"Centralized vs Decentralized"
These two terms explicitly describe "where"
an activity takes place.
I think sometimes teams might implicitly choose to
use these two terms as euphemisms for "performed in a standardized
manner by experts" versus "performed with high variability by a
crowd".
Such an implicit meaning is not necessarily fair because
there are both pros and cons to each approach.
Expert processing is expensive with limited availability but
more likely to be consistent.
Crowd
processing is harder to control (activity and outcome) but ultimately quite
cost efficient if it works.
I know sometimes our team is troubled by the “variability” in
distributed activity. (e.g. Do project owners get their software listed in the
software list, do change owners complete risk scores etc.)
And I know sometimes we are tempted to switch models and
“centralize” to address these issues. But time and money are short for our Quality Improvement team and centralization and the transformation to centralization is expensive.
While that may be an appropriate solution, it isn’t
necessarily arrived at after a careful assessment of all of the alternatives.
For example, there are ways to leverage the “bandwidth” of
the crowd without necessarily sacrificing quality of results. i.e. While
not controlling activity we may find appropriate means to positively affect
outcome, whether through support or appropriate feedback loops, or gates etc.
It
makes me think that I want to invest in my own learning about how to
influence the outcomes, rather than necessarily taking over the work
involved in the activity…
Here is an interesting excerpt on 3 kinds of “crowd
wisdom” found in “disorganized decisions”
Types
of crowd wisdom[edit]
Surowiecki breaks down the advantages he sees in disorganized decisions
into three main types, which he classifies as
·
Cognition
Thinking and information
Processing
Market judgment, which he argues can be much faster,
more reliable, and less subject to political forces than the deliberations of
experts or expert committees.
·
Coordination
Coordination of behavior includes
optimizing the utilization of a popular bar and not colliding in moving traffic
flows. The book is replete with examples from experimental
economics, but this section relies more on naturally occurring
experiments such as pedestrians optimizing the pavement flow or the extent of crowding
in popular restaurants. He examines how common understanding within
a culture allows remarkably accurate judgments about specific reactions of
other members of the culture.
·
Cooperation
How groups of people can form
networks of trust without
a central system controlling their behavior or directly enforcing their
compliance. This section is especially pro free market.
Cheers!
