Development teams are at war with complexity. A solo programmer's craft is difficult enough, but team development adds more volatility and ambiguity—what the U.S. military calls “the fog of war.” Derek Wade’s background in cognitive science has shown him that humans have innate skills at managing this complexity. But too often Derek sees leaders wasting precious human capital because they don’t understand how these skills work. For the past six years, Derek has explored team science which evolved from studying military, aviation, and clinical teams, for practical insights into how people work best together. If you want to help your teams cut through the fog and have fun doing it, Derek uses mini-games and stories to introduce you to these insights and how to apply them. Leave armed with knowledge of mental models, cognitive load, situational awareness, and boundary objects so your teams can use complexity to their advantage, solve the right problems, support each other, and finally use those whiteboards, stickies, and online tools well.

1. AW7
Agile Leadership
6/7/2017 2:45:00 PM
AW7 Agile Leadership Strategies:
Winning the War on Complexity
Presented by:
Derek Wade
Kumido Adaptive Strategies
Brought to you by:
350 Corporate Way, Suite 400, Orange Park, FL 32073
888-­‐268-­‐8770 ·∙ 904-­‐278-­‐0524 - info@techwell.com - https://www.techwell.com/

2. Derek Wade
Kumido Adaptive Strategies
Derek Wade founded Kumido Adaptive Strategies in 2008 to apply principles of
cognition and learning to the future of work. He wields the usual tools of agile
and lean in unusually scientific and human-centered ways, whether rescuing a
troubled Scrum implementation at a nationwide financial enterprise or gelling a
fragmented leadership team at a regional consumer products company. Derek
has shared his approach through public and private training, his service on the
Agile Leadership Network board, and forums including Lean Kanban,
Northwestern University's Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, and the
Agile Alliance. Derek tweets at @derekwwade and blogs at derekwwade.net, but
he prefers collaborating with real live humans.

3. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Agile Leadership Strategies
Winning the War on Complexity
Derek W. Wade
@derekwwade
dwade@kumido.com

4. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011

5. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
GOAL is correctly sorted sequence of all letters
Left and Right: Read your letters to Sorter as they appear
Sorter: Listen, sort the pairs, and sort against the total.
left sorter right
A B
CE
FH
“ A B C E F H ”
?

6. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
GOAL is correctly sorted sequence of all letters
Left and Right: Read your letters to Sorter as they appear
Sorter: Listen, sort the pairs, and sort against the total.
left sorter right
X G
RM
HL
“ G H L M R X ”
?
READY?

7. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
GOAL is correctly sorted sequence of all letters
ALL: Sort the letters all together
ALL: Cross-check your answers with each other
left sorter right
Y T
QB
DW
“ B D Q T W Y ”
?
READY?

8. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Cognitive Science: Mental Models

9. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
(Blanchfield 2011)
The Problem of Complexity
Eclipse 2.1 = 740k—1.5M LOC
ACL project = ~68 diff stakeholders
Code commits = every ~1—12 hrs/committer
(Nagesh 2011)

10. Effective Mental Models Map Reality
To Do Doing Done
Detect Plan Verify
Unrealized/
Undetected
Ideate/
Investigate
Prototype/
Attempt to Solve,
Solve a Symptom
Implement/
Solve Root Cause
Innovation/
Solution
HOW MANY false “understandings”?
HOW LONG to useful understanding?

11. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011

12. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Team Mental Models Matter
70% accidents in 1950s-80s
> 70% of 2455
“sentinel events”
(Leonard et al. 2004)
V - U - C - A

13. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Team Mental Model: Not Additive
+
+

14. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011

15. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
1. Challenge your models
2. Maintain Team SA*
3. Manage cognitive load
4. Use Boundary Objects
Intro to4 Agile Leadership Strategies
* situational awareness

16. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
1. Challenge your models
2.
3.
4.
4 Agile Leadership Strategies

17. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
A 4-Letter Word for “Intercourse” ?

18. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Outcome
Effects & Reactions
Mental Model
Action
WhatYou Do
single-loop:
stimulus-response
double-loop: feedback,
model challenge/update

19. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
1. Challenge your models
2. Maintain Team SA*
3. Manage cognitive load
4.
4 Agile Leadership Strategies
* situational awareness

20. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Awareness: Tasks and Team

21. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
“How are you
feeling today?”
(Sakata, 2006)

22. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011

23. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
1. Challenge your models
2. Maintain Team SA*
3. Manage cognitive load
4.
4 Agile Leadership Strategies
* situational awareness

24. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Cognitive Load: Good and Bad
Baked-In
(‘Intrinsic’)
Overhead
(‘Extraneous’)
Solving
(‘Germane’)
totaltaskload
maximum
yourcapacity
Overload!
Available

25. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Common Overhead
TIME
Task 2
Task 1
Over head
Solving
Solving
50%

26. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Outcome
Effects &
Reactions
Action
WhatYou Do
Mental Model

27. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
1. Challenge your models
2. Maintain Team SA*
3. Manage cognitive load
4. Use Boundary Objects
4 Agile Leadership Strategies
* situational awareness

28. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
One “solution”
is full interconnection...
“Just talk to each
other, okay?”
Forming/Using Team Mental Models

29. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Another “solution”
is to use central
coordination...
...aka a boss.
Forming/Using Team Mental Models

30. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Sender
Sender’s
Knowledge
Transmitted
Message
Received
Message
Receiver
Receiver
Sender’s
Knowledge
Transmitted
Message
Received
Message
Sender
The Problem With “Communication”

31. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Boundary Objects
facilitate
Team Mental Models
Offloading (some of the) Team Mental Model
Local
understanding
Local
understanding
Community activity
communication
for cross-check

32. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
All Can Read/Write/Modify

33. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Docs vs. Boundary Objects

34. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011

35. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
The Meta-Game: Beating Complexity
Player 1 Player 2 Player 3 Player 4
Personal win/loss ratios over time
TEAM ratio
was strictly
increasing

36. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
1. Challenge your models
2. Maintain Team SA
3. Manage cognitive load
4. Use Boundary Objects
5. Raise the Game
Agile Leadership Strategies

37. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Our Business is Complexity
(Blanchfield 2011)
You
Competitors
(Nagesh 2011)
Eclipse 2.1 = 740k—1.5M LOC
ACL project = ~68 diff stakeholders
Code commits = every ~1—12 hrs/committer

38. “Go to the ant; consider her ways, and be wise.”

39. Thank You!
Derek W.Wade
@derekwwade
dwade@kumido.com
www.derekwwade.net
www.kumido.com
www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011

40. www.kumido.com (C) 2009-2011
Media
Destiny “Crucible” screen shot
AttackOfTheFanBoy.com
Fireflies - "All That Glitters"
Tsuneaki Hiramatsu
Smithsonian.com
Fireflies Sync
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sROKYelaWbo
Mental Islands
"Isle-spat," “Isle-prop” by Mrausch at English
Wikibooks. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via
Wikimedia Commons
Naval Air Warfare Center Logo; Pilot
http://www.navair.navy.mil/nawctsd
Pheromone Marking in Ants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WCQ1Q6Xoek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=4p-IjqVOjic
Quiet Room
http://commackpubliclibrary.org
Logos are trademarks of their respective companies.
All other images Creative Commons CC license
or by Derek W. Wade
Credits
Works
Blanchfield, S. (2011). Taking software seriously. Retrieved from
seanblanchfield.com/taking-software-seriously
Fujimura, J. H. (1992). Crafting science: Standardized packages,
boundary objects, and “translation.”. Science as practice and
culture, 168-211.
Kolassa, C. Riehle, D., Salim, M. A. (2013) The empirical commit
frequency distribution of open source projects. In Proceedings of
the 2013 joint international symposium on wikis and open
collaboration.
Steven, J. (2002). Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains,
Cities, and Software.
Leonard, M., Graham, S., & Bonacum, D. (2004). The human factor:
the critical importance of effective teamwork and communication
in providing safe care. Quality and Safety in Health Care, 13(suppl
1), i85-i90.
Mathieu, J., Heffner, T., Goodwin, G., Salas, E., Cannon-Bowers, J.
(2000) The influence of shared mental models on team process
and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(2), 273-283
Nagesh, G. (2014). Health website problems weren’t flagged in
time. Wall Street Journal, December 3 2013.
Mohammed, S., Ferzandi, L., & Hamilton, K. (2010). Metaphor no
more: A 15-year review of the team mental model construct.
Journal of Management, 36(4), 876.
Sakata, A. (2006). Niko-niko calendar. Retrieved from http://
www.geocities.jp/nikonikocalendar/index_en.html
Salas, E., Rosen, M. A., Held, J. D., & Weissmuller, J. J. (2009).
Performance measurement in simulation-based training. Simulation
& Gaming, 40(3), 328. doi:10.1177/1046878108326734