Title: Confronting the Challenge of Scale: Making Ants the Size of Elephants

1. Confronting the Challenge of Scale:
Making Ants the Size of Elephants
LKIN 2016
Bangalore, India
September 9, 2016
Donald G. Reinertsen
Reinertsen & Associates
600 Via Monte D’Oro
Redondo Beach, CA 90277 U.S.A.
(310)-373-5332
Internet: Don@ReinertsenAssociates.com
Twitter: @dreinertsen
www.ReinertsenAssociates.com
No part of this presentation may be reproduced
without the written permission of the author.

2. 2Copyright 2016, Reinertsen & Associates
The Fractal Hope
• Many phenomena follow power law
distributions, such as the Pareto
Distribution.
• Such distributions are scale independent.
• Therefore their problems, and their
solutions, are scale independent.
• Initially some people thought that Large-
Scale Scrum was just a fractal version of
Small-Scale Scrum.

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Why Ants Don’t Scale
• Height – varies with L
• Crossectional Area – varies with L2
• Load Bearing Capacity, Heat dissipation
• Volume – varies with L3
• Weight, Heat Generation
• Flow Resistance – varies with 1/L4
• Hagen-Poiseuille Equation

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Boeing 777
• 5000 person team
• Global design effort
• 240 design/build teams
• 6 year development cycle
Colocate the Team, Let Them Self-
Organize, and Get Out of the Way?

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Exploring Scaling
• The advantages of scale
• The disadvantages of scale
• Countermeasures for these disadvantages

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Advantages of Scale
1. Scale is the only way to undertake large
projects.
2. It enables us invest in world-class
infrastructure.
3. It creates sufficient work to employ dedicated
specialists.
4. It enables you to develop deep local expertise.
5. It creates redundancy in key skill sets.
6. It smoothes stochastic behavior.
Why would you choose to visit a
hospital instead of a medical clinic?

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Disadvantages of Scale
1. Optimization – Local optimization no longer
produces system optimization.
2. Communications – Communication overhead
rises steeply.
3. Complexity – System behaviors change from
simple to complex and unpredictable.
4. Control – Feedback loops have ability to create
unstable behavior.
5. Motivation – It is easy to destroy initiative on
large scale projects.
6. Role definition – It is hard work to create clear
roles without creating silos.

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Optimization
• At small scale local optimization is identical to
system optimization.
• At large, scale costs and benefits are
dispersed.
• We need to understand and manage non-local
and time-delayed consequences.
• While our frame must extend beyond local
effects, it cannot extend to infinity.

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Platforms and Derivatives
Platform 2
1st Generation
Derivative
1st Generation
Derivative
1st Generation
Derivative
1st Generation
Derivative
2nd Generation
Derivative
2nd Generation
Derivative
2nd Generation
Derivative
2nd Generation
Derivative
Component
Platform 1

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Communications
• 2n problem
• The number of links increases exponentially.
• Additional layers lead to a loss of fidelity.
• We will overdistribute information that is
irrelevant to many recipients.
• This creates needs for:
• Structure
• Increased information potency
• Effective communication policies

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The Most Important Property of a
Complex System is its Unpredictability

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Complex Engineered Systems
• We design many robust complex systems that work
well most of the time.
• It is critical to distinguish large scale and small scale
behavior.
• Predictability is a not uniform property over all
attributes and all time horizons.
• Large scale behavior can usually be controlled at
useful time horizons.
• Complex systems that work are not “merely
complicated, ” they are usually well-designed and
skillfully operated.

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Control
• In large systems cause and effect are separated
in place and time.
• The lag time between cause and effect creates
control problems.
• The inability to quickly perceive effects creates
confusion and delays correct responses.
• When we have too much gain in a feedback loop
we can create instability.
• Small batches and damping will improve control.

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Motivation
• Local players may not understand system level
consequences.
• Yet, they are given authority to act based on their
knowledge and beliefs.
• Sometimes their actions cause damage a system
level.
• We attribute this incorrect action to incompetence
and respond by reducing authority.
• If we had attributed to lack of information, we would
come up with a different solution.
• It is easy to destroy initiative in complex systems.

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Role Definition
• Much of the power of large scale comes
from specialization.
• Such specialization strengthens some
communications links and weakens
others.
• This can isolate specialists from other
parts of the organization creating silos.
• Silos can lead to uncovered tasks.
• Undefined roles can lead to swarming.

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Countermeasures
1. Architecture - Spend time on architecture.
2. Margin – Have margin in the system and the
organization.
3. System Model – Have a strong system model.
4. Appropriate Complexity – Don’t fear complexity.
5. Communications Networks – Build robust
networks.
6. Intent – Communicate intent.

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Architecture
• Architecture is a key tool.
• The high level design of the system.
• Choices in how we partition functionality
within the system.
• It is much more than a technical issue.
• Allows us to alter the cost of responding to:
• Changing requirements
• Changing technologies
• Interface definition, stability, and margin are key
issues.

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Margin
• Margin allows us to deal with variability.
• It allows us to absorb variation.
• It prevents transitions into instability
• Overfocus on efficiency leads to
insufficient margin.

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System Model
• At small scale it is easy for all actors to
understand the consequences of their
actions.
• At large scale we must work to achieve
this understanding.
• A system model is a key way to enable
local actors to understand the effects of
their actions.
• It needs to capture key not all effects.

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Making Economic Decisions
Waste
Cycle Time
Variability
Efficiency
Unit Cost
Value-Added
Revenue
Life Cycle
Profits
Economic SpaceProxy Variable Space
Transformations

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Engineer Supervisor Program
Manager
$300
$2,500
$600
Dollars
per Pound
Trading Weight for Product Cost
Boeing 777

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Appropriate Complexity
• The Law of Requisite Variety.
• Complex problems demand complex
solutions.
• Complexity enables stability in the
presence of uncertainty.
• Complex systems use feedback loops to
deal with unpredicted behavior.

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Communications
• Communications networks must be well-
designed.
• They are often unique to needs of a
project.
• Quality is usually more important than
quantity.

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Managing Silos
• Increasing intragroup communications
weakens intergroup communications
• Create mechanisms to manage this.
• New communication channels
• Bridging mechanisms
• Selective transparency

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MBWA
• Management by Wandering About/Around
• Vital to the old HP
• Permeated the entire organization
• Huge multiplier effect
• Big effect on formal channels
• Emphasis on face-to-face communications
• Rich non-textual content

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Intent
• Warfare is a complex domain.
• You cannot plan for all contingencies.
• The military maintains alignment using a
method called Commander’s Intent.

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Commander’s Intent
Auftragstaktik
• Tell people WHY they are doing things, not
what to do and how to do it.
• What end state is trying to be achieved?
• What goal, larger than the battle itself, are
we trying to achieve?
• Understand the Commander’s Intent at
least two levels up in the organization.
• If you know WHY you are doing things,
you can adapt to changing conditions.

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Boeing 777
• System models
• Interface Control Documents
• Mass communications meetings
• Design/Build Teams
• Specialized resources
• Budgets
• Trade-off rules

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Take Aways
1. Pay attention to architecture.
2. Use margin everywhere.
3. Develop strong system models.
4. Embrace complexity.
5. Spend lots of time on communications.
• Practice MBWA.
6. Communicate intent and meaning.

33. 1991 / 1997 1997 2009
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