{"id":2422,"date":"2023-08-24T08:43:17","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T08:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itamargilad.com\/?p=2422"},"modified":"2023-08-24T08:52:52","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T08:52:52","slug":"adopting-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itamargilad.com\/adopting-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Adopting Evidence-Guided Development in Your Org"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
This is an excerpt from my book<\/a>, Evidence-Guided: Creating High Impact Products in the Face of Uncertainty. While the chapter references the GIST Model <\/a>(Goals, Ideas, Steps, Tasks), the methods described can be used broadly. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Switching to an evidence-guided mode of work is rarely easy. The people developing the product and influencing it have to change the way they work and think, often in counterintuitive ways. Your managers, stakeholders, and team members may resist the change, and for good reasons. They are entrusted with important responsibilities and they have things to protect\u2014revenue, budgets, customer relationships, product quality\u2026 People\u2019s reputations and careers are also on the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my experience most people will be supportive of a model like GIST once they undergo training, and they understand what the change entails, and how it is going to help the company and their area of responsibility. Still there\u2019s a big difference between supporting a big change in principle and actually going through with it. You should expect to run into adoption hurdles and objections. In the first part of this chapter we\u2019ll go over the most common challenges, including mistrust, lack of time, and lack of resources, and discuss ideas how to overcome them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even when everyone is onboard, the transition may run slow and be hard to complete. Some organizations take a very long time to implement GIST, and lose momentum midway. Others try to do too much too fast and get overwhelmed and fatigued. Yet others pick and choose, eventually creating just a slightly more sophisticated version of the old system. Personnel changes and reorgs bring new managers and employees into the fold and can cause regressions and setbacks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The second part of this chapter covers change patterns that will smooth out the transition and give you a better chance of success. To make things more concrete I\u2019ll talk specifically about adopting the GIST model, but the guidelines and principles apply broadly to other changes you might strive to drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [some text skipped]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Some companies are in a rush to implement GIST all at once. I often recommend against this. Too many things will need to change in parallel and the ramp-up curve may be too steep. If you have a big gap to close, I suggest staging the adoption. GIST is a modular system\u2014you can implement certain layers first and others later. So start by looking at the four layers of GIST and consider where the biggest challenges in the company lie today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Obviously, the four layers of GIST are all connected, but to get started, a North Star Metric is the only bit of plumbing you must have (and is therefore the first thing to figure out). The NSM will enable you to rank ideas, evaluate steps, and build early GIST boards where sometimes the only goal is to grow the NSM. <\/p>\n\n\n\n No one can turn into a marathon runner overnight or shed 30 pounds within a week. Success comes from setting ambitious-yet-realistic targets and sticking to them. The same is true for your adoption of evidence-guided thinking. During the transition period you\u2019ll need to work on two types of outcomes at the same time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n What are these outcomes? We can get an idea by looking at the core operation of GIST:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nDriving the Change <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Gradual Rollout\u2014Start Where the Pain Is<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Set Ambitious-yet-Realistic Goals<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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