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The Corporate World’s Superficial Psychology

March 26, 2024
Article, Business, Capability development, Culture change, Improvement, Joy, Leadership, Organisational effectiveness, Psychology, Quintessence
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The Corporate World’s Superficial Psychology

Businesses Ignore Deming’s Call for Real Behavioural Insight

W. Edwards Deming, the pioneering management thinker, strongly advocated for businesses to develop a deeper understanding of psychology in order to optimise systems, drive improvement, and bring joy and pride in work to the workplace.

“Understanding psychology, the study of human behaviour, is the key to managing people.”

Deming wrote. Yet decades after Deming’s teachings, most businesses remain woefully ignorant about true human psychology and behavioural drivers.

The Superficial ‘Pop Psych’ Fixation

Instead of delving into substantive research from psychology, cognitive science, and behavioural economics, the corporate world tends to favour simplistic “pop psych” maxims and heuristics. Businesses love to tout the latest bestselling books promoting ideas like “positive thinking”, “grit”, “growth mindsets”, or “mindfulness” as the secrets to better employee engagement and productivity. Consultants peddle pseudoscientific personality assessments built on shaky Jungian foundations. Corporate training programmes regurgitate self-evident platitudes about “emotional intelligence.”

Human Behaviour Is Central to Everything

This cavalier dilettantism toward psychology is concerning because human behaviour is central to every aspect of an organisation – its culture, management practices, teamwork, decision-making processes, innovation, marketing, you name it. If companies fail to rigorously study and apply research-based behavioural insights, they are effectively driving blind.

Ignoring the Science of Human Behaviour

Psychology is a legitimate field of science that has produced a wealth of empirical findings on human cognition, motivation, bias, social dynamics, and more. And not just academic theories, but proven applications in areas like user experience design, behaviour change, survey methodology, and marketing. Ignoring this body of knowledge is akin to an engineer neglecting physics or materials science.

The System of Profound Knowledge

Deming admonished that businesses must take a fundamentally different view of work, one focused on understanding systems holistically – including the human dimensions and variation. Yet even today, businesses tend to fixate on simplistic notions like employee incentives, traditional hierarchies, coercion, and other regressive pop psych-led management dogma. They give short shrift to the scientific realities of how people actually think, feel and behave.

A True Commitment to Understanding People

Of course, as Deming taught, psychology alone does not automatically confer excellence in management. It requires a coherent philosophy, sustained practice, and an unwavering commitment to continual learning, all of which many businesses still lack. But grasping human behaviour remains a crucial foundational layer.

For companies to truly embrace people-centric management as Deming advocated, they might choose to move beyond gimmicky pop psych trends and selective, self-serving interpretations of research. They may, instead, choose to dive deep into the expansive knowledge base of rigorous behavioural science – including the inconvenient truths it reveals – and apply those insights in thoughtful, judicious ways. Only then can businesses hope to make substantive and lasting improvements. Of course, improvement of any kind seem decidedly out of favour at the moment.

The Personal Upside of Business Improvement

March 26, 2024
Actionable Insights, Antimatter principle, Article, Business, Capability development, Improvement, Learning
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The Personal Upside of Business Improvement

[Or – what’s all this business improvement malarkey, and what’s in it for me?]

Waning Interest Post-Pandemic

As we’ve learned to live with COVID, much has changed in how businesses operate. Remote work is now the norm rather than the exception. Supply chains have been disrupted. Customer behaviours have shifted significantly. In the midst of this turbulence, it feels like interest in business improvement initiatives has waned and taken a backseat.

Survival Mode

The sluggish economy and persistent inflation have put many companies in survival mode, just trying to keep the lights on. Ambitious programmes to reengineer the way the work works, implement new systems, or drive improved effectiveness now feel like costly distractions. After all the chaos of the last few years, who has the bandwidth for that right now?

The Personal Upside

While the economic arguments for deprioritising business improvement are understandable, I think we’re missing something important – the personal upside. Streamlining operations, updating shared assumptions and beliefs, developing better practices, and finding ways to work smarter don’t just benefit the business. They allow each of us to be more successful and fulfilled as individuals.

