgrounds must have a seat at the table and feel comfortable to share their views. Diversity will certainly be a priority when hiring.
5. 3.     Know where to look
6. a.     I’m not sure where to even start with this one… This point just reminds how crucial networks are.

So, as we know I’m a huge fan of TED talks. They’re perfect for productive procrastination… I watched Simon Sinek’s How Great Leaders Inspire Action again and got some new insights from it. Highly recommended!

Its number three on this list (the other talks here are great too, if you are interested in education Sir Ken Robinson might the coolest person you ever watch…):

http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/9-ted-talks-that-will-stretch-your-business-mind/

Concluding question: When interviewing candidates how will you present your ventures vision?

Co-founder Assesment

These past few weeks of discussion and readings for the course have made me realize the importance of having great talent to an organization. Having read research on the importance of culture and values set at the start, my co-founder and I sat down and discussed details about our work relationship. Three questions were of specific interest to us at this stage: Why do you want to work together? What is the exit strategy in case a partner decides to leave? How do we envision the growth of this partnership?

Given that Shirin and I will be working in separate countries, we will not be involved in day to day activities of each others work. Essentially our idea and business model is shared but both of us are responsible for our own business. The  financial, administrative and logistical details can be shared only for learning purposes. We agreed that both the partners will be entirely independent and are not answerable to each other or indulge in any profit sharing.

With regards to an exit strategy, we agreed that neither partner is financially obligated to the other if they decide to exit the business. There are is no royalty to the brand name or idea so in case only one partner wants to continue, the other will not be responsible or liable in any way.

While our business will function as a franchise model with each of us responsible for our region, we want to work together to enhance our learning. Both of us are passionate about serving impoverished communities and bridging social/income inequalities. However, our academic and cultural backgrounds differ which adds to diversity in the thought process and skill set. We are both interested in rural development and enjoy working with young people. Our leanings are translatable because India and Pakistan have developmental challenges related to governance, socio-cultural factors and our strategies to address these barriers can be similar. Hence our social commitment is what makes us well-positioned to work with each other and embrace this collaborative learning opportunity.

Purpose over Method

The not for profit organizations throughout the world are often characterized by grave inefficiencies. It is surprising that these inefficiencies continue to persist over time given that these organisations receive and disperse large amounts of funding every year. Last week I had the honor of listening to Matt Zieger who is a leading executive at the Forbes Fund. Several good questions emerged from his presentation including the challenge faced by organizations working in the development sector of acquiring and retaining good talent.

It was interesting to read the research published by the California Review Magazine titled “Organizational Blue Prints for success in high tech startups: Lessons from the tech industry” as it gave some answers to the questions raised above. The research followed 200 tech startups and gives excellent insights on what sort of organizations prosper and why. The article mentions the importance of having a clear mission or value statement and other organization building tools to the success of the company. It also emphasizes that the “origins matter” and a company’s early organization-building activities might preordain the startups destiny. Further, “change is disruptive” especially if the changes are being made to things as fundamental as the values which serve as the guiding post of a company. Research shows how changes in CEO’s and top management often resulted in a change of the organizations blueprint which was detrimental to the startup as it adversely affected employee turnover and henceforth financial performance.

What made this reading interesting in the juxtaposition to Matt Ziegers presentation was that it is important for an organization to be committed to its purpose rather than its method. The article outlined how the tech industry has to keep up with technological innovation and redevelop their products to meet a constantly evolving market. However, if the organization is focused on its value and mission it is more likely to succeed but the method should be constantly revised to best meet the mission.

Similarly, Matt Zieger’s presentation highlighted how the development sector is standing at a cross road. On one hand we have conventional donor driven aid models where a target area is decided, beneficiaries are selected and aid in the form of good or services is delivered. This is often problematic due to several reasons including sustainability, the “us and them” paradigm, and talent acquisition amongst others.  However, the new model around social innovation is gaining a lot of traction especially amongst millennials who are reportedly as a generation more conscious of their social responsibility compared to the previous generation. While the mission is similar between donor driven aid models and social innovation ventures, the method is different. It is important for people in the sector to understand that their commitment is to the purpose of serving people and be open to a change in the method. The new way allowing social innovation is open to greater creativity as it allows for home grown solutions and has been successful in developing partnerships across the public/private sector and not for profits. Hence I believe that this is an exciting time for the development sector and the next few years will see a pivotal shift in how social good is achieved especially in developing countries.

