Ja-Who-I Window?
The Johari Window: Knowns and Unknowns
Made infamous by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield's "Unknown Unknowns" quote:
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know..."
Uhhh.... Do you know what he's talking about??
Sounds like a lot of gibberish, but it's actually very sound logic that's better explained using the "Johari Window".
One of the primary goals of agile is effective communication. And a big part of achieving that is making sure information is 'de-siloed', or clearly spread ACROSS departments and 'silos' of organizations.
Take a look a the graphic above with Four Quadrants: Open, Hidden, Blind, Unknown.
Open: The upper left window "Open" (shaded in yellow) is where we want information to be. If everyone knows about it, they we'll all make better decisions together.
Hidden: That's information I have that others don't. That's dangerous to others, because they may make a decision with incomplete information because I have not shared it. The goal of that information is to move it "up" into the open window by sharing it with others
Blind: That's information that I don't have, but others do. That's dangerous to me, because I make a poor decision because I don't have important information that someone else has. The goal of Blind is to move it to the left, also into the "Open" quadrant by others sharing the information they have with the team.
Unknown: Of the four quadrants, this is the ONLY area we can't do anything about. Things like natural disasters, terrorist strikes, etc. fall into this category and there's not as much as we can do about them, except in the most general sense like disaster recovery planning, etc.
Bottom Line: A cohesive team is constantly working and ever diligent to move "Blind" and "Hidden" facts and information up and to the left into the "Open" quadrant so everyone on the team is working from a complete set of facts and making sound decisions.
Put it into Practice: What are you doing in your organization to move out of the "Blind" and "Hidden" into the "Open"?
Until next time...
Made infamous by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield's "Unknown Unknowns" quote:
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know..."
Uhhh.... Do you know what he's talking about??
Sounds like a lot of gibberish, but it's actually very sound logic that's better explained using the "Johari Window".
One of the primary goals of agile is effective communication. And a big part of achieving that is making sure information is 'de-siloed', or clearly spread ACROSS departments and 'silos' of organizations.
Take a look a the graphic above with Four Quadrants: Open, Hidden, Blind, Unknown.
Open: The upper left window "Open" (shaded in yellow) is where we want information to be. If everyone knows about it, they we'll all make better decisions together.
Hidden: That's information I have that others don't. That's dangerous to others, because they may make a decision with incomplete information because I have not shared it. The goal of that information is to move it "up" into the open window by sharing it with others
Blind: That's information that I don't have, but others do. That's dangerous to me, because I make a poor decision because I don't have important information that someone else has. The goal of Blind is to move it to the left, also into the "Open" quadrant by others sharing the information they have with the team.
Unknown: Of the four quadrants, this is the ONLY area we can't do anything about. Things like natural disasters, terrorist strikes, etc. fall into this category and there's not as much as we can do about them, except in the most general sense like disaster recovery planning, etc.
Bottom Line: A cohesive team is constantly working and ever diligent to move "Blind" and "Hidden" facts and information up and to the left into the "Open" quadrant so everyone on the team is working from a complete set of facts and making sound decisions.
Put it into Practice: What are you doing in your organization to move out of the "Blind" and "Hidden" into the "Open"?
Until next time...
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