The BayGO Strategy

 

BayGO

A sounding strategy to facilitate novice users to capture and codify their knowledge, content creation & workflow which make sense to them through real-life practice & experience.

Let the working users tell their own stories with their real personal experience.

* A practice of design thinking with agility that focus in knowledge creation.

 

System building is not too much about technology.  It is much more significantly about business analysis, workflow and content creation.  The BayGO approach provides step-by-step visualization which facilitates co-creation by a group of contributors working collaboratively as a team.

 

 

The BayGO Approach

A working strategy everybody wins

Build-as-you-GO

 

  • Don't wait until everything is ready, decided and agreed, because it will never be 100% ready.
  • Start from whatever available, and start immediately.  Making things visible is the key.
  • Put it up when things come to mind.  Make it continually visible even though it's not final.  Visibility is the catalyst.
  • Make changes as much as needed all along.  Do it > Review > Change as needed altogether.  Visualization is the catalyst to consolidate ideas, get consent and go.  When things are visible, ideas will come, and collaboration will make things solid.
  • Make decisions once agreed, and go to the next.  Don't stop, don't pause.  Indecisive pausing is the obstacle.  It can always be modified again, and again.
  • Work agile.  It is a matter of collaborative contributions altogether.  Every idea should be respected.  It is the team who empowers to deliver.  Make sure the turn-around time is in hours or in 1-2 days, but absolutely not longer.  Maintain the continuity and focus of thinking while things are still hot.

 

Make Things Visible

Traditionally building a website starts with requirements and specifications.  Yes, it is true, and important, but nobody can define all the needs in 100% to start with.

  1. Start a minimal website with initial ideas and frameworks, no need to be complete
  2. Fill in content as appropriate, but no need to be 100% correct.  Let the team propose ideas and changes
  3. Make changes as suggested or agreed.

Just Do It !  Make it visualized.
Facilitate Discussions & Collaboration

Facilitate discussions for ideas and agreement, and get moving.

  • Make use of whatever appropriate means including WhatsApp, Phone, Zoom - whatever simple, effective and make sense
  • Make use of graphics whenever possible, such as camera or screen shots - easy and effective
  • Make use of verbal.  Do audio recording.  It is easier to understand than writing particularly when things are more complicated.
  • Enable those interested to create the content directly.  A little training will help, and support can be provided.

When things are visualized, ideas will come, and things are more solid !
Make Things happen

Put things up immediately !  It is a matter of continuous thinking while it is still hot.  Make things visualized while still changing is the key.

  • Put new ideas up immediately, even though it might not be final.
  • Preferably changes can be made within hours, or max 1~2 days, but absolutely not longer.
  • Fast action and response is necessary, to continually make changes visible.  Visualization attracts more ideas.
  • Make decisions and go to the next.  Indecisive pausing is an obstacle from experience of life.  You can always come back and make further changes.

Innovation is a matter of continuous thinking and triggers from people, from visuals, and between the flows !

 

 

Applied with BYOS, the BayGO approach has been proven working very well in some organizations.  It is actually a great team collaboration tool focusing all members on the same subject with visualized changes immediately effective.  To achieve success a few basics need to be in place.

 

The Basics for BayGO Approach to Work for Site Building

  • Readily available yet flexible technical resources preferably at zero or low cost, such as BYOS
    • relief the burden of cost consideration
    • a right technology with needed flexibilities
    • set of familiar tools for communications which everyone involved know how to use
  • Suitable technical advisor
    • work as technical advisors, and can be transparent
    • relief the technical barriers from content contributors
    • fast response to queries, including what can be done, and what not
    • provide short ad-hoc trainings or support as necessary
    • fast turn-around time for platform changes within hours, or max within 1~2 days, and absolutely no longer
  • Content contributors
    • content is the soul for all website.  The team of content contributors are whom that make it works.
    • autonomy must be granted for content contributors as that is the fuel for innovation and motivation
    • no need for perfect writing.  Relevancy is more important, and the team will work things out.
    • sense of ownership and commitment, with committed fast response
    • inclusive, involvement and mutual respect.  Make the project a mission for the team.

 

Who Will Make It Work ?

What really make it works is not the technology or IT people.  What really matters are:

  • The Team of Content Contributors are the key, websites or systems require continual feeds of content.
  • It take times, easily extended from 3 months to 1/2 years, or even longer.  It is a continual effort.
  • It is a matter of ownership and commitment - from both the content contributors as well as the organization.  Autonomy is needed as that's the fuel for innovation and motivation

Given suitable support, the team will drive integration into the workflow, and become a digital transformation for the organization, when they gradually see how things can be automated.  The beauty is, the drive will come from the team, from the real involved users.

It will also be a learning journey for the Content Contributors on how to properly present the content to make it effective.  It will bring them into the area of structure, formats, styles and taxonomy for the purpose of how to make sense for the content consumers.  It is a learning of UX (user experience).

 

Why It Works?

 

BYOS + BayGO = enable Design Thinking

Team + Empathise = Agile

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

The BayGO approach is a discovery by KF Cheng while practising BYOS (Build-Your-Own-System) in the past years, which is basically a user-experience approach. It was found that novice users can easily design their own digital solutions that really fitting to their ideas and workflow by combining

  1. Visualization
  2. Elimination of technical barriers
  3. Experimenting & experiencing
  4. Iterative changes

It make a lot of sense when changes and customization can be made at low cost with fast turn-around time.  Even though novice users are not experts. If they can visualize it, experiment with it, collaboratively they can make a big difference by one-step-at-a-time.

 

 

About BYOS

BYOS (Build-Your-Own-System) is originally researched for the purpose of building a low-cost yet effective knowledge repository, based on zero-cost open source CMS, and integrate with suitable web resources.  The idea was to minimize the barrier for practice of knowledge management, particular for the SMEs.  It is a methodology to build websites or systems but no need for coding.

BYOS make it possible to:

  • Build a website or system super fast with readily available modules in the open-source communities.
  • Lots of readily available modules and web resources for integration from the open source community with 20+ years of history.
  • Make changes fast and easy because no programming/coding is necessary.

BYOS is a enterprise-level content management system.  It is a practice required substantial learning but not difficult because no coding is required.  It can be used to build:

  • Websites
  • Knowledge repository for collection of knowledge and information with excellent structuring, formats, styles and classifications
  • WebApps, by choosing the right theme and right modules, with proper design by the builder
  • Small systems or small projects.  It is a matter of how much the builder can handle, not a limitation of the technology

 

Prototyping & Content Capturing

Even though there are other technical preferences, BYOS can still be used as a prototyping tools.  The main objective is to capture the appropriate content in the right format, style & structure.  With the low cost and flexibility characteristic, BYOS is an excellent choice too in such situations where content should be the focus.

The users will see things clearer and clearer during the course of content collection and structuring.  Given enough time and sufficient content collection, they will have solid idea what is needed.  Codification is a process of externalization of tacit knowledge, and visualization using the BYOS system is an excellent aid.