Читать книгу Twin-Win Research - Ben Shneiderman - Страница 12

CHAPTER 1

Thinking about Research

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Research is great fun because innovation is exciting and discovery is a thrilling. But beyond the personal satisfaction, the goal of research is to improve the lives of people everywhere. Researchers have the opportunity to create astonishing innovations and make profound discoveries, which drive revolutionary advances in communication, healthcare, transportation, business, and government.

But to become this kind of superstar researcher, you have to be more than just lucky; you have to develop the right strategies. These strategies range from choosing problems to finding excellent collaborators, from validating your ideas to pushing back against skepticism. Learning and applying these strategies will increase the probability that your innovations and discoveries will blossom into commercial successes and influential theories that bear fruit as major societal benefits

Set your sights high! Your research could prevent cancer, cut energy consumption, or bolster cybersecurity. Your ideas could lead to highly cited papers, widely licensed patents, and successful business startups. It takes hard work, perseverance in the face of setbacks, polished social skills to push back against skepticism, and excellent presentation abilities to convey your success story.

But remember—dangers abound. Your ideas may fail, they may be bested by competitors, or they may be ignored because you failed to present them well. You also run the risk that the transformative changes you trigger may be disruptive for many people, may damage the environment, and may be appropriated by criminals, terrorists, and oppressive leaders. Research is a high-stakes endeavor, so the best researchers gird themselves for all possibilities.

Which is where this guidebook comes in. My goal is to help you redirect your research and to change your campus. If you can increase the impact of academic research, you and your colleagues can produce more potent innovations and more valuable discoveries.

The paths I outline can be pursued by individual students or faculty, or teams in a bottom-up fashion. These paths can also be important for top-down implementation by academic leaders like department chairs, deans, and administrators, as well as vice presidents of research, provosts, and even presidents. These leaders are typically the ones who promote visionary agendas described in ambitious strategic plans. And they often work closely with off-campus partners in business, government, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), journalism, and beyond.

The bottom line: this guidebook is meant to resemble a backpacker’s guide to hiking. It suggests paths and gives you enough information to get started, while providing enough flexibility to take side treks and enough confidence to find your own way.

1.2 THE TWIN WIN

The design of these paths is based on the ideas of many people, but it draws heavily from The New ABCs of Research: Achieving Breakthrough Collaborations (2016, http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/newabcs). For some people, discovery and innovation are separate pursuits. For a researcher, however, they’re symbiotic. In fact, by pursuing them simultaneously, you’re more likely to succeed at both.

And this parallel approach often leads to what I call the Twin Win. The Twin Win idea is to develop breakthrough theories in published papers AND validated solutions ready for widespread dissemination.

The idea of the Twin Win is so important that it’s become the basis of a network of research leaders. The Highly Integrative Basic and Responsive (HIBAR) Research Alliance seeks to change campus cultures and has drawn support from the U.S. National Academies and the Association for Public and Land-grant Universities. (The latter hosts HIBAR’s website: http://www.aplu.org/hibar.)

What kind of work does HIBAR do? Lorne Whitehead, of the University of British Columbia, offered this description: HIBAR specializes in projects that:

• seek both deep new knowledge and new practical solutions;

• use both academic research methods and practical design thinking;

• are led by both respected academics and real-world experts; and

• have long-term goals and short-term payoffs.

The HIBAR Research Alliance, with vice presidents of research and other campus leaders, held six meetings during 2017–2018 to discuss how to achieve the campus culture changes that are described in this guidebook.

Using the HIBAR approach to achieve the Twin Win isn’t easy. That’s because traditional academic attitudes and policies make it difficult to pursue fresh strategies. Old beliefs and established policies about how to do research are tough to shake, even in the face of growing evidence that new models are more reliable in producing large positive results.

Put another way: Changing the long-held convictions of your colleagues and mentors is a challenge—but it is possible. Changing institutional traditions and established policies is equally difficult, but these transformations are also possible. These changes are exactly what HIBAR Research Alliance seeks to engender.

The University of British Columbia, HIBAR Research Alliance (November 2017).

1.3 CHANGE

Most change-agent handbooks note that the first step of change is for those whose work will be changed to be aware of the big problems and to identify opportunities for improvement. For example, as a researcher, you need specific instructions about what steps to take. This clarity promotes willingness to give up familiar practices and try something new. Meanwhile, any improvements you make need to be measurable; this will reassure participants, even in the face of personal resistance and active opposition from others.

Additionally, because setbacks are inevitable, constant reassessment on your part is critical. Finally, recognition of your success from peers and superiors is essential to spread your ideas. Recognition also strengthens the commitment by others to new methods and goals.

If this all sounds hard, it is. As it should be. But remember: It’s also possible.

