How To Lead Agile Organizations Through Complexity by Daniel Walsh nuCognitive

Copyright © 2018 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Mar2018
1@danielwalsh
How To Lead Agile Organizations
Through Complexity
Daniel Walsh
Agile Austin Leadership SIG 2018

2 Copyright © 2018 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Mar2018
What is a heuristic?
@danielwalsh

What is a heuristic?
Rule of thumb
le pif
(the nose)
目の測定
(measuring with
the eye)
Educated guess
SWAG
Order of magnitude
First cut
Engineering
judgement
Guiding
principles
Faustregel
(the fist)
Ha пальцами
(by the fingers)
Quick and dirty
Guesstimate
@danielwalsh

What is a Heuristic?
A heuristic is anything that provides a plausible aid or direction in the solution of a problem*
• reduces the search time for problem solving
• does not guarantee a solution to a problem
• can offer conflicting advice
• acceptance depends on the immediate context instead of an absolute standard
Example engineering heuristics:
• Solve problems by successive approximations (trial and error)
• Divide the problem into its constituent parts (divide and conquer)
• Do what worked last time (yesterday’s weather)
*Reference: Koen, Billy Vaughn. Discussion of the Method. 2003.
@danielwalsh

Everything in Agile is heuristic
Two to four
week iterations
Individuals and
interactions over
processes and tools
Definition of
Done
Daily Standup
Responding to
change over
following a plan
Face-to-face
conversation is the
best form of
communication Best architectures,
requirements, and
designs emerge from
self-organizing teams
Velocity
tracking
User stories
State of the Art
(SOTA)
LeSS
SAFe
DAD
Nexus
Scrum at Scale
Kanban
Scrum
XP
@danielwalsh

Heuristics produce accurate decisions by
exploiting the structures of information in the
environments in which they are applied*
*Reference: Gigerenzer & Todd. Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart. 2000.
@danielwalsh

Heuristics are dependent
on immediate context
instead of absolute truth*
@danielwalsh

The future of Agile is one where
practitioners understand not only how,
but also why Agile methods and
practices work across different contexts.
@danielwalsh

The nature of the system determines
the way we can know things, how we
make decisions, and how we act.
-David Snowden
Cynefin Framework
kuh-nev-in
The Cynefin framework is first about
situational awareness, followed by
contextually appropriate action.
@danielwalsh

?Disorder?
Chaotic Complex ObviousComplicated
@danielwalsh

Disorder
Obvious
ComplicatedComplex
Chaotic
foldorcliff
@danielwalsh

The Cynefin Framework
Obvious
ComplicatedComplex
Chaotic
DisorderDisorder
The Cynefin Framework by Cognitive Edge..
Constraints
Cause and Effect
Relationship
Decision-making
How to respond
@danielwalsh

The Obvious Domain
Direct Cause-Effect Relationship
The Cynefin Framework by D Snowden - Cognitive Edge. Used with permission.
Disorder
best practice
Obvious
Rigid constraints
No degrees of freedom
sense-categorize-respond
Standards
Checklists
Best-Known Methods
@danielwalsh

The Complicated Domain
Indirect Cause-Effect Relationship
best practice
Obvious
Complicated
good practice
Rigid constraints
Governing constraints
Tightly coupled
sense-analyze-respond
Communities of
Practice
Experts
Better-Known Methods
@danielwalsh

The Complex Domain
Interconnected Cause-Effect Relationship
17
best practice
Obvious
Complicated
good practice
Complex
emergent practice
Rigid constraints
Tightly coupled
Enabling constraints
Loosely coupled
probe-sense-respond sense-analyze-respond
Pattern Recognition
Parallel Learning
Adaptive, Resilient
Methods
@danielwalsh

The Chaotic Domain
Unknowable Cause-Effect Relationship
Disorder
best practice
Obvious
Complicated
good practice
Complex
emergent practice
Chaotic
novel practice
Rigid constraints
Tightly coupled
Loosely coupled
No constraints
Not coupled
act-sense-respond
Radical Innovation
Crisis Management
Stabilizing Methods
@danielwalsh

The Disordered Domain
Indeterminate Cause-Effect Relationship
Disorder
best practice
Obvious
Complicated
good practice
Complex
emergent practice
Chaotic
novel practice
Rigid constraints
Tightly coupled
Loosely coupled
No constraints
Not coupled
act-sense-respond
Discuss perspectives
Partition
Diagnostic Methods
probe –
sense –
respond
exploratory
practice
@danielwalsh

