The biggest OSS loser

You are so much more likely to put effort into something when you know whether it will pay off and what the gains will be. Not knowing how things will turn out undermines your motivation and makes you delay taking action.”
Dr Theo Tsaousides
in his book, Brainblocks.

Have you seen the reality TV show, “The Biggest Loser?” I rarely watch TV, but have noticed that it’s been a runaway hit in the ratings here in Australia (and overseas apparently). Why has it been so successful and what does it have to do with OSS?

Well, according to Dr Tsaousides, the success of the show comes down to the obvious body-shape / fitness transformations each of the contestants makes over each season of the show. But more specifically, “You need to watch only one season from beginning to end and you will start craving to be a contestant on the show, regardless of your current weight… Seeing the people’s amazing transformation over a few months is a much more convincing way to start working out and eating well than being told by your doctor that you need to lose weight and about the cardiovascular advantages of exercise. Forecasting a positive outcome, especially when dealing with something new and unfamiliar, leads to action.”

Can you see how this might be a useful technique when planning an OSS transformation?

Change management is always a challenging task on any large OSS transformation. It’s always best to have the entire OSS user population involved in the change, but that’s not always feasible for large groups of users.

It’s one of the reasons I’m always a big advocate for getting a baseline, sandpit version of off-the-shelf OSS stood up and available for the user population to start interacting with. This is particularly helpful if the sandpit is perceptibly better than the current one.

To paraphrase, “Forecasting a positive outcome (via the OSS sandpit), especially when dealing with something new and unfamiliar (the future state after OSS transformation), leads to action (more excitement, engagement and less pushback from the user population during the course of the transformation).”

Do you think the biggest loser technique could work on your next OSS transformation?

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