There are a lot of business buzzwords nowadays. For instance, self organize, cross function, and servant leader. Sometimes we treat them as best practices without truly understanding them. Therefore, I intend to dissect one of these buzzwords here – Feedback Loop.
YIKES! the Water is TOO COLD
Most of you have tried entering a shower where the water temperature was too cold and needed adjustment. This everyday activity is actually a feedback loop. Let’s use this example to break feedback loop down into its three components: Sensor, Controller, and Actuator.
SENSOR
When you enter the shower, your skin gathers various data (e.g. water temperature, wetness, and water pressure), and then sends them as signals to your brain.
CONTROLLER
In fact, your brain already has an expected range of water temperature that it deems comfortable for your body. Since your brain has discovered a gap between the current water temperature (current state) and the comfortable range (target state), it dispatches an actuator to address the problem.
ACTUATOR
Your brain commands your hand to reach out to the knob and turn it towards “HOT”. The eventual goal is to increase the water temperature such that it is within the comfortable level.
After cycles of sense, control, and adjust, the gap between the current and the ideal water temperature has finally been eliminated. At last, you can enjoy a shower with water temperature that is suitable for your body.
Why Use Feedback Loop?
In business, the purpose of feedback loop is to monitor the health of key areas. If the sensor detects any discrepancy between the current and the targeted states, then the business ought to pivot quickly by pulling the right lever.
Since the market is always changing, feedback loops can help protect the survivability and competitiveness of your company. This quick response to market change is what we call “Business Agility“.
The following are some examples of feedback loop in organizations:
- Analytics/Product Metrics (Sensor), Product Team (Controller), Product Features (Actuator)
- Retrospective/Post-mortem (Sensor), Team Members (Controller), Action Items (Actuator)
- Google Analytics (Sensor), Marketing Agency (Controller), Marketing campaign (Actuator)
Why does your feedback loop not work for your?
A feedback loop needs all its three components to work diligently and collectively. If even one component is slacking, then the feedback loop may not react swift enough to protect your company’s bottomline.
Below are some factors that can create malfunctioning feedback loops:
- Sensor not capturing the correct data
- Sensor fails to transmit signals back to the controller
- No defined target state, thus cannot identify gaps
- Borrows target state from another entity, thus having an unfit target state for oneself
- Controller does not react to the gap between current and target states
- Actuator pulls the wrong lever to impact the current state
Therefore, on top of reviewing the sensor signals in a regular cadence, it is also important to step into the meta level and periodically inspect the feedback loop mechanisms.
Need help strengthening feedback loops to improve your business agility? Email me and let’s chat!