IAC method. Authors: Adolfo Castilla and José María González del Álamo
This post is a continuation of the previous one and is dedicated to providing information on the phases and methodological steps used by Innovation Wars in the Pharmacy I+ project. After a reference to the Web site of this group of pharmacies, the main phases of the methodology are explained first, followed by the specific steps taken in the project in question.
It is worth mentioning the celebration of what was called Innovation Day, a face-to-face working meeting of all participants, as a Bootcamp or Hackathon, in which, once again, a Collective Intelligence exercise was carried out with the collaboration of all in a participatory game. A game that was both competitive and collaborative in which the ability of Farmacia I+, its members and its staff to work for the benefit of the group’s pharmacies, as well as the high professional level of these members and employees, was confirmed.
There are many remarkable things in the work carried out, but one of the most important is the fact that an Andalusian institution has used for the first time, and with great success, something as advanced as the Collective Intelligence [Artificial]
( Image above taken from the I+ Pharmacy Web Page )
The I+ Pharmacy Website
We would like to remind you that Farmacia I+ has a Web which does not lack any of the elements of these digital management and communication tools. There is even a Press section that includes an outstanding Blog and an attractive Magazine. The Web can very well be transformed into a platform and, incidentally, that was one of the star recommendations of the group work carried out at what was called Innovation Day.
As we foresaw at the beginning of the project, Farmacia I+ has the components and characteristics of a grouping in which Collective Intelligence had no choice but to triumph. It is already an intelligent group made up of very competent people in every sense of the word.
It has, among many other things, a business model to offer to its members, which is based on the following question: Would you like to know the keys to make your pharmacy profitable?
It is, as we have said, an advanced organization, with clear ideas about the need for complexity management in today’s business world. We are facing the emergence of a new society in which everything will change, especially in the fields of economics, business and general management.
Changes to come
Companies, and especially business associations, need to be aware that we are moving from an information society to a knowledge and intelligence society. They must accept the need for collaboration and group work and that it is not so much the intensification of effort and production that we need as the intensification of intelligence. More than money-making machines, companies today, and especially their associations, must be increasingly intelligent information and communication systems at the service of their objectives and their vital purpose.
The results of the [Artificial] Collective Intelligence work carried out show the capacity of I+ Pharmacy in all these respects.
Some aspects of the I[A]C methodology used in the Farmacia I+ project
Regarding the process followed, we have already talked in this blog about the general I[A]C methodology of Innovation Wars/CiBUC, and what we do now is to explain in broad strokes how it has been applied to the specific case of Pharmacy I+.
There have been five major phases within which, in turn, there have been a series of intermediate steps:
Phase 1: Work approach with identification of objectives, definition of the basic challenge, formulation of the key questions to be asked (3 in this case) and establishment of deadlines and dates. As well as, and especially, the initial determination of the group participating in the consultation.
Phase 2: Reflection and open and anonymous response of the participants on the questions formulated through a predetermined format answered on-line with no other requirement than having access to the Internet and access via email through any device.
It was not a survey or a questionnaire of questions, but rather an exercise aimed at the participant’s reflection and the sincere and constructive expression of their opinion on the nuclear challenge to be solved and their two best ideas to achieve it. Three questions were therefore asked: the challenge and two questions on how to achieve it. In the previous post, the challenge and questions formulated were collected.
The responses were analyzed with the help of the Artificial Intelligence tool referred to below.
Phase 3: Feedback to the participants with the collective answers synthesized with Collective A.I. from all the individual answers obtained in the previous phase, thus enabling them to make a prevalence analysis on the basis of choosing their preferred option among the different combinations shown to them.
Phase 4: Preparation of reports. Three major reports were prepared and presented: Road Map, Executive Report, and Full Report.
Phase 5: Innovation Day, Bootcamp or Hackathon. This was a face-to-face event with all participants in which a total of 13 work teams, or tables, were formed.
IAC method. Intermediate steps
In the case of the Farmacia I+ project, the previous phases have been materialized in the following major steps:
Step 1
The first thing was to create what we call the “collective brain,” which in this case was made up of a mix of pharmacy owners, technicians and employees, managers and administrators, and experts in general. Among them were both members of Farmacia I+ and people related to the group.
A representative sample of 131 people (Heads, I. Commands, Headquarters and Laboratories) of potential participants in the collective IA process was initially drawn up with the expectation of exceeding 60% (45). The final participation was 105 people (80%). The latter are those who have participated in the two-phase consultation process done on-line and of course in the third phase which he called Innovation Day. The latter was attended by a total of 78 people. The following table shows the participation in the online phase:
Step 2
Secondly, the implementation of what we call a “social neural network”, i.e. the definition of a set of steps interrelating all the reflections contributed by the participants, comparing and prioritizing them.
A first e-mail was sent so that they could access the 3 questions and, through a free and anonymous text, answer them from their own point of view.
Responses to the first consultation document were obtained, analyses were analyzed and results were presented.
One hundred responses were obtained for each of the three questions posed: the challenge and the two questions to contribute to its achievement.
Through four algorithmic layers of IAC, we were able to obtain the collective ideas of artificial nature (synthetic) that best represented all those contributed in terms of aggregate and emergent intelligence (the result of combination and synthesis).
Step 3
In this step a vote is taken to prioritize and a comparison of results is carried out.
It is important to say that for each proposed solution the Collective Intelligence Index was calculated which measures the importance of the prevalence analysis in the comparison carried out.
Reporting
Following the above steps, the three major reports were prepared: Road Map, Executive Report and Full Report.
Use of Artificial Intelligence algorithms
As also mentioned above, various Artificial Intelligence algorithms are used throughout the work carried out. Some of them are shown in the figure below.
Innovation Day
The participants in the event, consisting of Pharmacy I+ members and guests, managers, technical and administrative staff, experts and laboratory representatives, worked for a full day in a participatory game.
A total of 13 teams were organized, each of which was assigned between five and seven participants. These in turn had a game board for each team and a personalized folder with all the necessary information they would need, including, of course, the special cards used in the collaborative intelligence game, both for individual and collective work. All this in a dynamic that allows us to confront ideas instead of people and turn them into concrete proposals that can be implemented.
These issues can be seen in the figure below:
Each of the teams was asked to work on one of the ten initiatives deduced from the previous consultations with the participants and grouped into two major themes: Star Initiative to help pharmacies grow their business and Star Initiative to become stronger as a Network.
Results
The results achieved were exceptional in the opinion of all participants. We cannot present them in this Blog for obvious reasons, but we can say that the proposed solutions constitute a set of superior ideas that emerged from the collective. Once again, [Artificial] Collective Intelligence proves its worth as a methodology, especially when working with complex business challenges such as the one posed by I+ Pharmacy.
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