Building Information Systems at the Edge of Chaos

Building Information Systems at the Edge of ChaoS

“The attitude that we’re shifting into is viewing the world as chaotic. You’re never going to understand it. You’re never going t – Danny Hillis, founder of Applied Minds, quoted in What’s Next? Exploring the New Terrain for Business. “The attitude that we’re shifting into is viewing the world as chaotic. You’re never going to understand it. You’re never going to control it. Instead, you have to be responsive. You have to make sure that when an opportunity arises you can take advantage of it.” – Danny Hillis, founder of Applied Minds, quoted in What’s Next? Exploring the New Terrain for Business. View in full-screen mode for a better experience!

We build applications like we build railroads:

multiple stages of planning

agreed upon destinations

predetermined stops

rigid schedules to maximize rail efficiency rather than user demand.

There is little room for flexibility and adaptability

These characteristics are critically important to railroads – and certain types of applications like accounting

where events are anticipated and planned for.

The consequences for not doing things right can be severe.

But this approach does not work well when events cannot be easily anticipated

and responses need to be made up on-the-fly.

A dynamic business environment looks a lot more like this

than this.

The need for a dynamic business environment is more closely reflected in the process that taxi cab companies use to respond to demand.

Cabs cruise the streets with only flexible strategies

allowing response to demand to unfold as required

Decisions are made as closely as possible to the time when action must be taken

The driver makes decisions on the spot - consistent with passengers needs

In the railroad quot;methodology,quot; the organization plans in advance and passengers must adjust their plans accordingly.

In the taxicab approach, the organization must adjust in real time to the passenger whose plans are unknown most of the time.

This requires organizations to embrace uncertainty, dynamic demand, and some degree of chaos, and to learn to thrive on it.

The rest is left to the flexibility, adaptability, and creativity of the individual agents as the context continually changes.

This is all possible because the infrastructure is already in place

maintained by someone else

and deployment is easy.

Imagine if the taxi cab company had to be responsible for the infrastructure as well.

Situational Application Platforms give you the infrastructure to build systems where there is uncertainty and change.

But you need a different mindset to get the most out of them – you can’t build (or run) a railroad like you would a taxi company.

The prevailing paradigm determines what you think is feasible, as well as what you think the “right way” is to do things. If your worldview included the belief that the Earth was flat, it would be highly unlikely you would set off on an ocean voyage for fear of falling off the edge.

You have to think less like this and more like this.

Build information systems and more like this. that look less like this

A taxi system operates at “the edge of chaos”

because taxi cab organizations are complex adaptive systems

just like your business.

So you need to be here. “The edge of chaos is a place where there is enough innovation to keep a living system vibrant, and enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy.” - Joseph Campbell in “On the Edge of Chaos: Navigating through Global Change”

Situational Application Platforms allow you to build information systems at the edge of chaos by providing a stable, evolving platform upon which you can innovate, experiment, adapt and take advantage of opportunities as they arise.

To get the most out of it, you need a different: methodology, mindset and support mechanism. Because complex adaptive systems don’t work like clockwork.

“The health, competitive power, and even survival of an enterprise largely depends on its ability to understand and harness the power of knowledge workers who are enabled to take responsibility for providing automatic solutions to meet many of their business needs.” – SOA meets situational applications: Examples and lessons learned, IBM System Journal, July 2008

Find out more.

“In the face of threat, or when galvanized by a compelling opportunity, living things move to toward the edge of chaos. This condition evokes higher levels of mutation and experimentation, and fresh new solutions are likely to be found.” - Richard Pascale, Mark Tillemann, Linda Gioja, Surfing the Edge of Chaos www.PowerInTheCloud.com

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Building Information Systems at the Edge of Chaos

by Jonathan Sapir on Jun 02, 2009

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Building Information Systems at the Edge of Chaos — Presentation Transcript