Post on 11-Aug-2014
description
© Jurgen Appelo version 2 management30.com
Complexity Thinking or Systems Thinking ++ ?
“The search for simple –if not simpleminded– solutions to complex problems is a consequence of the inability to deal effectively with complexity.”
– Russell L. Ackoff
Jurgen Appelo writer, speaker, trainer, entrepreneur... www.jurgenappelo.com
story
What happens when you go to a bar full of systems thinkers and complexity researchers
Russell L. Ackoff
Ralph Stacey Dave Snowden
Donella H. Meadows
W. Edwards Deming
Peter M. Senge
Peter F. Drucker
Peter Checkland Gerald M. Weinberg
John H. Holland
Michael C. Jackson
John Seddon Max Boisot
“What exactly is the bar?”
“Are the people here part of the
bar?”
“Is the beer part of the bar?”
“If we drink the beer, is it still part of the bar?”
“What if my beer and I go outside?”
“Is the bar a system?”
“What is the purpose of the
bar?”
Reductionism
Holism
Complexity Theory
Models
Complexity Thinking
Example
Final words
We converse about abstractions
Abstractions are imperfect and incomplete.
It is a form of interaction
The activity of abstracting is basically a form of interaction between people in which they simplify the complexity of their own ordinary, everyday interactions […] in an effort to make meaning of what they are doing […].
– Ralph Stacey Complexity and Organizational Reality
To make sense of the world
Sense-making is the way that humans choose between multiple possible explanations of sensory input.
– Dave Snowden http://kwork.org/Stars/Snowden/snowden3.html#Simplicity
reductionism
re·duc·tion·ism noun \ri-ˈdək-shə-ˌni-zəm\
– explanation of complex life-science processes and phenomena in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry
– a procedure or theory that reduces complex data and phenomena to simple terms
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reductionism
The bar is... the building, inventory, employees, guests, some interaction, etc...
reductionism
A problem is that people have become addicted to the successes of reductionism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism
“Left-brain” thinking
All system theories were created by engineers and scientists (“left-brainers”).
Analysis in management
This systems movement […] has come to form the foundation of today’s dominant management discourse, so importing the engineer’s notion of control into understanding human activity.
– Ralph Stacey Complexity and Organizational Reality
Problem: Dehumanization
Cold numbers in spreadsheets
Problem: Objectivation
“Designing” human interaction
Problem: Alienation
Instructions from ivory towers
Problem: Prediction
“Controlling” the future
Problem: Attribution
Blaming people for problems
• Problem: Dehumanization
• Problem: Objectivization
• Problem: Alienation
• Problem: Prediction
• Problem: Attribution
This list of five problems is my abstraction, and my attempt at sense-making!
Reductionism
Holism
Complexity Theory
Models
Complexity Thinking
Example
Final words
Revenge for “right-brainers”
Some people have suggested more holistic approaches.
See the whole system
Living systems have integrity. Their character depends on the whole. The same is true for organizations.
– Peter M. Senge The Fifth Discipline
Greater than the sum of the parts
The enterprise must be a genuine whole: greater than the sum of its parts, with its output larger than the sum of all inputs.
– Peter F. Drucker Management
Synthesis, not analysis
Analysis is only one way of thinking; synthesis is another. [...] In analysis, something that we want to understand is first taken apart. In synthesis, that which we want to understand is first identified as part of one or more larger systems.
– Russell L. Ackoff Recreating the Corporation
But what is the whole
Problem: Impossible
If everything is connected to everything, what is the “whole”?
Problem: Unscientific
new age fluffy bunnies
– Dave Snowden http://km4meu.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/radical-ideals-and-fluffy-bunnies/
An unquestioned assumption
By formulating a research aim to uncover the fundamental characteristics of systems of various kinds, we were making the unquestioned assumption that the world contained such systems.
– Peter Checkland Systems Thinking, Systems Practice
Actually, there are no systems
Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the questions we want to ask.
– Donella H. Meadows Thinking in Systems
There are perspectives
A system is a way of looking at the world.
– Gerald M. Weinberg Introduction to General Systems Thinking
Systems depend on context
The boundaries of systems keep shifting, using reductionism and holism.
How much to abstract or extend depends on what you want to understand.
No radical holism/reductionism
Complexity theory does not embrace the radical holism of systems theory, the notion that everything matters and everything has to be taken into account.
