How to Improve Agile Development Using the Cynefin Framework- 2017 Agile Day Twin Cities, Daniel Walsh nuCognitive

1. @danielwalsh How to Improve Agile Development Using the Cynefin Framework Daniel Walsh Agile Day Twin Cities 2017 linkedin.com/in/danwalsh1115

3. What is a heuristic? Rule of thumb 3 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 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

5. 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) 5 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 *Reference: Koen, Billy Vaughn. Discussion of the Method. 2003.

6. 6 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 Everything in engineering is heuristic. -Billy Vaughn Koen *Reference: Koen, Billy Vaughn. Discussion of the Method. 2003.

7. 7 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 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

8. Heuristics produce accurate decisions by exploiting the structures of information in the environments in which they are applied* 8 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 *Reference: Gigerenzer & Todd. Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart. 2000.

9. Heuristics are dependent on immediate context instead of absolute truth* 9 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 *Reference: Koen, Billy Vaughn. Discussion of the Method. 2003.

12. Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov201712 The future of Agile is one where practitioners understand not only how, but also why Agile methods and practices work across different contexts.

13. Situational Awareness & Understanding Context 13 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 Deterministic Process Solution Known Solution Unknown Non-deterministic Process Standard Work A3 Problem Solving Trade-off Curves Set-based Concurrent Engineering Lean Startup Scrum Kanban Spike TDD Release Trains

14. The nature of the system determines the way we can know things, how we make decisions, and how we act. -David Snowden 14 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 Cynefin Framework kuh-nev-in The Cynefin framework is first about situational awareness, followed by contextually appropriate action.

17. The Cynefin Framework 17 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 Obvious ComplicatedComplex Chaotic DisorderDisorder Ordered Unordered The Cynefin Framework is © Cognitive Edge. Used with permission. Cause and Effect Relationship Constraints Decision-making How to respond

18. The Obvious Domain Direct Cause-Effect Relationship 18 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 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

19. The Complicated Domain Indirect Cause-Effect Relationship 19 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 The Cynefin Framework by D Snowden - Cognitive Edge. Used with permission. best practice Obvious Complicated good practice Rigid constraints No degrees of freedom Governing constraints Tightly coupled sense-analyze-respond sense-categorize-respond Communities of Practice Experts Better-Known Methods

20. The Complex Domain Interconnected Cause-Effect Relationship 20 best practice Obvious Complicated good practice Complex emergent practice Rigid constraints No degrees of freedom Governing constraints Tightly coupled Enabling constraints Loosely coupled probe-sense-respond sense-analyze-respond sense-categorize-respond Pattern Recognition Parallel Learning Adaptive, Resilient Methods Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 The Cynefin Framework by D Snowden - Cognitive Edge. Used with permission.

21. The Chaotic Domain Unknowable Cause-Effect Relationship 21 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 The Cynefin Framework by D Snowden - Cognitive Edge. Used with permission. Disorder best practice Obvious Complicated good practice Complex emergent practice Chaotic novel practice Rigid constraints No degrees of freedom Governing constraints Tightly coupled Enabling constraints Loosely coupled No constraints Not coupled act-sense-respond probe-sense-respond sense-analyze-respond sense-categorize-respond Radical Innovation Crisis Management Stabilizing Methods

22. The Disordered Domain Indeterminate Cause-Effect Relationship 22 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 The Cynefin Framework by D Snowden - Cognitive Edge. Used with permission. Disorder best practice Obvious Complicated good practice Complex emergent practice Chaotic novel practice Rigid constraints No degrees of freedom Governing constraints Tightly coupled Enabling constraints Loosely coupled No constraints Not coupled act-sense-respond probe-sense-respond sense-analyze-respond sense-categorize-respond Discuss perspectives Partition Diagnostic Methods probe – sense – respond exploratory practice

23. # of Dots: # of Links: # of Possible Patterns: 4 6 64 10 Hindsight Does Not Lead To Foresight 23 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 Source: The Mathematics of Dots by Max Boisot Events as Dots Effect Patterns Connecting Dots Cause # of Dots: # of Links: # of Possible Patterns: 4 6 64 10 45 # of Dots: # of Links: # of Possible Patterns: 4 6 64 10 45 ~35 trillion n L=n(n-1)/2 P=2L Links

24. Cynefin Framework | Older Version 24 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 The Cynefin Framework by D Snowden - Cognitive Edge. Used with permission. Disorder best practice Obvious Complicated good practice Complex emergent practice Chaotic novel practice Known Knowns Known Unknown Unknown Unknowns Unknowable Unknowns act-sense-respond probe-sense-respond sense-analyze-respond sense-categorize-respond

25. 25 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 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 *Reference: Koen, Billy Vaughn. Discussion of the Method. 2003.

27. Cynefin Metaphors | Games 27 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 Obvious ComplicatedComplex Chaotic Disorder Coin Toss BlackjackTexas Hold’em Poker Food Fight Calvinball* Reference: http://calvinandhobbes.wikia.com/wiki/Calvinball

28. Cynefin Metaphors | Signals 28 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 Obvious ComplicatedComplex Chaotic Disorder Police Roadblock Traffic LightRoundabout Spiderman Sense 6th Sense

29. Agile in Context | Software Development 29 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 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

31. Agile in Context | Software Development Estimates 31 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 Obvious ComplicatedComplex Chaotic Disorder Not Needed #KnowEstimates#NoEstimates Take Action #Guesstimates

32. Agile in Context | Prioritization 32 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 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.

34. 34 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017 Beware the certainty of the captured expert* -Billy Vaughn Koen *Reference: Koen, Billy Vaughn. Discussion of the Method. 2003.

35. 35 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

37. 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. 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. 37 Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov2017

38. Copyright © 2017 nuCognitive LLC. All rights reserved. SOTA|Walsh;Nov201738 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 Feel free to follow up with me at daniel.walsh@nuCognitive.com Slides posted here http://bit.ly/agilechicago2017