Dots conference, Friday 4th September 2015, Brighton

1. “Don’t be late to pick up the kids”
Changing human behaviour is difficult
Christina Scott
4th September 2015

2. 20151888

3. 3
New Digital Natives

4. And……Deep Pocketed Traditionals

5. 5
Networked Communal
Fragmented Mercenary
Negative
Positive
Sociability
Solidarity HighLow
Low High
✓ ✗
Informality
Flexibility
Rapid exchange of information
Willingness to help
High trust
Ease of communication - no
hidden agendas
Fun, laughter
Loyalty
Empathy
Caring for others
Compatible people
Less defensiveness, relaxed
Gossip, rumour
‘Negative’ politics
Endless debate about
measures
Long meetings with no action
Manipulation of communication
e.g. copying e-mails
CYA management style
Risk aversion - ‘keep your head
down’
Change jobs in the organisation
frequently
Concentrate more on managing
upwards than managing
outcomes
The networked organisation
Culturally what type of
organisation is the FT?

6. 6
…..With a long legacy

7. Newsroom Evolution: From Print to Digital to Audience First

8. Empowerment
Removed Board members from
programme governance
Clear strategy
Agreed outcomes
Understood constraints
Leadership training for below
board level
Right skills
Right attitude
COMMUNICATION
Defined language
Defined processes
Source: Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Building Leaders by Breaking the Rules, L. David Marquet

9. Customer Focused

10. Outcome Led
• 1 hour or less commute to
Southwark Bridge
• Two bedrooms
• A garden
• Budget £1500/month
• Available from 1st October

11. Agile – in and out
Articulate your
product idea and
customer
outcome
intentions
Confirm the
problem or
customer need
and test it.
Minimum viable
experiment
(MVE)
Build minimum
solution to meet
customer need, to
validate the
market demand.
Minimum viable
product (MVP)
Optimise for
scale, increasing
revenue, reach
and lcustomer
outcomes. Post
MVP launches
Consistently
seeking to
maintain revenue,
profitability,
customer
satisfaction and
outcomes.
Move product out
of portfolio quickly
or support existing
base with zero new
investment

12. Focus on the customer
Focus on speed
Focus on outcomes
Focus on Empowering team
Team collaboration
Remove silo thinking
But……
Power imbalances
Outcomes too high level
Project NEXT – Transformation in Action
12

13. A success story - Data
13
Beginning: No data strategy, IP outside FT, slow to change and expensive
Decision: We wanted to own our data
Risk: Multi-year big data warehousing project
Actions:
• No upfront RFP – start fast, learn and fail fast
• Whole team involvement including stakeholders
• Team ownership – vision, cost goal and constraints, devops
• Communications – quality not quantity
• Team empowered to make choices and change direction
• Roles brought in when required e.g. BA
Tech Decisions:
• Amazon Redshift (then in Beta)
• Build own ETL
• Relaxed about technical debt in short term

14. A success story – Data – Lessons Learned
14
Bypassing RFP worked because:
• Strong vision
• Team understood existing outputs
• Right mix of expertise
• Technology in this area was moving quickly
Risk:
• Investing lots to decrease risk can be expensive and slow.
• Risk analysis replaced by failing fast without fear of failure
Delivery:
• Right people
• Transparent
• Empower them
• Trust them
• Light touch project governance
Outcome: 80% cost saving, 95% performance gain, data at heart of FT strategy

15. And just when you think you have made progress…..
15
“ Flabbergasted that your department
should have sought to educate staff with
such puerile mind games ”
“ Honestly, do you not think we've got
better things to do with our time?”
“ A crass effort by Pearson's IT security
people to train people not to click on
phishing links”
“That sounds like entrapment to me”
“Always Learning to be complete pillocks and how to
waste staff time????”
“Geez, that's not really on!!”
“Personally, I never respond to any email that uses words like
"credentialed””