The Costs of Inefficiency

Think about it – what does bloated, inefficient business activity translate to on a personal level? Wasted time on tedious manual tasks. Constant firefighting and rework thanks to poor ways of working. Headaches and frustrations navigating clunky systems and workarounds. At its worst, organisational dysfunction mentally drains and demotivates employees to the point they burn out or quit.

The Benefits for Individuals

On the flip side, smart business improvements that simplify and optimise how we execute allow us to flow through high-value work with less friction. We spend more time on the energising aspects of our roles utilising our skills and making an impact. Our days feel more productive and purposeful rather than mired in busywork and cleanup. More gets done, with less expended effort.And we learn.

From streamlined reporting that saves hours a week, to improved workflows that reduce costly errors, to delighting customers through superior service – the personal benefits of working at a well-oiled operation are massive in terms of satisfaction, growth, and work-life balance.

The Workplace Attraction Issue

Given the intensely competitive landscape for people, any organisation looking to attract and retain commited and engaged people might choose to prioritise continuous improvement as part of their employee value proposition. When people can channel their energies into engaging, rewarding work day after day, that’s when we build exceptional teams delivering exceptional results.

Don’t Brush It Aside

So don’t just brush business improvement aside as a nice-to-have these days. See it as key driver of personal success and engagement, helping your teams flourish while fuelling joy and delight in the (distributed) workplace.

What Are You Missing Out On?

March 22, 2024
Article, Business, Capability development, Collective psyche, Culture change, Improvement, Innovation, Joy, Leadership, Management, Memeology, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Paradigm shifts, Quintessence
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What Are You Missing Out On?

In any organisation, the beliefs and assumptions that everyone holds in common can have a profound impact on culture, productivity, and overall success. By neglecting shared assumptions and beliefs you may be missing out on harnessing the power of aligning them for optimal performance. But what exactly could this approach unlock for your organisation?

For Executives and Senior Managers

Shaping the Organisational Mindset

As a leader, you set the tone for the entire company’s culture and worldview. However, failing to examine and actively shape the company’s ingrained assumptions can lead to misalignment and hinder performance. Organisational psychotherapy illuminates existing belief systems – a.k.a. the collective mindset – and provides means to cultivate an organisational mindset centered on the things that matter to you, and a unified vision for success.

Transcending Limiting Assumptions

Over time, organisations develop deep-rooted assumptions that act as invisible shackles, limiting innovation, adaptation and achievement of goals. You could be missing out on breaking through these limitations by not exploring the underlying group psyche. Organisational psychotherapy techniques identify and reframe constraining assumptions, allowing you and your peers, and your workforce, to operate from an empowered, possibility-focused perspective.

For Middle Managers

Bridging Misaligned Beliefs

In the pivotal role of middle management, you navigate the shared assumptions of both leadership and frontline teams. Unaddressed, differing beliefs between groups can breed misunderstanding and hinder synergy. Organisational psychotherapy provides a framework for uncovering disconnects and fostering more cohesive, aligned assumptions across all levels.

Fostering Trust and Psychological Safety

Highly effective teams are built on a foundation of trust and the ability to take interpersonal risks. You could be missing out on this key ingredient if psychological barriers rooted in distrustful and deleterious assumptions remain unaddressed. Psychotherapeutic interventions help everyone examine and reshape beliefs around vulnerability, conflict, and collaboration.

For Technical Workers

Unleashing Pioneering Thinking

For technical roles requiring cutting-edge solutions, limiting assumptions around “how things are done” stifle innovation. You may be missing out on radically more effective approaches by not exploring and expanding your team’s collective assumptions about e.g. what is possible. Psychotherapy illuminates blind spots and reframes beliefs to open minds to truely different thinking.

Fostering Knowledge-Sharing

In highly specialised technical domains, knowledge-sharing is critical but often obstructed by entrenched assumptions of competence hierarchies or domain territoriality. Organisational psychotherapy provides means to surface and reflect on these counterproductive beliefs, instead opeing the door to assumptions that celebrate joyful work, collaborative growth and learning.

