StackScore · how it's built
What's under StackScore, and what isn't done yet.
Where the ideas came from, how the parts fit together, how it looks for the layer holding the rest back, and what we still have to prove. In plain words.
01 The short version
Four things to know.
StackScore asks about five layers of how people and teams handle change: Signal, Sense, Shape, Sprint and Sustain.
For every layer it asks two kinds of questions: what you can do (competence) and what your setting allows (conditions).
Most of the parts are borrowed from published research, and we name who they came from. Every statement is traced to a published source.
It is a reflection tool in development. Independent validation is planned and has not started.
02 Where it comes from
Borrowed, and credited.
The order of the five layers is not new. Futurists have described these steps for decades. Here is who we learned from, and what each one gave us.
Joseph Voros · 2003
The Generic Foresight Process
Voros described foresight as a process: take in what's changing, work out what it means, imagine what could happen, then turn it into strategy and action.
What it gave us: The order of the layers, from noticing change to acting on it.
Andy Hines and Peter Bishop · 2013
Framework Foresight
Their approach moves from scanning for change, to picturing several possible futures, to working out what those futures mean and deciding what to do.
What it gave us: A tested map of the same path. Signal to Sustain lines up with it closely.
Martha Nussbaum · 2011
Internal and combined capabilities
Nussbaum separates what a person has built inside (skills, habits, know-how) from what they are actually free to do once their surroundings are counted in.
What it gave us: The split between Competence and Conditions.
David Teece · 2007
Dynamic capabilities
Teece showed that an organization's ability to sense change, seize chances and reshape itself is a capacity it can build, not a fixed trait.
What it gave us: The idea that each layer is a capacity you can build.
- SignalScan for what's changing.
- SenseWork out what it could mean.
- ShapeChoose where you want to go.
- SprintTry it small, first.
- SustainKeep it going on its own.
03 The shape of it
Five layers, two sides each.
The team and personal versions have 40 statements: eight for each layer, five about competence and three about conditions. The teen versions have 30: four and two. You answer each one on a scale from 1 to 5.
Our organization has a regular, systematic process for monitoring trends and developments outside our immediate field of work.
Our staff have dedicated time in their schedules for reading, scanning, and sharing information about emerging trends.
When we identify an emerging trend, we have a structured process for analyzing what it could mean for our organization.
Our organization has access to analytical frameworks, tools, or facilitation support for interpreting emerging trends, not just raw information.
Our organization has a clearly articulated vision for where we want to be in 3 to 5 years that connects to the changes we see coming.
Our governance structure enables timely strategic decisions; we are not paralyzed by competing authorities or approval layers.
In the past 12 months, how many new approaches, programs, products, or processes has our organization actually built and tested (not just planned)?
Our budget includes resources specifically allocated for experimentation and new development, not just maintaining current operations.
If our most visionary leader departed tomorrow, our organization's adaptive practices would continue.
Our capacity to respond to change is funded through our regular operating budget, not through time-limited special grants.
NoteExample statements quoted from the team version, one of each kind per layer. The personal, community, funder and teen versions ask about the same layers in their own words.
04 Finding the layer holding the rest back
Five kinks in one hose.
Picture a hose with five kinks in it. How much water comes out is set by the tightest kink, not the average of all five. StackScore is designed to work the same way.
Each side gets a reading.
Your answers to a layer's competence statements are averaged into one reading from 0 to 1. The same happens for its conditions statements.
The two sides are combined.
We multiply the two readings, then take the square root √(C × E). This is called a geometric mean, and it is our design choice: neither Sen nor Nussbaum prescribes a formula.
It lets a strong side make up for a weak side only partly. For example, strong skills with thin conditions (0.9 and 0.4) come out the same as middle on both (0.6 and 0.6). Whether a stricter rule works better is one of the questions testing has to answer.
The lowest layer is the one to look at.
The layer with the lowest combined reading is the one most likely holding the rest back. This weakest-link idea comes from Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff Cox's book The Goal (1984). If another layer is so close that the gap could be measurement noise, both are named instead of one.
For now, reflections don't name it.
A simulation we ran on the scoring suggested that, from one person's answers, the named layer would change too often if the same person answered again. So today's reflection shows all five layers on both sides, and you and your team decide where to start. It will name a layer only once testing shows that call is steady.
Reading the two sides together
Different gaps need different help.
Comparing the two sides of a layer points to different kinds of help. Your reflection shows both sides, so you can see this yourself. It does not sort you into a box.
05 What's ours
Four parts we add.
Most of StackScore stands on other people's work. These four parts are what we bring to it.
Each step as a capacity.
Foresight models describe steps to follow. StackScore asks how able you are to do each step, and whether it lasts.
Two sides on every layer.
Nussbaum's idea, applied to each of the five layers, so skill problems and condition problems don't hide inside one number.
Naming the layer holding the rest back.
Designed into the scoring, and switched off in reflections until testing shows the call is steady.
The equity gap.
When skills are strong and conditions are thin, the gap points at conditions a team didn't choose, not at the people. StackScore is built to make that gap visible.
06 Not done yet
What we haven't done yet.
StackScore is in development. Here is what is missing, and one rule that never changes.
- Not started
Validation
Independent checks are planned and have not started. They include whether the five layers show up as five separate things in real answers, whether results stay steady when the same person answers again, whether StackScore lines up with related measures, and whether it means the same thing for different groups.
- Planned
Research studies
Two studies, once a university ethics board approves them. Adults 18 and over can sign up to hear about them.
Sign up on the research page → - In development
Steward
Steward is the frame around the five layers: keeping the work honest and accountable. It will be read on its own, with its own two sides, and kept apart from the five layers until testing shows whether it belongs with them. Its statements are drafted and not yet in StackScore.
- Switched off
Naming one layer
Built into the scoring, but not shown in reflections until testing shows it is steady.
- None yet
Findings
We have no findings about the people who have taken StackScore to share. When there are, they go on the research page first.
- Never
Hiring, grading or ranking
StackScore is never used to hire, admit, grade or rank people or organizations. It is for a team, or a person, to reflect on itself.
07 References
The work it stands on.
- Goldratt, E. M., & Cox, J. (1984). The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. North River Press.
- Hines, A., & Bishop, P. (2013). Framework foresight: Exploring futures the Houston way. Futures, 51, 31–49.
- Nussbaum, M. C. (2011). Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach. Harvard University Press.
- Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. Oxford University Press.
- Teece, D. J. (2007). Explicating dynamic capabilities: The nature and microfoundations of (sustainable) enterprise performance. Strategic Management Journal, 28(13), 1319–1350.
- Voros, J. (2003). A generic foresight process framework. Foresight, 5(3), 10–21.
NoteEach statement in StackScore is also traced to its own published sources in futures, capability and organizational research. Those are listed here only where this page leans on them.
Try it
See it for yourself.
The quickest way to understand StackScore is to take it. It's free and takes about 12 to 15 minutes. Want to use it with your team? Team debriefs are scoped with you on a free 30-minute call.