– Steve Phelan The Interaction of Complexity and Management
Reductionism
Holism
Complexity Theory
Models
Complexity Thinking
Example
Final words
Brains, bacteria, immune systems, the Internet, countries, gardens, cities, beehives… They’re all complex adaptive systems.
A team is a complex adaptive system (CAS), because it consists of parts (people) that form a system (team), and the system shows complex behavior while it keeps adapting to a changing environment.
One perspective
The properties of complex adaptive systems are:
• Aggregation
• Nonlinearity
• Flows
• Diversity
– John H. Holland Hidden Order
Another perspective
There are six notions in complexity theory:
• Sensitivity to initial conditions (butterfly effect)
• Strange attractors (unpredictability)
• Self-similarity (fractals)
• Self-organization (distributed control)
• The edge of chaos (emergence)
• Fitness landscapes (continuous improvement)
– Michael C. Jackson Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers
And it evolved like this...
– Jeffrey Goldstein Complexity and the Nexus of Leadership
Or like this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Complex_systems_organizational_map.jpg
Or like this...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurgenappelo/4948963883/
Of course, these are all just abstractions...
Complexity theory itself is complex
Papers are being posted on the Web long before publication and there is rapid movement of what could be called precodified or protocodified knowledge. […] I am not saying whether this is good or bad; I am merely suggesting that this is one of the characteristics affecting the evolution of complexity sciences.
– Max Boisot The Interaction of Complexity and Management
Complexity theory is about change
Complexity theory is not a cohesive theory. It is not one equation. It is really a collection of ideas about the concept of change in complex adaptive systems […]. It talks about the dynamics of change in a system.
– Irene Sanders The Interaction of Complexity and Management
People and relationships
We found that this new science leads to a new theory of business that places people and relationships […] into dramatic relief.
– Roger Lewin, Birute Regine The Interaction of Complexity and Management
And about hype
I think the next century will be the century of complexity.
– Stephen Hawking San Jose Mercury News, 23 January 2000
And about unification
We can justifiably think of Complexity as a sort of umbrella science – or even the Science of all Sciences.
– Neil Johnson Simply Complexity
But who wants unification?
Scholars […] have been understandably reluctant to see their pet subject as simply one more example of some broader 'general system'!
– Peter Checkland Systems Thinking, Systems Practice
No consensus, no unification
Perhaps because the field has attracted researchers from a wide diversity of home disciplines, there is no consensus as to how to define, measure, describe, or interpret "complexity."
– Steve Maguire The Interaction of Complexity and Management
Complexity theory explains why complex problems need multiple perspectives.
It is successful in explaining its own failure at being one theory!
But complexity is growing
Accelerating economic and social change in the global economy, the consequent imperative for ever faster innovation, the emergence of global networks of partners, […] the multiplication of media channels, and burgeoning diversity in both the workplace and marketplace.
– Steve Denning Radical Management
And complicated is not complex
Analysis works in complicated cases (plic in complicated means "fold"), but the interweavings (plex) of the complex do not yield to reductionist analysis or to a concentration on details.
– Michael L. Lissack The Interaction of Complexity and Management
You can try to simplify a system to make it understandable But you cannot linearize the system to make it predictable
Complicated vs. Complex is itself is reductionism (and a false dichotomy)!
Some systems can be seen as both complicated and complex.
This is all great, but how do we use all these ideas about complexity
The Scientific Method
The traditional approach...
1. Observations
2. Hypotheses
3. Predictions
4. Experiments
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
Houston, we have a problem
This makes the standard method of accumulating evidence highly problematic, because it is based on the assumption of repetitive events. Evidence is accumulated by observing repetitions in traditional science but rather different notions of evidence need to be developed for the complexity sciences.
– Ralph Stacey Complexity and Organizational Reality
Complexity invalidates prediction!
The crucial problem which science faces is its ability to cope with complexity.
– Peter Checkland Systems Thinking, Systems Practice
Complexity theory predicts that we cannot rely on predictions.
That doesn’t seem very helpful.
Is there anything else we can do
Reductionism
Holism
Complexity Theory
Models
Complexity Thinking
Example
Final words
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hey__paul/6223650676/
What’s this?
model
mod·el noun \ˈmä-dəl\
– a usually miniature representation of something
– a description or analogy used to help visualize something (as an atom) that cannot be directly observed
– a system of postulates, data, and inferences presented as a mathematical description of an entity or state of affairs
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/model
We use models for two reasons
Confirmatory models: prediction & control
Exploratory models: insight & understanding
– Steve Phelan The Interaction of Complexity and Management
We’ll focus on exploratory models
Confirmatory models are impossible to make in complexity theory. But we can use exploratory models to aid in sense-making.