Bonnie Gloris: “Cash is not only king, it’s queen and prince too for a bootstrapper.”

This week’s topic for exploration is Making the Right Things Happen at the Right Time, and according to all three assigned readings, thriftiness is a big part of that: 

The Art of Bootstrapping - “Cash is not only king, it’s queen and prince too for a bootstrapper.”

Launching a Risky Project? Learn from Entrepreneurs in Africa – Rule 3: “Keep costs low in the beginning and plan for scalability… Start with the smallest version of the business that has a shot at success, and plan to learn and grow from there.”

Putting Discovery-Driven Planning to Work: “Success means generating the maximum amount of useful learning for the minimum expenditure.” 

Todd Dagres

For some non-profit start-ups, the financial challenges of launching may soon be a little easier. The Boston Globe article “‘Shark Tank’-style contest may give nonprofits capital” describes Todd Dagres’ idea for a new ‘venture philanthropy’ competition: “Early-stage not-for-profit organizations could pitch their missions to investors, who would vet them on their plans and fund those they consider most promising.” Dagres aims to “bring financial stability and management expertise to emerging nonprofits that could eventually grow and benefit society” and to raise awareness of “how hard and interesting and innovative nonprofits are”.

And for those organizations that are not selected for the competition? We should probably plan to live by the art of bootstrapping. My thought on how to apply this to iCraft Path, for example, is to launch the venture as an online resource community, utilizing strategic partnerships with existing organizations.  iCraft Path can then be scaled up to offering personalized services, for needs not being met by existing organizations. What other ideas do you have for keeping costs down for your new venture?

Tessa Roscoe Blog #7: Implementation and Planning

This week's theme is planning the implementation of your social venture. The plan you develop is mostly dependent on the product itself (is it seasonal? themed?) and your customer's purchasing process. Anticipating when your customer will want to buy your product, and especially when they will be inclined to pay the most for it, is always a bit of a gamble, but timing it right is guaranteed to have major payoffs. Thus studying your customer and fully understanding their needs and the ecosystem that they operate within is imperative to planning the phases of your development and launch.

For my social venture, we operate almost entirely within the educational technology sector, and our product is consistently subject to the purchasing process of large schools. Our CEO has worked closely with local schools and is intimately familiar with how these schools schedule and justify large educational technology purchases. Typically these occur a year or more in advance of when the technology will deployed within the classroom (a feature of the industry criticized for slowing the development of edu-tech itself). They also tend to occur during Spring and Summer seasons, when School Boards debate school budgets and approve controversial proposals. Thus Birdbrain has to carefully plan it's launch of new products, and do significant customer development work within the school community to garner support for purchases when these issues come up for debate. Tis year-round process thus has distinct phases when the focus of activities shifts depending on the audience in power that season.

Birdbrain has an added layer of complexity in that its products require teacher training before the products can be used in the classroom. Getting teachers to complete the training activities ahead of time so as to enlist their support during debate season is a struggle, given teacher's busy schedules and the often perceived challenges to learning the new technology. We are looking into how we can get our training activities certified as "Continuing Education Certification" hours so the teachers have more incentive to volunteer for the training and get a greater reward out of participating. Moreover, the Hummingbird Duo Kit, the subject of my social venture, requires continuing purchases year-on-year or replacement equipment for parts that wear out. Asking school districts to set aside money in future budgets is nearly impossible given political limitations We are currently considering eliciting corporate sponsorship or donations to help fund these replacement purchases.

Specific to my International Classroom Exchange program, the complexity is further heightened by the challenges presented by partnering with international schools and attracting their participation in the program.  Certainly, endorsement of partnership with an international education company (like IB schools) would greatly reduce this barrier, and we are actively campaigning for such a partner. Luckily, international schools tend to observe similar purchasing cycles given the similarity in school year timing, but certainly each country presents it's own regulatory constraints. For example, we have found we are slow to get off the ground with my contact schools in China due to our struggle against the slow moving gears of the People's Party, but schools in Brazil might be ready to participate by the end of this school year.

