Pick a method, any method Apply it mindfully, considering your unique context Review the results you get carefully Accept the results as your own, and learn from them Make conscious adjustments Repeat 2-6 long enough to understand the method Have you made a method work for you? How did you make it fit in your […]
Category Archives: Systems Thinking
How To Fail With Any Method, Guaranteed
Start out with a lack of experience Because of this lack, put your faith in a method that should be able to help you Apply the method half-heartedly, get bad results Blame the method, don’t accept responsibility for your own results Because you’re not responsible, don’t bother learning anything, get no valuable experience Search for […]
Ackoff’s 95% (Cannot manage them the same way)
I’m currently cleaning up my trusty old Mac Mini G4. I’ve been cleaning out old stuff I don’t need to save, and a few days ago I installed a cheap 1 gig of memory. That upgrade did not make the machine notably faster. Today, however, I ran a bunch of maintenance tools, which seemed to […]
Centralized Services in Software Development
Reading a blog post by Tripp Babbitt reminded me of Ackoffs discussion on internal market economies in Re-Creating the Corporation. Babbitt’s blog post talks about how focusing on cost reductions often increases costs. One reason is that cost reductions are often approached by centralizing services in organizations. When this happens, a feedback loop is broken. […]
Learning From Mistakes
Whenever something unexpected happens – such as when we make a mistake – there’s a possibility for learning to happen. For example, I just tried to add an extra branch in my mind mapping tool, but I pressed the wrong key combination. Instead of a new branch, a nice little yellow callout appeared. I immediately […]
Happy Birthday!
Today is the birthday of systems thinker Russell Ackoff. Happy birthday! The Ackoff Center Weblog has a picture of the official cake. What! You say you like agile software development and still don’t know who Russell Ackoff is? Get right over to his wikipedia entry. Or listen to him – he is a great speaker.
Thriving Through the Credit Crunch
Clarke Ching has written a nice little piece that’s available as an online read on Slideshare, and embedded below. It’s short and plain enough that it has the potential of becoming widely read. I’m predicting it will spread quite fast. Executive summary: releasing wanted software soon and frequently ties up capital for shorter durations, which […]
Systems thinker Russell Ackoff now on YouTube
Three short clips featuring systems thinker Russell Ackoff have been made available on YouTube, and embedded below. Ackoff speaks plainly about profound things, so listen closely, and don’t mistake his plain words for a lack of depth. I’m not an expert, just an interested student, but it seems to be that Ackoff’s great contribution is […]
The Challenge of Making Knowledge Explicit
What happens when we try to break down processes that are really too complex to explain in the details, and then teach the process as if it was a stepwise instruction? We run the risk of dumbing down the process to exactly that which we can transfer explicitly, as this classic Internet meme perfectly illustrates:
Queueing Theory in Practice
I’m back from a course in Stockholm on the topic of lean software development. While it was definitely not a waste of my time, it’s lack of depth and long lectures disappointed and puzzled me. Longing to learn some new stuff, I spent some time tonight googling for articles about, or written by, systems thinker […]