Making sense of improvement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA http://gumption.typepad.com/blog/entrepreneuria/
Making sense of learning
Shu
Ha
Ri
Beginner
Advanced Beginner
Competent
Proficient
Expert
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_model_of_skill_acquisition
Making sense of complexity
Ralph Stacey Dave Snowden
There’s only 1 criterion for models
Does the model help people to make sense of the world (insight and understanding)?
Of course, it requires a balance
How detailed (complicated) will you make the model to make it useful?
The usefulness of a model depends on the complexity of the mind and of the environment.
A simple model of London
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FHHhq9JdAXg/TIUalCWz_zI/AAAAAAAAAUg/C0CTOtV6iiw/s1600/cowshed-spasmap-aw8-low+res.jpg
A complicated model of London
http://www.bestcitymaps.com/citymaps/images/london.jpg
http://effectiveagiledev.com/AgileTraining/ScrumImplementationWorkshop/tabid/74/Default.aspx
A simple model for projects
http://wyzsadvies.blogspot.com/2010/08/project-beheer-en-de-papierwinkel.html
A complicated model for projects
A simple model for managers
– Jurgen Appelo Management 3.0
A complicated model for managers
– Dan Levinthal The Interaction of Complexity and Management
Models are never perfect
All models wrong, some are useful. – George Box
Usefulness is context-dependent. It depends on the people and their environment.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/miguelpdl/4356975474/
What’s this?
metaphor
met·a·phor noun \ˈme-tə-ˌfor also -fər\
– a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metaphor
Metaphors in science
• Butterfy Effect
• Edge of Chaos
• Survival of the Fittest
Metaphors are fuzzy but effective models.
Metaphors in management
• organizations as machines;
• organizations as organisms;
• organizations as brains;
• organizations as flux and transformation;
• organizations as cultures;
• organizations as political systems;
• organizations as psychic prisons;
• organizations as instruments of domination;
• organizations as carnivals.
– Michael C. Jackson Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers
Organizations as machines
Machine images pervade management jargon. We have managers who “run” a company, much the way you would run a machine. We have the “owners” of the company, which is perfectly appropriate terminology for a machine but somewhat problematic when applied to a human community. And of course there are leaders who “drive change.”
– Peter M. Senge The Fifth Discipline
Danger of metaphors
Reminiscence syndrome
Jumping to conclusions because things look “the same”
– Jack Cowan
Example: inventory as waste
The metaphor of inventory applied to knowledge work can be useful, but it fails fast.
It leads people to draw conclusions about “waste” that make no sense (to me).
Useful question: when do they fail?
Metaphors are the weakest of all models.
They fail fast.
Science likes mathematical models.
They fail much later.
A key point of complexity theory
Multiple weak models can make just as much sense as one strong model. (And it’s certainly better than no models.)
In the end all models fail.
This point makes it clear you also need other people’s views on complexity thinking.
A single perspective is not enough!
What’s this?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/2634586376/
mathematics
math·e·mat·ics noun \ˌmath-ˈma-tiks, ˌma-thə-\
– the science of numbers and their operations, interrelations, combinations, generalizations, and abstractions and of space configurations and their structure, measurement, transformations, and generalizations
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mathematics
Scientific management (Taylorism)
The earliest attempt at applying mathematics to management of organizations.
• Improving efficiency
• Reducing variation
• Increasing output
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management
What’s this?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/inacentaurdump/2604198505/
simulation
sim·u·la·tion noun \ˌsim-yə-ˈlā-shən\
– the imitative representation of the functioning of one system or process by means of the functioning of another
– examination of a problem often not subject to direct experimentation by means of a simulating device
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/simulation
The heart of complexity theory
At the heart of complexity theory are these formal models that utilize new techniques in artificial intelligence to motivate artificial agents. Behind them are some heavy-duty mathematics and computer science.
– Steve Phelan The Interaction of Complexity and Management
Problem: prediction & control
For systems dynamics thinkers, the aim is to identify leverage points for interventions that will enable them to identify where, when and how to initiate change and so stay in control. However, the ability to do this in a system that is sensitive to tiny changes is called into question. That obviously has serious implications for the human ability to stay ‘in control’.
