Decentralized Trust & Commitment Management

If “decentralized trust and openness” is the body leading to much higher business and market efficiency, then commitment management is the soul that can support the body to achieve it.

In an open workforce, open project and open supply chain, how can the organization trust the new job seekers, contractors, clients, suppliers and business partners? The time and cost of applying current due diligence, credentialing and approval procedures to onboard a new job seeker, contractor, client, supplier or business partner into an approved list would take too long and cost too much money.

Commitment management which involves commitment categorization, initiation and fulfillment management and unalterable and incorruptible recordings of behaviors and results is the key to build up the digital corporate and industry memories. A digital corporate memory is analogous to the human memory of a manager who can remember the trust level of each of her employees, contractors, clients, suppliers and partners so that she can be more effective to deal with them in the future. But the human memory of a manager is for the manager’s own group and the digital corporate memory is for the entire corporation. However, the difference between digital corporate memory and individual manager’s memory is more than just their coverage.

It is common that the precise judgment of the manager isn’t accurately reflected in the employee’s review for cultural and political reasons. But, even if the precise judgment is accurately reflected in employee’s appraisal, the appraisal form is unlikely digitalized in the way that is suitable for digital analysis.

And when the manager leaves the company, this valuable corporate asset will be gone with her forever and her replacement will need to start all over again.

Corporate memory is the organized digital version of the collective memories of all managers of a corporation. It is the most valuable asset for a corporation in the digital era. Also, a specific industry can have its own standardized commitment categories, management practices and recording methods and the collection of all the corporate memories within the industry will become the industry memory. An industry which can standardize commitment management better than other industries would become a higher efficient industry.

8Manage provides a very powerful methodology and tools for corporations and industries to create corporate and industry memories to achieve a much higher level of openness and efficiency.

There are different types of commitments and a non-digital commitment can be one of the following types:

• Promise of a long term and intangible result which is hard to predict and track
• Promise of a tangible result but no consequence if the commitment isn’t met
• Pencil-and-paper legal commitment

Legal commitments, although having the consequence if one of the commitments isn’t met, have very high overhead to both establish and to go after remedies when breach occurs. In daily business operations, people rely far more on informal commitments such as below:

With the lack of a light-weight commitment protocol to initiate and track commitments for daily operations, decentralized trust and true openness will be harder to achieve due to the fact that people in general believe that they have little control over the people that they don’t see.

A digital commitment isn’t a replacement but supplement to a legal commitment. It has a low overhead and therefore it can be commonly used. Its clarity, granularity and traceability can help avoid misunderstandings and keep people honest at the same time.

A digital commitment can also generate the digital effect of environmental pressure and get people to work harder to do what they’ve committed.

A worker often needs to depend on others, but might not have the skills to obtain the proper cooperation and commitments from others in a complex environment. 8Manage commitment protocol helps experienced and inexperienced workers to obtain commitments from others.

Problematic Commitments Avoidance

8Manage commitment protocol prohibits problematic commitments such as below to minimize the risky dependencies and their damages:

1-way Commitment

A 1-way commitment occurs when only one party commits to deliver something to another party or to fulfill a plan at a specific time, but not vice versa. 8Manage allows 1-way commitments to be digitalized and tracked automatically.

8Manage also records results of 1-way commitments into the corporate memory.

N-way Commitment

A 2-way commitment occurs when each of the two parties makes a 1-way commitment to the other party, and if one of them breaks her commitment, the other party no longer needs to honor her commitment. 8Manage allows 2-way commitments to be digitalized and tracked automatically.

An N-way commitment is similar to a 2-way commitment but for N parties. If one of the N parties breaks her commitment, then all other parties no longer need to honor their commitments.

Self-assessment

Before each person commits in a one-way commitment or proposes to commit in a two-way commitment, 8Manage requires that person to make an assessment of her own abilities, determining if it is possible for her:

• To do the job
• To manage and work with others to do the work
• To manage all the dependencies

This helps the person to think carefully before she commits.

Commitment Proposal & Acceptance

After the self-assessment, the proposed commitment will then pass to the person’s manager(s) for approval. Once a commitment is made, 8Manage will make it visible to the person’s manager(s), peers and others who are depending up that person’s commitment.

8Manage supports the commitments protocol for contract, project and resource management Commitments can be initiated or proposed, fulfillments can be tracked and results can be recorded in the corporate memory.

All commitment records are unalterable and incorruptible and for lifetime.