We are witnessing dramatic changes in business in general and IT in particular. Cloud computing, social networking, and the Internet of Things are replacing complicated systems with ones that are complex. The need for business agility is requiring IT to shift its focus from efficiency to adaptability. Society as a whole is moving from a product-based to a service-based economy, and pulling IT along with it. These trends necessitate fundamental changes in the kinds of solutions we provide, and the practices we use to provide them. This talk will explore the implications of complexity, adaptability, and service. It will present a set of guiding principles for 21st-century IT, and describe how these strategies can help us satisfy the new expectations that face us.

1. Jeff Sussna | Ingineering.IT | @jeffsussna
Complex Adaptive Services: Strategies
for 21st-Century IT

2. The Times They Are a’Changing
• Changes in business driving changes in IT
• How is business changing?
• How can IT respond?

3. Post-Industrial Society
• 1973: Daniel Bell, ‘The Coming of Post-Industrial
Society’
– Knowledge/creativity-based work
– Service-based economy
– Change and innovation as purpose
– Pervasive computerization
• Sound familiar?

4. The Shift to Post-Industrialism
• From products to services
• From siloed to infused lives
• From complicated to complex systems
• From efficient to adaptive companies

5. From Products to Services
• Creation: from 'things' to experiences
– Journey = touchpoints over time
• Value: from delivery to co-creation
• Sales: from events to relationships Marketing:
from convincing to understanding

6. From Silos to Infusion
• Is the coffee shop for chatting or working?
• Is your phone for calls, or photos, or email?
• Is the library for books or Internet access?
• Is your car for driving or listening to online
music?

7. From Complicated to Complex
• Is it Honda’s or Pandora’s fault if your car isn’t
working?
• Do you work for yourself or your client or your
broker?
• Do your customers complain to support or on
Twitter?
• Is your invoicing data managed by Freshbooks or
Heroku or Amazon?

8. Complicated
• One thing
– Many parts
– Hierarchy
– Clear/contained relationships
• Predictable/controllable repercussions

9. Complicated
• Automobile
• Datacenter
• Corporate structure

10. Complex
• Many (semi-)independent things
• Many interactions between them
• Fluid relationships

11. Complex
• Flock of birds
• Economy
• Cloud computing
• Corporate reality

12. Characteristics of Complexity
• Emergence
• Cascading failures
• Sensitivity to history/initial conditions
• Failure-prone yet resilient

13. Implications of Complexity
• Can't model/predict/control
• Control can make things worse
• System failure without component failure

14. Facing Complexity
• From fail-safe to safe-to-fail
• From reductionism to systems thinking
• From hierarchies to networks
• From tight coupling to loose coupling

15. Real-World Business Complexity
• Social business
• API ecosystems
• Freelance + BYOD + coworking + CoIT

16. From Efficient to Adaptable
• Kodak lasted 100 years before being disrupted
• Microsoft lasted 30 years
• Apple went from most world’s valuable company
to ? in 1 year
• AWS accelerating away from competitors

17. Changing Business Imperatives
• From efficiency/scale/stability…
– …to agility/nimbleness/adaptability
• From static discontinuous broadcast…
– ...to dynamic continuous conversation
• From complicatedness to complexity

18. Adaptation Through Feedback
• Cybernetics: steersman, governor, pilot
• Feedback: adjust future conduct by past
performance
– Is the gun pointing in the right direction?
– Did the target move?
• Control implies communication

19. Competition Through Adaptation
• Mental model for airborne battle:
– Observe
– Orient
– Decide
– Act
• Win by making your OODA Loop tighter than
your enemy’s

20. Implications for IT
• IT must undergo the same transformations:
– Products -> Services
– Silos -> Infusion
– Complicated -> Complex
– Efficient -> Adaptive

21. Digital Infusion Raises the Stakes
• Old:
– Inventory reports improve efficiency
• New:
– Biz can't function w/out IT
– Can’t serve customers w/out IT
– Can't process feedback w/out IT
– Can't optimize OODA loop w/out IT

22. 21st-Century IT Values…
• Adaptation over efficiency
• Feedback over planning
• Continuous learning over best practices

23. 21st-Century IT Values…
• Resilience over stability
• MTTR over MTBF

24. 21st-Century IT Values…
• Loose coupling over centralized coordination
• Propagation over adoption

25. 21st-Century IT Values…
• Customer outcomes over internal systems

26. The Time Is Now
• Evolution of IT is critical to business existence…
– …yet we are part of the problem
• The time to argue Agile/Cloud/Shadow IT/etc. is
past…
– …businesses are leaving us behind

27. IT Needs to Transform From…
• Resistant
• Order-taking
• Analytical

28. …into IT as Design
• Proactive
• Creative
• Adaptive
• User-centered