– Ralph Stacey Complexity and Organizational Reality
What’s this?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/3464803900/
pattern
pat·tern noun \ˈpa-tərn\
– a form or model proposed for imitation
– a reliable sample of traits, acts, tendencies, or other observable characteristics of a person, group, or institution
– a discernible coherent system based on the intended interrelationship of component parts
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pattern
Causal Loop Diagrams
Seeking patterns
Archetype: Shifting the burden
Shifting the burden, dependence, and addiction arise when a solution to a systemic problem reduces (or disguises) the symptoms, but does nothing to solve the underlying problem.
– Donella H. Meadows Thinking in Systems
Archetype: Shifting problems
Solutions that merely shift problems from one part of a system to another often go undetected because, unlike the rug merchant, those who “solved” the first problem are different from those who inherit the new problem.
– Peter M. Senge The Fifth Discipline
Archetype: The easy way out
We all find comfort applying familiar solutions to problems, sticking to what we know best.
– Peter M. Senge The Fifth Discipline
Problem : objectivation
Consider how this systems thinking compares with the earlier framework of scientific management. The manager continues to be equated with the natural scientist, the objective observer, and just as the scientist is concerned with a natural phenomenon, so the manager is concerned with an organization.
– Ralph Stacey Complexity and Organizational Reality
Problem : objectivation
Hard systems thinking is unable to deal
satisfactorily with multiple perceptions of
reality. […] Different stakeholders will have
diverse opinions about the nature of the system
they are involved with and about its proper
purposes.
– Michael C. Jackson Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers
So, how should we use those models in a social system
Reductionism
Holism
Complexity Theory
Models
Complexity Thinking
Example
Final words
“Soft Systems Thinking”
– Michael C. Jackson Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers
“Soft Complexity”
Systems theory ->
Hard systems thinking
Soft systems thinking
Complexity theory ->
Hard complexity
Soft complexity
– Steve Maguire The Interaction of Complexity and Management
“Social Complexity”
– Dave Snowden http://emergentpublications.com/ECO/ECO_other/Issue_6_1-2_19_FM.pdf
Complexity Thinking (as I see it)
1) Address complexity with complexity
The complexity of a system must be adequate to the complexity of the environment that it finds itself in.
– Max Boisot The Interaction of Complexity and Management
The human mind is more complex than tools
Use stories, metaphors, pictures…
Law of Requisite Variety
If a system is to be stable the number of states of its control mechanism must be greater than or equal to the number of states in the system being controlled.
– William Ross Ashby
Law of Requisite Variety
Ashby's law of requisite variety is as important to managers as Einstein's law of relativity to physicists.
– Anthony Stafford Beer Designing Freedom
The Kanban board is complicated, not complex. http://www.xqa.com.ar/visualmanagement/tag/kanban/
360 Degree evaluations
Narratives useful for sense-making
[Complexity thinkers] argue that complex
thinking is best accomplished in a narrative
mode of thinking rather than the propositional
thinking of the traditional scientific method. […]
Both involve recursiveness, nonlinearity,
sensitive dependency on initial conditions,
indeterminacy, unpredictability and emergence.
– Ralph Stacey Complexity and Organizational Reality
https://picasaweb.google.com/114043888000663006020/ALENetworkWorldCafeAtXP2011Results
Consider stories, metaphors, pictures or video
Reduction vs. Absorption
Complexity reduction entails getting to understand the complexity and acting on it directly, including attempting environmental enactment. Complexity absorption entails creating options and risk-hedging strategies.
– Max Boisot The Interaction of Complexity and Management
From reduction to absorption
Top-down rules reduce an organization’s ability to deal with variety.
– John Seddon Freedom from Command & Control
Insofar as the business environment is becoming more complex, firms will need to shift from the complexity-reducing strategies that secured their success from the end of the nineteenth until the end of the twentieth century and place more stress on complexity-absorbing ones-a shift away from bureaucracies and toward fiefs, markets, and clans.
– Max Boisot The Interaction of Complexity and Management
Reduction vs. Absorption
2) Use a diversity of models
Complexity itself is anti-methodology. It is against "one size fits all."
– Tom Petzinger The Interaction of Complexity and Management
Multiple weak models can make just as much sense as one strong model.
Each systems approach is useful for certain purposes and in particular types of problem situation. A diversity of approaches, therefore, heralds not a crisis but increased competence in a variety of problem contexts.
