Walk The Idea Around

2024-11-01

This is a short story about a useful piece of advice I recieved to help influence multiple decision makers.

You’re on a minesite in the middle of nowhere in outback Western Australia, talking to staff of the company responsible for digging up gold. They have recently signed up to your software product, which collects data from mining equipment such as trucks and excavators, analyses it in the cloud, and provides reports highlighting areas where operation could be safer or more efficient. More efficient operation means fewer greenhouse gas emissions for the earth, and a lower fuel bill for the client. Win-win.

But there’s a catch. This is not the first software product these people have used. They’ve repeatedly been victims of inaccurate data, incorrect analysis, or missing context. Many people have become calous, with a deep mistrust for automation. They’re especially mistrustful of you, a software engineer from the “city”, wearing a shiny new high visibility jacket who clearly has no background in mining.

Luckily, you are not alone. Your company is partnered with a site coach consultancy, experienced in teaching mine site operators how to operate more effectively. He is very familiar with the push-back you two are going to receive, even in the face of overwhelming numerical evidence. You have 1 week on this minesite, and on the last day there is a presentation with every major decision maker on the site. For our visit to be a success, everyone in that meeting needs to be convinced of your products value.

Your first few days are focussed on absorbing as much context as possible. Finding out what information people need, and when. What they care about and what they don’t. Identifying and excluding red herrings and non-starters. Once you have the context and the raw data, you crunch the numbers and check that it’s logical and consistent. You suggest showing it to some of the operators to make sure that it aligns with what they see day to day.

No, your partner says. We’re not going to show it to some people, we’re going to show it to everyone, one at a time. This is what we calls, “walking the idea around”.

We start with the most technical people, the ones most likely to understand that automation is written by humans, and can initially be incorrect. We iterate on our analysis until we can’t find any flaws. We show how our software is telling them “what they’ve been telling upper management for years”. We show others how their concerns are limited by what they can physically see, that addressing systemic changes can provide bigger opportunities than fire-fighting localised issues.

We talk to every single person who is going to attend that meeting, as well as anyone else that will spare us a moment. Some we visit multiple times, addressing their concerns with each iteration.

Now comes the big day. Our presentation showing what the software can do for them, including targeted suggestions for what to focus on right now. Everyone in the room has already seen this presentation in one form or another, and thinks that this is for the benefit of the other members.

The presentation is a hit, and while there are (and will always be) some tough questions, you knew it was a success before you walked in the door.