IDEO, one of the nation's premier design firms, and Digital Promise, a Congressionally authorized nonprofit that focuses on encouraging innovation in education, recently teamed up for a workshop with educators to discover how to "further develop the education technology market in K-12 districts through evolving the ed-tech procurement process." Their resultant findings, summarized in a document called, "Evolving Ed-Tech Procurement in School Districts" (http://b.3cdn.net/dpromise/26d9101de6ad913ea4_mlbr83xdr.pdf), holds interesting and valuable insights into how to combat the challenges discussed herein.

They first looked at how to expand opportunities through six themes, such as school culture and sustainable resources. The group then built upon this discussion to build solutions, focused around five concepts, such as open procurement and creative financing. They identified underlying social motivations behind this rigorous purchasing process and examined how the district could combat them together. One example is, "Public scrutiny produces fear and risk aversion." The district's purchasing is available for public scrutiny and compliment, and this in turn reduced the district's willingness to try something new. One Superintendent of schools was quoted saying, "“Sometimes the status-quo is easier and safer than innovation.” The workshop then focused on finding constructive solutions to this problem through asking open-ended brainstorming questions like, "How might my district leverage public sentiment to garner long-term support?" or "How might my district leverage innovative financing to reduce risk?". Solutions generated included using CarrotMob, an app where "users vote with their money to change the practices of the businesses they visit and support in their community." and social impact bonds.

I would definitely recommend that any social ventures, within my class or other, that are dealing with purchasing challenges in the educational industry to review this document as the lessons it espouses are relevant to most ventures, not just educational technology. I would then challenges these classmates to do as we have and think, "If these same attitudes and fears are present in my industry, how can my venture begin to take steps to combat them?". Discovering ways, through the solutions presented in this document and the ensured resulting inspiration, that your venture can quell these concerns on the behalf of your customers will ensure your success over your competitor's.

Jackie Shimshoni: Ground-Up Development

In this week’s readings, the idea that comes over and over again is the idea of starting from the bottom.  For weeks we have focused on big-picture ideation; now, having all of that knowledge, we are being grounded into the here and now, restraining ambition that could blind practicality for beginning smartly.  In class, the idea of trying to attract people when you have nothing to offer was discussed (the “blind date”); I decided to look for a few more resources that related to these ideas.

Building an Online Business From the Ground Up: This is about building an online business from the ground up, but it does address the idea of how to make yourself known and make something out of nothing—freelancing in your industry.  This may not be applicable in many cases, but other things can help too—for example, something as simple as tutoring to gain a reputation and experience as an educator (this is something I did back in Florida!).

7 Tips For Startup Business Development: David Vs. Goliath: This is an engaging article that uses my old favorite—metaphor (in this case, David and Goliath).  It has some great ideas about the relationships needed to pitch your idea to a CEO of a larger company.

Rejection Therapy: A Hundred Days of No: This article is about a guy doing “100 Days of Rejection Therapy”.  Not only does it talk about him becoming more comfortable with rejection, but the ability to handle it in such a way that a soft “no” can be turned to a “yes”.  I think in starting from the ground up, and working with something as complex as a startup, there are a LOT of “no’s” and it’s good to become ok with them without becoming discouraged or taking it personally.  This is definitely something I have been learning in this process!!

Where do you want to work?

The article "Organizational Blueprints for Success in High-Tech Start-Ups" made me critically evaluate the culture of my workplace at my previous employer, SAP Labs. Coming to think of it, SAP made work - life balance easy. The default blueprint structure of this company could be categorized as "Commitment". Everybody loved each other and loved working for this company. It dint matter if the competitor companies were paying their employers more salary. The employees in SAP were extremely happy with the company perks, the additional vocation days and a non-stress job. I always envisioned that if I start my own venture the culture of the company would be analogous to the culture in SAP.

However, reading the article in this weeks' reading has helped me objectively quantify the various blueprints a company can have and propelled me create a better culture for my company. Although some features of the "commitment" blueprint would be necessary in the organization, a startup needs more drive and needs the employees to be more ambitious. Therefore a mixture of "Star" and "Commitment" would be ideal culture for a venture like mine. The employers incentive to be attached to the company should be their belief in the vision. Further, an employer would be recruited if he has the required skills and shares a goal which is in accordance with the goal of the company. The coordination and control in a startup venture should be professional and should be partially based on peer reviews. Creating the right culture for each of our ventures can significantly help us create a long term sustainable and stable team.

Can you think of essential characteristics that will make up the culture of your organization?

Would you as an employer(not CEO) want to work in a company with that culture?