– Michael C. Jackson Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers
Multiple approaches
• Different people and tools
• Different metaphors and analogies
• Different patterns and simulations
• Different methods and practices
Multiple approaches
3) Assume dependence on context
Best practice is past practice.
– Dave Snowden The Interaction of Complexity and Management
Retrospective coherence
Any evidence provided will depend on the period selected and the place in which the events are occurring as well as other aspects of context. It follows that any relationship anyone identifies between a management action and an outcome could have far more to do with a particular time and place where the sample is selected than anything else.
– Ralph Stacey Complexity and Organizational Reality
4) Assume subjectivity and coevolution
The observer influences the system, and the system influences the observer.
The people form the culture, and the culture forms the people.
Feedback changes the whole system.
5) Anticipate, adapt, explore
Anticipation
Looking forward, proactive, imagining improvement
Adaptation
Looking backward, reactive, responding to change
Exploration
Trying things out, safe-to-fail experiments
6) Develop models in collaboration
Does the model help people to make sense of the world (insight and understanding)?
1. Address complexity with complexity
2. Use a diversity of models
3. Assume dependence on context
4. Assume subjectivity and coevolution
5. Anticipate, adapt, and explore
6. Develop models in collaboration
Reductionism
Holism
Complexity Theory
Models
Complexity Thinking
Example
Final words
1. Address complexity with complexity
2. Use a diversity of models
3. Assume dependence on context
4. Assume subjectivity and coevolution
5. Anticipate, adapt, and explore
6. Develop models in collaboration
Does Scrum Match Complexity Thinking?
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
1. Address complexity with complexity
2. Use a diversity of models
3. Assume dependence on context
4. Assume subjectivity and coevolution
5. Anticipate, adapt, and explore
6. Develop models in collaboration
Example
What is the purpose of an organization?
It’s about the shareholder
Our aim is to be the biggest or second biggest market player, and to return maximum value to stockholders.
– Jack Welch (General Electric) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_value
It’s about the customer
There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.
– Peter F. Drucker Management
It’s about the employee
When we talk to our People, we proudly draw a pyramid on the chalkboard and tell them: You are at the top of the pyramid. You are the most important person to us. You are our most important Customer in terms of priority.
– Colleen Barrett (Southwest Airlines) http://leaderchat.org/2011/01/10/customers-employees-and-shareholders%E2%80%94who-comes-first-in-your-organization/
It’s about the organization
The fundamental mission of an organization is to survive.
– W. Warner Burke Organization Change
It’s about the environment
The function of firms is to produce and distribute wealth.
– Russell L. Ackoff Recreating the Organization
It’s about all of them
Organizations must be viewed as social systems serving three sets of purposes: their own, those of their parts and those of the wider systems of which they are part.
– Michael C. Jackson Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers
It’s about none of them
A system has no purpose. Purpose is a relation, not a thing to have.
– Gerald M. Weinberg Introduction to General Systems Thinking
Well, it depends...
Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals.
– Donella H. Meadows Thinking in Systems
My view (with complexity thinking hat)
They all have a good point.
Sometimes we need a simple model.
Sometimes we need a complicated model.
The Shu-Ha-Ri of purpose
Shu Delight customers
Ha Delight all stakeholders
Ri Delight yourself
Reductionism
Holism
Complexity Theory
Models
Complexity Thinking
Example
Final words
All models can be useful. Some fail faster than others.
– Jurgen Appelo
There is nothing as practical as good theory.
– Kurt Lewin
We should not take our models too seriously.
– Gerald M. Weinberg Introduction to Systems Thinking
Is it Complexity Thinking or Systems Thinking ++
The magpie
Finds what’s valuable and uses it in its nest
The only bird capable of self-reflection
1. Address complexity with complexity
2. Use a diversity of models
3. Assume dependence on context
4. Assume subjectivity and coevolution
5. Anticipate, adapt, and explore
6. Develop models in collaboration
7. Copy and change
The peacock
Showing off a complicated but totally useless idea
Not capable of self-reflection
Don't take speakers too seriously.
Listen (critically) to the magpies
Be wary of the peacocks.
@jurgenappelo
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linkedin.com/in/jurgenappelo
jurgen@noop.nl
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This presentation was inspired by the works of many people, and I cannot possibly list them all. Though I did my very best to attribute all authors of texts and images, and to recognize any copyrights, if you think that anything in this presentation should be changed, added or removed, please contact me at jurgen@noop.nl.