Techniques for Understanding Technology
Understanding and assessing new technologies will be a critical skill for you over the coming years. Thomas Friedman’s book, ‘Thank You for Being Late’ uses a chart, which, although questionable in it rigour, demonstrates the issue perfectly.
Below are approaches which we’ve found useful in understanding emerging technologies and when to invest in them.
Framework 1 — The Gartner Hype Cycle
Covered in the @schmarzo article, whilst not perfect, is a useful framework to understand new technologies (it’s worth pointing out that hype cycles are a useful way to look at the path any trend takes).
As a law of technology markets, the hype cycle is pretty consistent, but we need to keep hype in perspective. Hype and usage are not the same. We’re far too quick to proclaim the death of older technologies. They often take a long time to die and we must be careful to not chase the new at the expense of the effective.
Framework 2 — The Tech Adoption Life Cycle
We looked at this briefly in the first article in this lesson. It’s a very straightforward framework but to help us understand technology and people there is an additional element which was first described in a book called ‘Crossing the Chasm’. This is the description of the most difficult phase in any new technology’s journey, the transition between early adopters and the mainstream. When a hot new technology product can’t be translated into a major new benefit for a mainstream audience then that technology will falter. Remember Second Life? Segway? Betamax? Google Glass? All were embraced by enthusiasts but momentum slowed and they failed to move through to the mainstream. They fell off at the chasm.
Combing the 2 Frameworks
Combining the Hype Cycle and the Tech Adoption Lifecycle can be a helpful way to help you understand how and when to use a specific technology.
If you want mass effect and adoption you use technologies on the right. If you want to attract the innovators and early adopters (looking for fame and PR) you focus on technologies on the left.
Framework 3: Tech, Behaviour, Data System
The final system we’ll look at has been created by Paul Armstrong, and it combines thinking from the Hype Cycle and the Tech Adoption Life Cycle into a simple yet exercise. It looks at Technology first — whether high tech (computers, mobiles) or low tech (paper, space), most problems involve technology in some form. Does the technology work and help us solve our problem? Behaviour — who is using this technology, what are the behavioural elements that will impact our success? Data — how many people are behaving this way with this technology?
TBD is a three-part question and scoring mechanic that will help you figure out whether or not to invest in something. You score technologies on a scale of 0–30 (10 for T, 10 for B, 10 for D).
Step 1: Create a scoring mechanism
This is the ‘Decision Matrix’ — this will be the same no matter what question you ask about which technology. It is a list or a grid of 0–30 (each of the three questions has a maximum score of 10). You break these numbers into ranges (so 0–5 might mean ‘ignore for 12 months’, whereas 25–30 may result in ‘Convene a meeting the following day to set up a team tasked to build a prototype in 30 days). Wishy-washy answers shouldn’t be allowed in any Decision Matrix — every range needs to have a specific action applied to it. Your outcomes can, will and should be different to other companies within your sector. The point is to make them unique to your situation.
Step 2: Decide on the Question
Forming these questions can often be done quickly and efficiently, either ruling out further investigation or beginning a good course of action. Naturally, the questions differ and the phrasing changes from company to company but essentially you are looking for a ‘What should we do because of ______?’
Most of the time the questions will look something like:
- What should we do about ______?
- Should we start using ______?
- Will ______’s new feature, ______, help us make more money?
- Will ______’s new feature, ______, help us save time?
Eg. Should we start using chatbot assistants for our websites.
Step 3. Ask the Questions
1: Technology
The technology part of the TBD framework is ‘can it’ element. Based on the evidence you have in front of you, can consumers do what you need them to do with this technology? Can consumers use a chatbot to get assistance on your website?
Gather the relevant information through discussions with the supplier, asking colleagues and generally doing a bit of hard research. Once you have read everything and determined a reasonable idea of the capabilities, think about the score you will give the ‘T’ section.
A score of 0 means the users will not be able to do what you are asking them to do, a score of 10 means that the users are already doing what you need them to with the technology. Be ruthless.
2: Behaviour
The Behaviour part is the ‘will they’ part of the question you. Based on the evidence in front of you, will the end users do what you are asking?. In this area you must know your consumer and decide whether it immediately overlaps, will overlap or could potentially overlap.
People may not use the technology that way. They may not be interested in the benefits. The ‘B’ is based on your understanding of the user — not the idea, but the people that will be using it.
Choose carefully and, again, be ruthless. For ‘B’, a 0 score means the user would never use the technology, a score of 10 means the user is already doing what you need them to do.
3: Data
The final potential 10 points for the TBD score come from the ‘Data’ section. Here the question to ask yourself is whether enough of the users will use the technology. In other words, “Based on the evidence I have in front of me, will enough of the end users do what I am asking?”.
In this section, you need to assign a score to this question based on the research you have conducted. Internal or bespoke software is always tough because it is often a ‘must use’ scenario, but try to speak with similar or existing customers from the technology provider to see if this is the case.
STEP 4: Work out the score
Add up the three scores to get your final TBD score. The maximum score for TBD can only ever be 30.
STEP 5: Apply answer
Now you have your TBD score it is time to apply your decision to your score.
It’s tempting to knock points up and down based on the time of day, energy levels or current workload at that time. Don’t do it! Stick with what you have and move forward. You’ve taken the time to get this far, so don’t sabotage yourself — stay true to your decision. Don’t make yourself feel better in the short term to make yourself feel miserable in the long term.
TBD is an easy and flexible method which helps you make better decisions about using the right technology for your people at the right time. There are better, more complex frameworks but TBD is a good place to start and builds well on the learnings from the Tech Adoption Life Cycle and the Gartner Hype Cycle.
You can download a template for running TBD yourself from here:
You can download the powerpoint slides with the tech frameworks above from here:
