Tip of the Iceberg

Category musings
Thanks for all of the feedback on my lazyweb request from last night. Earlier this evening I had narrowed my selection down to either an HP dv5tse (with the optional "frameless" display, which bumps the native screen resolution up to 1680x1050) or a 13.3" MacBook Pro (after ruling out several other options, including a Lenovo IdeaPad, a couple Acer models, etc.), but still couldn't decide.

Because my wife is a genius, she had the perfect suggestion: "You're not a crowd, but couldn't you still use Crowded Wisdom?"

For those not already familiar with why Crowded Wisdom makes difficult decisions easier, the key is the multiple vectors of evaluation: each individual decision-maker is asked to evaluate the merits of a suggestion, in the context of a comparison to similar suggestions, both vertically and horizontally. The vertical is a measurement of how soon the suggestion should be implemented; the horizontal measures the perceived impact of implementation. So it's conceivable that a given decision-maker might be evaluating a dozen suggestions that are all great ideas, but the 2-dimensional ranking/rating produces a fascinating visual depiction of what should be done now and what can wait, especially when this decision-making process is aggregated across large crowds of people (hence the name).

In the context of the IBM Design Partner program, Crowded Wisdom is currently being used to provide this kind of data for various categories of proposed enhancements to the Notes/Domino platform. Obviously, I can't reveal specifics about what those enhancements are, but based on what I've already seen, I suspect that as early as 8.5.1, IBM's decisions about what to include and what to postpone will have been positively impacted by their use of this tool.

With that context in mind, I created a blank instance of Crowded Wisdom on Ophelia and started submitting suggestions, with each suggestion worded as a criteria for a satisfying laptop purchase ("Screen resolution should be 1280x800 or larger", "The laptop should be reasonably sized", "The vendor should be reliable", etc.), then sent a "scorecard" comprised of those suggestions to myself and began ranking and rating them. I found myself ranking my purchase criteria (the vertical vector) based on how rapidly the absence of each would annoy me... and rating them (the horizontal vector) based on how much. Laura was glancing over my shoulder during this process and said, "Wow, you definitely want the HP." Which is true.

A pleasant surprise was that I found myself already satisfied with the decision, and I haven't even made the purchase yet. While it's very possible that I'll be disappointed with the result when, or sometime after, it arrives, the satisfaction with the decision itself - specifically, with the criteria for the decision - was immediate... which is unusual for me when making large purchases like this. Just as I can assume that a release of Domino that implements the suggestions that CW tells IBM should be a priority, but excludes others that CW says can wait, can be considered a successful release, I'm assuming that a laptop which satisfies the criteria that floated to the top in CW will be a purchase I'm happy with, even if it doesn't have other attributes that I know I want... 'cause now I've visually acknowledged to myself that I want them less. Which got me thinking about another possible benefit of implementing this on a large scale in any organization: not only does it help the decision-makers to make the "right" decision, but I can foresee a possible impact on product/process adoption; the more people who have gone through the process of deciding not just what they want, but what they want more, the less people might gripe about what was and wasn't done once the decision has been made and the actions associated with that decision produce a result.