AquaponicsOS

"A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."

- Laozi              

The objective of this post will be to start defining a clear scope for AquaponicsOS. To do this I will present the assumptions present both in technology and business model and then narrow down the product and how it would work. Being a first attempt, this vision will continue to evolve with experience.


Assumptions

1) Agriculture will drastically change in the next 5 to 10 years and vertical farming will play a central role in this revolution. 

2) The ability to leverage data to automate and increase efficiencies, both in vertical farming and conventional agriculture, will be a key differentiating factor.

3) Open data is better for the system as a whole.

4) The cost to sense, process and store data will continue to fall exponentially.

5) The demand for organic and eco-friendly food will continue to increase.

The Vision: 2020's

1) For certain crops, vertical farms have become cost competitive with conventional agriculture and transitioned from novelty to everyday business.

2) Vertical farms are fully automatized and rely on SaaS for everyday maintenance.

3) Agriculture has become an information business and the entire food chain has been disrupted. Leaders in the market rely on large scale testing and experimentation to tune and hack nature's cycles. Software updates are deployed on a regular basis.

4) Environmental pressure caused by an increasing population has started to decrease. There is for the first time in human history the prospect of "food abundance".

5) Non-organic food has been stigmatized  and marginalized in medium and high income sectors of society. People receive fresh organic produce at their door on a daily basis and pay for a service rather than a specific fruit or vegetable. Furthermore, there is a demand to know the exact expenditure of electricity, water and other parameters in producing different products. 

AquaponicsOS

1) Focus on aquaponic systems.

2) Default to open data and protocols, set the industry's standards. 

3) Specialize in software and AI.

4) Clients are vertical farmers.

5) Start with a simple sensor+actuator system that communicates with the cloud.

6) Offer DIY products as marketing strategy.

Success Factors to Create a Great Team

We've learned that having a co-founder would help managing the start-up company because we, as individuals, could lack some parts of personalities or skill sets that are needed for the company. We also learned that having a great team with variety of skills and the shared values is a critical element for success of the company. From the guest lecturer from the Diamond Kinetics, we also learned that there are teachable skills and non-teachable skills, when we form a team, and we need to balance these aspects out for a great team. Then what is the set rules? How can I make a good team for my start-up company?

I've searched many articles regarding how to make a successful and great team and what the optimal team size would be, but the answers varies a lot. Some says 5 is the magic number, having one of each (i.e. entrepreneur, technical innovator, delivery specialist, sales, and finance) will do (Beermat Entrepreneur 2002). Some says it varies depending on goal of the team and the tasks that the team will do. Some other people say actually a range between 5 and 12 is a good size; 5 to 9 could be good; 6 could be the most often (Wharton 2006). Others recommend to have an internal PR person on the start-up team (Source Link).

Because they are all varying, what I'd want to do here is that summing up those findings in my own words and delivering to the class. From my understanding, entrepreneurs have to be someone who can communicate very well with investors, stakeholders, customers, and team member and has a clear vision. Whatever size the team could be, s/he doesn't have to be a technical person, although it is helpful to have a technical background. If the person is not technical person, it will be helpful to have a technical co-founder or a technical innovator as a team member. Regarding the team size, although I think the team size can depend on the team goals and mandates, I would agree to have a team size of 5 or 6 with external counselor or advisor. Since I am not a too technical person but a person who can communicate well with people and is a great listener, I can be a fit character for entrepreneur/organizer!

Regarding teachable and non-teachable aspects of team mates, I have been wondering what could be those categories. I gained insights from the article published by the Wharton School (2006). According to the website, "the team mental models" are very important. I would call it as a non-teachable skill. The mentality of people, to have a team who has similar and shared stable mentality is non-teachable aspect. Besides that, I want the best skill sets. I would want the best people who have the greatest skill sets I need within the people who have the similar mental models.

What I mean by the similar mentality is not the same nationality, race, age, or gender as me, but has to be the mental models. Being in Heinz College where many backgrounds come around and mingle, I think that having a great skillset is a good aspect to have from team mate, but if s/he is not mentally similar -- a healthy or stable mentality --, that can be a hardest thing to work together. Therefore, first thing is the stable and similar minded mentality; the next thing is the greatest skill sets.

My question for all of you is what would be a non-teachable skill for you to form a great team? Mine was a stable mentality.