Cynefin Framework | Older Version*
*Reference: Complex Acts of Knowing by Dave Snowden
Disorder
Obvious
ComplicatedComplex
Chaotic
Known
Knowns
Known
Unknown
Unknown
Unknowns
Unknowable
@danielwalsh

Nature is adroit in
creating objects whose
only excuse for being
seems to be to thwart
someone’s effort to put
them into a category.
-Billy Vaughn Koen
@danielwalshCC BY-SA 3.0 Platypus by TwoWings

22 @danielwalsh
Complex
Disorder
Complicated

23 @danielwalsh
“…a jumbo jet is complicated but a mayonnaise is complex.”
– Paul Cilliers
Reference: https://www.theoryculturesociety.org/oliver-human-on-paul-cilliers/
CC BY-SA 2.0 by jules:stonesoup
CC BY-SA 3.0 by Alex Beltyukov
Disorder

Mathematics of Dots*
*Source: The Mathematics of Dots by Max Boisot
Events as Dots
Effect
Patterns
Connecting Dots
Cause
Links
@danielwalsh
Hindsight Does Not Lead To Foresight
# of Dots # of Links # of Possible Patterns
4 6 64
10 45 ~35,000,000,000
n L=n(n-1)/2 P=2L

Cynefin Metaphors | Games
Obvious
ComplicatedComplex
Chaotic
Disorder
Coin Toss
BlackjackTexas Hold’em
Poker
Food Fight
Calvinball*
Reference: http://calvinandhobbes.wikia.com/wiki/Calvinball
@danielwalsh

Cynefin Metaphors | Movement
Obvious
ComplicatedComplex
Chaotic
Disorder
Police Roadblock
Traffic LightRoundabout
Brownian
Motion
@danielwalsh

Agile in Context | Software Development
Obvious
ComplicatedComplex
Chaotic
Disorder
Unit Test
Regression
Testing
User Testing
Canary Deployments*
Chaos Monkey
ChAP***Reference: http://principlesofchaos.org/
**Reference: The Netflix Simian Army post on Medium, 2011
https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/chap-chaos-automation-platform-53e6d528371f
@danielwalsh

Estimates
Obvious
ComplicatedComplex
Chaotic
Disorder
Not Needed
#KnowEstimates#NoEstimates
Trust Gut
#Guesstimates
@danielwalsh

Prioritization
Obvious
ComplicatedComplex
Chaotic
Disorder
Take the best1
Weighted-shortest
Job First2
Multiple
small bets
1/N
First-fit
Pattern Match3
1 Reference: Gigerenzer & Todd. Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart. 2000.
2 Reference: Reinertsen, Don. The Principles of Product Development Flow:
Second Generation Lean Product Development. 2009.
3 Reference: Klein, Gary. Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions. 1998.
@danielwalsh

Complex
Disorder
Complicated
Bet Hypothesis

Work With Small
Objects
Disintermediation
Avoid Premature
Convergence
Three Heuristics Three Methods
Leading Agile Organizations Through Complexity
Simple rules
Probes
Grow from smaller
systems that work

33 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017
A kōan (公案) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement,
which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and
test a student's progress
*Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dan
@danielwalsh

References
Koen, Billy Vaughn. Discussion of the Method: Conducting the Engineer's Approach to Problem Solving. 2003.
Gigerenzer & Todd. Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart. 2000.
Snowden & Boone. “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making.” Harvard Business Review, 2007.
Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. 2008.
Mitchell , Melanie. Complexity: A Guided Tour. 2011.
Reinertsen, Don. The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development. 2009.
Schwaber & Sutherland. The Scrum Guide™. 2016.
Klein, Gary. Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions. 1998.

The future of Agile is one where practitioners
understand not only how, but also why Agile methods
and practices work across different contexts.
Q&A
@danielwalsh

How To Lead Agile Organizations
Through Complexity
Thank You!
37@danielwalsh
daniel.walsh@nuCognitive.com
Let’s connect on
https://www.meetup.com/Cynefin-and-Complexity
http://bit.ly/walshslides

How To Lead Agile Organizations Through Complexity by Daniel Walsh nuCognitive

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