Author name: Krishan Mathis

If weak signals are to be perceived successfully, the process must be deeply integrated into the culture of the organization. The organization must continuously look for new angels and perspectives. Looking for weak signals must become part of Organizational Learning. It is not a one-off action – surprises do not provide a timetable.

The need or simply opportunities for sensemaking arise in situations that disrupt expectations or understanding. These situations often involve a need to make sense of something that is new, unexpected, or ambiguous.

How do we structure and prioritize our perception. Only a small part of the raw data actually makes it into our conscious perception. This part receives disproportionately more attention when we perceive our situation and when we try to understand what is going on in our environment.

Situation Awareness is a layered process that starts with the perception of essential environmental elements. Cognitive mechanisms, goals, and experience influence this process. Understanding these levels and mechanisms allows one to design systems and training programs that effectively support and enhance SA in various complex and dynamic domains.

Some big problems start small and grow overnight into disasters – the proverbial butterfly that sets off a storm. Other problems have small signs: weak signals. If you recognize them early, you can avoid a problem or take advantage of an opportunity. Weak signals are often hidden in a flood of information and can easily be overlooked if you’re not paying close attention.

The OODA Loop is a strategic tool developed by military strategist and United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. It’s a decision-making process to help individuals and organizations operate effectively in competitive environments.

John Boyd is best known for his OODA model for situation awareness. Although the popular interpretation focuses on the speed of decision making, Boyd’s original concept was more comprehensive, involving organizational learning, adaptation, and the importance of orientation.

At the heart of an effective product development flow are a few central principles that make it easier to assess how specific goals can be achieved and how they need to be adapted to the culture and environment of the company. Don Reinertsen has compiled the most important heuristics as nine rules. Many of these heuristics can be found in Kanban and SAFe.

Conway’s law originally comes from software development, but can be intuitively applied to many other product developments. It is based on the idea that interpersonal communication is necessary to define the interfaces between separate modules. Therefore, the communication structures of organizations have a major influence on the structure of these interfaces.

The BAPO model describes four aspects of a development activity and also suggests a sequence for processing them. It is also interesting that companies are often not BAPO, but OPAB.