Sunday October 25, 2009

Dunning Kruger Effect

Can you honestly say you have never been effected by the Dunning Kruger effect? I can't. In fact I can see many situations when I was an "incompetent individual". Most memorable was when I was doing my 1st open water dives in the sea in around 1995. I really had no clue the degree to which the coast off Plymouth in April would be different in terms of depth, tide, visibility, temperature and general confusion from the swimming pool. I knew it would be different, but underestimated how different. I over estimated my ability at that time and as I my training continued more gaps in my skills we exposed to me as I learned more.

We probably all think would be better at playing politics than the current set of muppets/great and the good are. Is this just an example of the Dunning Kruger Effect?

This is the core of their hypothesis:-

With a typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree,

1) Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.

2) Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.

3) Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.

4) If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

This fits quite well with the 4 stages of competence .

After 12 years as a Program Leader, doing my best to walk the walk, Rational Process from Kepner-Tregoe has helped me recognize this effect in action both in myself and others and has given us tools to deal with it. Until now I did not have a tag for it, thanks Chris.

Clive

(2009-10-25 06:59:09.0) Permalink

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Insurance for Outsourcing I came across this article on outsourcing which is interesting in itself, but spiced up somewhat by worthy comments in particular by David Patterson(author of one of my favorite Computing texts).

Many of the customer hosted/requested Rational Process based facilitation I have run were set in a context of some type of outsourcing (though in contrast to the theme of the article above, the outsourcing was in country rather than off-shore). Also sprinkled into the mix were multiple vendors and a number of internal customer departments and the all important "the business".

We may have to look elsewhere such as ITIL or the business model around the outsourcing contract was set up in order to prevent issues upfront. Once a problem has occurred and progress has stalled, Rational Process has been every effective at

• Focusing all the parties on what the problems that needed solving really were and which one to work on 1st
• What was a guess, what was fact and what data is missing and needs to be collected
• What assumptions have been made and what data would turn the assumptions into facts
• What possible causes make no sense at all to consider further
• What the most probable cause is
• Risks involved in proving (or otherwise) the most probable cause

Discussing the merits or otherwise of outsourcing will be left to others. A Rational Process capability and a clear understanding of when to deploy, is effective insurance against finger pointing and stalled progress in any situation where operational responsibilities have been transfered away from the primary customer, be they internal to the organization or to other parties.

Clive

(2009-10-14 12:23:19.0) Permalink