Quantum Butterflies live in Wales

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Quantum Butterflies Live in Wales
Peter Leeson
Quality Manager
Twitter @PeterLeeson
PLeeson@WhiteClarkeGroup.com
Not Whales the animal,
Wales the country!

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• Quality
–Why it matters
–What it is
–Benefits of investing in
quality
My Two Topics
• Change
–Tips and Tricks
–Changing an organization
–Changing the culture

1. Recognize that what we expect is not happening the
way we expect
2. Publish new policies and procedures
3. Collect a few measurements
4. Tell people about the policies, procedures and
measurements
5. Audit
6. Go to 1 and start again
Basics of Change Management

• Create an environment that encourages behaviour
• Automatic cognitive processes are triggered to favour the
desired outcome
• Encourage “tribe mentality”
• Point in the right direction
• Publish small successes
• Drop small hints
• Get frustrated
• Try again
“Nudge”

• Why does change fail so often?
Change Failure

The Butterfly Effect
Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to
all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly,
unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I
do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a
butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a
distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things.

Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi

Tea Time

History and Chaos2
10

Principles of Quantum Mechanics Principles of Change Management
Heisenberg: You can measure an electron’s exact position – or
you can measure the wave’s momentum or speed but you
cannot measure both at the same time
You can define where you want to be or how to get there, but
you cannot define both at the same time
A quantum object cannot be said to manifest in ordinary
space-time reality until we observe it as a particle (collapse of
the wave)
A change cannot be said to manifest in ordinary work
practices until we observe it in isolation (collapse of the SDLC)
All energy is transmitted in wave packets or quanta All energy is transmitted in consultants’ fees
Unobserved quantum phenomena are radically different from
observed ones
Theoretical 5-step improvement programmes and models are
radically different from real life
The observation (or measurement) makes the quantum wave
function collapse
The audit (or measurement) makes the improvements
collapse
At sufficient high levels of attention energy, particles emerge
from waves
At sufficient high levels of attention and investment,
improvements emerge from the activities
The way we observe the quantum field decide what we see,
thus your belief systems determine the reality you experience
The way we observe the changes decide what we see, thus
your management’s observation of the results determines
your yearly bonus
Quantum Change Mechanics

• An atom is a positive charge (nucleus) surrounded by
a cloud of negativity (electrons)
• The change manager …
The Building Block

• Quantum Physics works
• The building blocks of
physical reality are things
that cannot be
considered as physical
• Energy is everything
• Change and improvement
has to happen
And yet…

“Energy is everything and that’s
all there is to it. Match the
frequency of the reality you
want and you cannot help but
get that reality. It can be no
other way. This is not
philosophy. This is physics.”
An Einstein quote is always good

• If you want to change and to improve, be prepared to
invest large amounts of energy
• Consider very carefully where you need to invest that
energy
If You Want to Continue

Kepner-Tregoe:
Structure Decision Making Process
Making Structured Decisions
developed by Charles Kepner and Benjamin Tregoe

Kepner Tregoe
• A structured
methodology for
gathering information
and prioritizing and
evaluating it

• Cause and Effect?
–deviation due to a change
–sub-par from day 1
• Why?
–a decision requires an answer to the questions "how",
"which", "to what purpose"
Kepner-Tregoe Situation Appraisal

• State the Problem
– What, where, when, extent…
• Identify Possible Causes
– Develop possible causes from knowledge and experience
• Evaluate Possible Causes
– Test possible causes against specifications
• Confirm True Cause
– Determine the most probable cause
• Think Beyond the Fix
– Observe, experiment, fix, monitor
Kepner-Tregoe Problem Analysis

• State Decision
– Includes not only the desired result but also the action required
• Clarify Purpose
– Develop Objectives: Must vs Want
– Place a Weight on the “Wants” Evaluate Alternatives
• Generate as many potential courses of action as possible whether immediately
feasible or not
– All “Musts” are met
– “Wants” are calculated (satisfaction * weight)
– Consider each alternative against all of the negative effects
• Analyse the weighted score versus the adversity rating for each and choose
the high-scoring one
• Make Decision
– Consider the winning option against each negative consequence and suggest a plan
of action to minimize the adverse effects.
Kepner-Tregoe Decision Analysis

• Identify potential problems
• Identify likely causes
• Take preventive action
• Plan contingent action
• Set triggers
Kepner-Tregoe Potential Problems

• Bias: the decision on the weights of the “wants”
• Quantum measurement:
–Approach defines the outcome and the way to achieve it
–You can have one or the other
• Time is Money
–Going through the process is more effort that management
wants to invest: just solve it now!
…and yet

Cynefin:
Knowledge based problem solving
Pronounced “ku-nev-in”
Welsh word meaning “the place of your belongings”
Developed by David Snowden

• Founder and Chief Scientific Officer
• Specialised in complexity with regard
to decision making
• Developed a science based approach
to organisations drawing on
anthropology, neuroscience and
complex adaptive systems theory
Professor Dave Snowden and Cognitive-Edge

• A categorization model
–May be good for exploitation
–But not good for exploration
–The framework precedes the
data
–You drop your data in the box
then decide
A Sense-Making Model, not a Categorization Model
High
Low
Here There

Building the Framework

The Cynefin Basic Framework

The Cynefin Basic Framework: Obvious
• Ordered System:
–Cause and Effect are
• Predictable
• Repeatable
Sense – Categorise – Respond

The Cynefin Basic Framework: Complicated
• Cause and Effect are
not self-evident
• Expertise is required Sense – Analyse – Respond

The Cynefin Basic Framework: Complex
• Cause and Effect are
only clear in hindsight
• Emergent Outcomes
Probe – Sense – Respond

The Cynefin Basic Framework: Chaotic
• No Cause and Effect
• Good for Innovation
• Needs Stabilizing
Act – Sense – Respond

Dependent on
the space
where you
are, you need
to think and
analyse
differently
: Disorder
People naturally chose
their preferred modus
operandi

Bureaucrats blame the process
Experts need the time and resources
Politicians and military minded call in
many people in the hope that one of
them has a solution
Dictatorship principles:
absolute power

The Cynefin Dynamics

probe-sense-respond
sense-analyse-respond
sense-categorise-respond
act-sense-respond
Enabling constraints
Governing constraints
Fixed constraints
No effective constraint
Emergent
Practice
Good Practice
Best Practice
Novel Practice

Dealing with Complexity
probe-sense-respond
sense-analyse-respond
sense-categorise-respond
act-sense-respond
Fixed constraints
Emergent
Practice
Good Practice
Best Practice
Novel Practice
Create interventions that are
• Coherent
• Safe to fail
• Finely grained / tangible
And some interventions that are
• Oblique
• Naïve approaches
• High risk / high yield
• Contradictory

• Work with silos, not against them
• Distributed ethnography
• Modularity
• Human Metadata
Enabling Complexity

Liminal Cynefin
Fixed constraints

• “Any observed statistical regularity will tend to
collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control
purposes“ (Charles Goodhart)
• “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a
good measure” (Marilyn Strathern)
• “Any extrinsic reward destroys intrinsic motivation”
(New Scientist 9th April 2011)
Goodhart’s Law

• System thinking starts from an ideal situation and
decides what needs to be done
–It fails because the idealism is too far
• Complexity thinking starts from the current state and
starting a journey with a sense of direction but without
overstating the goals
–We can discover things along the way
• Value the Cynics
Conclusion

• Description of the present is far more important than
any description of the future
–Collect stories of what things look like today
–Look for unintended consequences
–Your business is a people business, not an engineering
business
Key Conclusion

Q & A
Some Books

Quantum Butterflies live in Wales

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