• is all about measure, diagnose, enable, and improve:
• value (4KVAs product value, product outcomes) and business agility (3KVAs business value: processes, practices, business outcomes)
• by using evidence to focus investments (iterative and incrementally approach) on areas that will create the highest value, and help to control risk
• by inspecting and adapting

Evidence Based Management (EBM) Guide-Intro

• is an empirical approach that helps organizations to continuously improve (under conditions of uncertainty):
  • customer outcomes
  • organizational capabilities
  • business results
• a framework to improve their ability to deliver value in an uncertain world, seeking a path toward strategic goals
• Using intentional experimentation and evidence (measures),
• enables to systematically improve performance over time and refine goals based on better information
• By:
  • measuring current conditions
  • setting performance goals
  • forming small experiments for improvement that can be run quickly
  • measuring the effect of the experiment
  • inspecting the results
  • adapting goals and next steps
• helps organizations to take into account the best available evidence to help them make decisions on ways to improve
• Seek toward Their Goals
  • Complex problems defy easy solutions: require organizations seek toward their goals in a series of small steps, inspecting the results of each step, and adapting their next actions based on feedback
  • Key elements:
  • A. Strategic Goal
    • something important that the organization would like to achieve
    • This goal is so big and far away
    • with many uncertainties along the journey, that the organization must use empiricism
    • is aspirational and the path to it is uncertain: needed a series of practical targets, like: IG
    • is usually focused on achieving a highly desirable but unrealized outcome for a specific group of people that results in improved happiness, safety, security, or well-being: In EBM, we refer to this as Unrealized Value
  • B. Intermediate Goals
    • Their achievements indicate we are on the path to the Strategic Goal
    • The path to the them is often still somewhat uncertain, but not completely unknown
  • C. Immediate Tactical Goals
    • critical near-term objectives toward which a team/group of teams will work help toward IG
  • D. Starting State
    • where the organization is relative to the Strategic Goal when it starts its journey
  • E. Current State
    • where the organization is relative to the Strategic Goal at the present time
• THE EXPERIMENT LOOP In order to progress toward the Strategic Goal
  • Progress toward Goals in A Series of Small Steps
    • The first step in the journey toward a Strategic Goal is understanding your Current State
    • If your focus is to achieve a Strategic Goal related to UV, measuring the CV is where you should start (of course, if your product or service is new then its CV will be zero)
    • To understand where you need to improve, you may also need to understand your effectiveness (A2I), and your responsiveness (T2M)
  • The Experiment Loop helps organizations move from their Current State toward their Next Target Goal, and ultimately their Strategic Goal, by taking small, measured steps, called experiments, using explicit hypotheses. This loop consists of: run experiments which involve:
  • 1. Hypothesis
    • Forming a hypothesis for improvement
    • forming hypotheses that are intended to advance toward their current IG
    • one idea for how to make progress toward next target state
    • Based on experience, form an idea of something to move toward your Next Target Goal, and decide how you will know whether this experiment succeeded based on measurement
  • 2. Experiments and measures
    • Running your experiments
    • Make the change and gather data to support or refute your hypothesis
    • run these experiments and gather results
    • try out the idea, measure lag and led results
  • 3. Inspect
    • Inspecting your results
    • Based on the measurements, did the change you made improve your results?
    • use the evidence they obtain to evaluate their goals
    • based on the measures, what did you learn?
  • 4. Adapt
    • Adapting your goals or your approach based on what you learned
    • Goals and experiments will likely evolve, as you learn more about customers, competitors, organization capabilities
    • Goals can change and also your tactics to reach these goals
    • Was the intermediate goal the right goal?
    • Is the strategic goal still relevant? If not, you will need to adapt it or replace it
    • If achieved intermediate goal, choose a new one, if did not achieve it, persevere, stop or pivot?
    • determine their next steps to advance toward these goals
    • what might you try next? Do we need to adjust the EBM goal?
• Setting goals
  • When setting goals, organizations must define specific measures that will indicate that the goal is achieved
  • in order to encourage organizational alignment, should be made transparent
    • Goals
    • Measures
    • experiments
  • Example: response to an infectious disease:
  • The Strategic Goal is to eradicate the effects of the disease, as measured by the number of people who fall ill and suffer significant illness.
  • Measurement is important; in this example, the goal is focused on the effects of the disease, and not on the means for achieving: the goal is not to vaccinate a certain percentage of the population against the disease; that may be an activity necessary to achieving the Strategic Goal, but it is not the Strategic Goal
  • An example of an Intermediate Goal: is the successful completion of a trial of a vaccine against the disease. This is still ambitious and measurable, and achieving it may require the completion of many different activities, but it is seen as a necessary step on the path to achieving the Strategic Goal
  • Examples of immediate tactical goals may include activities like isolating symptoms, evaluating a therapy, sequencing the DNA of a virus or bacterium, and so forth
• Understanding What Is Valuable
  • Organizations measure many different kinds of things. fall into three categories
    • Activities
      • things that people in the organization do
      • perform work, go to meetings, have discussions, write code, create reports, attend conferences, etc
    • Outputs
      • things that the organization produces
      • product releases (including features), reports, defect reports, product reviews, etc
    • Outcomes
      • desirable things that a customer or user experiences
      • They represent some new or improved capability was not able to achieve before
      • Examples
      • can also be negative:
  • The problem most organizations face
• Hypotheses, Experiments, Features, and Requirements