Equally important: while these ideas are meant to help you achieve personal success and raise the impact of your lab or campus, they also have a larger impact. After all, each research project helps bring broader benefits to more people. Each small contribution is a tile in the mosaic of societal transformation.

1.4 CHECKLIST

If you want to become a visionary change agent in education, here’s a checklist (derived from https://bit.ly/2MOyAO9).

1. Alignment and Buy-in: The change being considered should align with the overall values, vision, and mission of the initiative. Senior leadership must champion any new initiative. If someone at the C-suite level opposes the new initiative, it will likely die a slow and painful death.

2. Advantage: If the initiative doesn’t provide a unique competitive advantage—preferably a game changing advantage—then it should at least bring you closer to an even playing field.

3. Added Value: Any new project should add value to existing initiatives. If it doesn’t, it should show a significant return on investment to justify the dilutive effect of not keeping the main thing the main thing.

4. Due Diligence: Just because an idea sounds good doesn’t mean it is. You should endeavor to validate proof of concept based upon detailed, credible research. Do your homework—put the change initiative through a rigorous set of risk-reward and cost-benefit analyses. Forget this step and you won’t be able to find a rock big enough to hide under.

5. Ease of Use: Whether the new initiative is intended for your organization, vendors, suppliers, partners, or customers, it must be simple and easy. Usability drives adoptability; therefore, it pays to keep things simple. Don’t make the mistake of confusing complexity with sophistication.

6. Risks: Nothing is without risk, and when you think something is, that’s when you’re most likely to end up in trouble. All initiatives should include detailed risk-management provisions that contain sound contingency and exit planning.

7. Measurement: Any change initiative should be based upon solid business logic that drives corresponding financial engineering and modeling. Be careful of high-level, pie-in-the-sky projections. The change being adopted must be measurable. Deliverables, benchmarks, deadlines, and success metrics must be incorporated into the plan.

8. The Project: Many companies treat change as some ethereal form of management hocus pocus that will occur by osmosis. A change initiative must be treated as a project. It must be detailed and deliverable on a schedule. It must have a beginning, middle, and end.

9. Accountability: Any new initiative should contain accountability provisions. Every task should be assigned and managed according to a plan and in the light of day.

10. Actionability: A successful initiative cannot remain in a strategic planning state. It must be actionable through focused tactical implementation. If the change being contemplated is good enough to get through the other nine steps, then it’s good enough to execute.

The University of British Columbia (September 2014).

1.5 AUDIENCE

This guidebook is geared toward campus participants. These people include the following groups:

• students: undergraduate and graduate;

• faculty members: assistant, associate, and full professors, as well as instructors, lecturers, adjuncts, post-doctoral researchers, research scientists, and related support staff;

• academic leaders: department chairs, center directors, deans, provosts, vice presidents of research, presidents, and others who shape academic life; and

• administrators: program directors, student advisors, development officers, public relations directors, physical plant managers, accounting staff, government relations specialists, and student service providers.

Working to change your campus’s research could invigorate academic life, raise the reputation of your university, and increase the benefits for your city, state, or region, or even produce global benefits. Improving academic research is a reasonable goal because you can easily find partners among the well-defined community that is your campus. While research is the focus of this guidebook, changes to teaching, mentorship, and service will also be likely outcomes. In fact, since these components of campus life are richly interwoven, your progress on any path is likely to produce multiple advances.

Substantial and sustained changes will also require you to engage with off-campus business leaders and professionals, as well as government policymakers and agency staffers, all of whom hire students and fund research. Durable changes will also require you to engage with professional societies, journal and book publishers, conference organizers, and reporters. Finally, you’ll want to seek out senior colleagues who can push for changes in government-funding agencies and philanthropic foundations, and business leaders. This guidebook describes collaborations that will help produce substantial and sustained campus changes.

Yale University (April 2011).

1.6 MESSAGING

I’ve spoken about these issues at more than 40 events, eliciting enough interest to get invited back and speak to other groups, but also generating pushback from two directions. About 10–20% of my audiences reject the premise that research should produce societal change. This cohort clings to the traditional belief that academic ivory towers are still the top place to work. They want to write theoretical papers and do laboratory studies, with little concern for impact and little interest in teaming up with business, government, and NGOs. I doubt this guidebook will change their minds.

Pushback also came from another 10–20% of my audiences who support these ideas. They felt that they were doing fine already in pursuing the Twin-Win goals of published papers and validated solutions. However, some of these sympathetic supporters still need to learn techniques for choosing problems, forming teams, and promoting their work. This guidebook could help these researchers find the right partners and adapt their strategies.

The remaining 60–80% consist of those who haven’t thought much about these issues. For this cohort, I propose the following message.