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| Preface |
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Alex Lowy
Co-author, "The Power of the 2 x 2 Matrix"
Economists like to speak of incentives and contingencies; attach enough of the right sort of consequence to a market or work situation, and in most cases you will control the outcome. Operations research and human resource specialists apply this principle to managing performance when they advise businesses to quantify and track the important aspects of production, cautioning that we "manage what we measure." Accountants are wont to apply standard and accepted measurement practices to conduct assessments of value and changes in value. The parts of a business that cannot be described in standard ways are regarded as off balance sheet, and generally given less weight.
Reassuring as these discipline-based approaches may be on the surface, they too often miss the target entirely. The problem with applying such "folk wisdom" is that in complex situations involving people, politics and markets, the most important factors influencing outcomes and behavior are often beyond easy apprehension and description. This creates a rather significant dilemma, what might be called the "measurement paradox." Should you ignore or disqualify "fuzzy" but important data and measure what can be measured directly with precision and reliability, or should you base decisions and findings on terribly flawed, approximate or subjective observations?
As with many dilemmas of this kind where one is seemingly faced with two incomplete and often unsavory options (think of poor Abraham's choice - to sacrifice his son Isaac or to disobey God), the answer lies in somehow transcending given limitations and constraints to find a more suitable alternative at a higher logical level. Systems thinkers sometimes describe this as both-and rather than either-or thinking wherein elements of paradoxically opposed factors find a way to co-exist, and in so doing enrich rather than detract from understanding.
As scientists and serious researchers we want to apply the best tools of our trade in a rigorous and conscientious manner, but what do you do when the method misses the objective - when what you're measuring isn't what really matters the most. Kurt Lewin, author in 1951 of Field Theory in Social Science, and the original management consultant, made the sobering observation that the "the map is not the territory." Translated: Your tools may indeed be sharp, but are they the right tools to reflect what is really going on?
Go back in time a mere few thousand years and science and philosophy were one. In a fashion, Clem Bowman takes us again in this book to where the two disciplines usefully intersect, and offers methods that cut the Gordian Knot. With Gregory Bateson, he enjoins us to ponder questions of category rather than content, asking not only about how much of x is present, but how much more or less of it would constitute a difference that matters. To answer this, we need to address issues of meaningfulness and relationship that come before and create the context for measurement. In the words of one of my early mentors, Mathew B. Miles, author of Qualitative Data, an Attractive Nuisance, Clem Bowman is a "soft-nosed positivist," with one foot planted in the scientific methods and traditions of his training and the other equally firmly rooted in the murkier philosophical questions of meaning.
The outcome of his work as attested to in the case studies described in this book is a courageous and practical contribution to decision-making. If you buy certain premises.... that often the most important factors in tough evaluations are ignored or misrepresented because they are hard to measure, that in most, possibly all instances of complex decision-making there are two over-riding criteria that define the issue, and that by modeling these you increase clarity and quality of choice, then Clem and his colleagues at ProGrid are on to something powerful and much needed in a world of increasing complexity.
As one who regularly works in the margins, helping business leaders to make sense of important but often faint and vague market signals, I wholeheartedly accept these premises, and appreciate the contributions of ProGrid thinking to making those essential yet elusive intangibles a little more visible and measurable.
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| Forward |
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Dr. R.B. (Robert) Church
Chair Emeritus, Alberta Science and Research Authority
The evolution of the interface between basic science discoveries and their application in engineering and biosciences to provide innovative products, processes and/or services has changed dramatically in the last few years. With the advances in information management and computing science, it is now possible to provide unique visual presentations of data in formats never before possible.
The peer review system is like democracy in that it has its faults but remains the best alternative for allocating scarce resources to researchers or projects in the basic sciences. It is based on the proven concept that excellent researchers, with outstanding track records, will be the most productive in a discipline. Granting agencies such as the Medical Research Council and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council were spun out of the National Research Council in Canada to address the question of “how to fund basic and applied science”for the benefit of the public sector and for the development of new products and processes.
In the same time frame as new developments in information management and computing power were taking place, huge multidisciplinary science projects, from space exploration to innovative industrial processes, were being tackled globally.
Clem Bowman is a pioneer in the management of huge complex science-engineering challenges. Projects had to take new frontiers in cutting edge science through to new processes, products and services. In doing so, a "new concept of peer review" evolved which addressed the allocation of resources to the entire innovation continuum.
In the 1970s Clem, as the first Chairman of the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA), developed a strategy for a billion dollar project to develop the "tar sands" (now known as oil sands) in Northern Alberta. The challenge was to define the diverse factors and problems from the discovery of knowledge to process and product development in a remote area.
AOSTRA Research Chairs were selected by peer review to deal with such diverse basic science projects as "tailings sand biota" to anti corrosion materials. The results are bison grazing on land created from reclaimed tailings to new anti corrosion coatings and processes, which are an essential part of the "trillion dollar" oil sands operation in Alberta today.
In the 1980s, as President of the Alberta Research Council, Clem once again faced the question of how an organization charged with technology development and innovation assesses the allocation of resources to challenging proposals. The links between the discovery of new knowledge and the development of new processes and products, the drivers of economic success, were being refined.
In the 1990s, in collaboration with other experienced science and technology managers such as Ron McCullough, formerly with Spar Aerospace, Clem applied the power of data analysis with a unique language ladder, which he called ProGrid. This created a whole new type of peer review, which addressed the full spectrum of the innovation continuum.
In the last ten years, science and innovation strategies have been developed by the Alberta Science and Research Authority in a number of areas. All had in common the philosophy that excellent researchers working in an environment that promotes development of products, processes and services for the public good would yield economic success in a knowledge economy.
The problem was "how does one evaluate and rank the many challenging proposals in areas as diverse as medical discovery, agribusiness, high tech, to energy resources?"
We were fortunate in being able to work with Clem's team on an evolving ProGrid system. The case studies presented in this book reflect the impact that ProGrid has had not only in creating and developing innovative technologies but also in providing a medium for multidisciplinary communication between individuals across the knowledge spectrum.
In a rapidly developing world in which basic knowledge discoveries, global communication and product innovation are key to economic and social success, it is only fitting to also have rapidly evolving tools, such as ProGrid, for evaluating each stage of the innovation process. |
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| Table of Contents |
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| Click here to view a pdf of the table of contents |
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