Valnet Software

@lynnfoster - yes, I was thinking about exploring pre-commitment evolution, but might be too ambitious for the stage.
@joshuavial - I'd follow Lynn's lead here, not mine. She is the business analyst and model maker.

Enspiral is a very process light zone at the moment - we have invested a lot in our culture and community and people tend to get things done through informal agreements with other people in the network.

The idea of stubbing processes was we can identify one process at a time and formally recognise and reward it outside of the value network frame. Once we have enough processes formalised we could link them together in the context of a value network.

I think the energy in the network is pretty focused on our 2014 strategy at the moment so I'm seeing this as a warming up process for some teams to individually explore value networks and set the stage for wider adoption in 2015

Good to know, @joshuavial , thanks. I'm not clear how to proceed right now, sounds like you want to go through a few things on your end before we start experimenting together?

Just a note, we don't want to force fit anything on Enspiral. We want to support the cultures and practices of different networks, including people who get things done through internal informal agreements. And even now, you can record your work in the system without any process definition on the operational side. So we would be happy to proceed and make the software fit what you want, if it doesn't already. On our side that is valuable learning. But if that seems disruptive to you guys, then obviously, we wait. We're happy to go your pace.

Thanks, leave the ball in our court for now and I'll start some discussions with folks when I'm back in Wellington. I'll keep you in the loop with discussions about the Enspiral suite of apps and aim to get a plan of action together by the end of our retreat in June.

@joshuavial - as you think, I'd like to put something in your thoughts about processes. When you say "Enspiral is a very process light zone" in relation to valnet processes, you may be thinking of the valnet processes as heavier than they are.

They are not processes in the sense of a lot of organizational ceremony.

They are just software thingies that connect inputs (such as your work) to outputs (such as what you created). It needs necessarily to handle many-to-many relationships, so some intermediate object is required, which we call a Process. Could also be called InputOutputRelationship.

From that minimal point, these thingies could be scheduled to happen in the future, connected to other thingies of their type, be envisioned as value streams, etc.

But they do not require that you have a meeting or any other ~organizational~ process.

Clear?

@bobhaugen @lynnfoster Where can I actually play with or see existing valnet software in action? When I've looked before I've only found very basic mock ups with lots of dummy buttons, but @tiberiusbrastavice says (we met recently at OuiShare Fest in Paris) Sensorica have actually been using it for a while so I guess some actual functionality must exist? :)

@joshuavial would love to hear more about the suite of apps you've got in the works

@josefdaviescoates - we have a test environment, http://valdev.webfactional.com/ , that is now being used by the Tanzanian Innovation Portfolio for incubating a new site. They will be moving to their new site next week. At that point, the site will be up for grabs again and you and others can play.

The dummy buttons on valnet are just on the front page. Sensorica has not figured out what they want to do with them yet. The rest of the system has been working for a year and has no dummy buttons. But it is also a moving target. Valdev has a new version that Sensorica has not yet migrated to.

Does that answer your question adequately?

Thanks @bobhaugen - please let me know once I can go play :)

@joshuavial shared this link with in via email re the apps they've got in the pipeline...

https://docs.google.com/a/enspiral.com/document/d/1lfy9Q2OdssTMPm-mZ23UVDutfsCYhH_z0qz1bpsOfco/edit

@josefdaviescoates , the document @joshuavial sent is very interesting but poses some problems.

We agree with a lot of it (identity, people, etc). I question other parts. To start with, processes. Processes are connected, or they are useless. How are they connected?

And how are the resources they use accounted for?

By the way, what are resources in that ecosystem? And what are resource types?

@bobhaugen that document was by no means definitive and I expect a some of the apps won't be built at all, and most will be built in substantially different forms. The only intent was to give an indication of the direction and breadth of what we were thinking.

In particular I hadn't thought much how OVN principles should be implemented and whether a single valnet app or multiple related apps performing the same function are the way to go.