Summary

Embracing organisational psychotherapy unlocks an often-overlooked yet powerful source of competitive advantage – the shared assumptions and beliefs that underpin an organisation’s culture, communication, and performance. By neglecting this dimension, you may be missing out on by not giving organisational psychotherapy serious consideration as a powerful tool for your toolbox:

For Executives and Senior Managers:
The ability to purposefully shape an organisational mindset aligned with your shared vision and strategic objectives. As well as the opportunity to transcend limiting assumptions that constrain innovation, adaptation, and achievement.

For Middle Managers:
A framework for bridging misaligned beliefs across levels that breed misunderstanding and hinder synergy. And fostering a bedrock of trust and psychological safety that enables teams to take interpersonal risks and collaborate effectively.

For Technical Workers:
Unleashing pioneering, radically different thinking by reframing beliefs around “how things are done.” And cultivating knowledge-sharing by dispelling assumptions of competence hierarchies and domain territoriality.

At every level of an organisation, insidious assumptions and beliefs can act as unseen forces, obstructing potential and stalling progress. You could be missing out on dismantling these forces and instead harnessing the power of shared vision, alignment of mindsets, and collaborative beliefs.

Organisational psychotherapy provides the insight and means to illuminate, examine, and reflect on the collective beliefs and assumptions influencing your organisation’s culture and performance. Is it yet time you explored how to unleash this underutilised power and stop missing out on achieving new heights of success?

What Don’t You Know?

March 19, 2024
Actionable Insights, Article, Capability development, Careers, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Quintessence
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What Don’t You Know?

The Known Unknowns

As software developers, we inevitably encounter knowledge gaps – areas where we are certifiably clueless. Perhaps we’ve never worked with databases, so we recognise terms like “schema” and “queries” as complete unknowns we’d need to study.

These are the “known unknowns” – subjects we can identify as unfamiliar terrain, even if we can’t articulate precisely what lies in that territory. While frustrating, known unknowns at least make the gaps in our understanding visible.

The Invisible Unknowns

Far more insidious is the state we call metacluelessness – being unaware of unknown domains altogether. These are the invisible “unknown unknowns” – entire domains of knowledge and skill whose existence we fail to even comprehend.

For us developers, metacluelessness blinds us to whole realms of critical concepts and practices. We may be experts in shipping web apps, but oblivious to vital DevOps disciplines like infrastructure-as-code, monitoring, or chaos engineering. Or talented backend coders who have never conceived of cutting-edge frontend paradigms like WebAssembly or Jamstack. And then there’s the whole raft of invisibles related to the way the work works – not necessarily an issue for micromanaged developers, but for self-managing teams, crucial.

These aren’t just knowledge gaps – they’re unknowns we don’t know exist. Unfathomable blind spots preventing us from recognising what we’re missing.

The Illusion of Mastery

Metacluelessness is pernicious because it breeds complacency and over-confidence in our ranks. When we’re unaware of the boundaries of our mastery, it’s easy to succumb to arrogance about our depth of experience.

Without recognising our blind spots, we assume comprehensive expertise simply because we’ve never glimpsed the unknown territories. This false mastery mindset leaves us closed-off to growth, unable to even ask the questions that would identify new areas for development.

Shattering the Illusion

The antidote to our metacluelessness is shattering the illusion that our knowledge has no limits. It’s the humble admission that our expertise, however vast, is circumscribed by invisible domains we cannot fathom.

This isn’t easy – it requires us to continually question the limits of our understanding. To surround ourselves with new perspectives and domains. To listen for obscure terminology that hints at whole schools of thought we’ve never apprehended.

Only by identifying the realities of our metacluelessness can we begin addressing it. Grappling with unknown unknowns, if only to clarify what they are, not comprehend them fully. It’s an endless process of mapping the boundaries of our ignorance.

The Never-Ending Terrain

For us developers, pushing past metacluelessness is an infinite game. The leading edges of the intersection of software, work and business are so vast and emergent, there will always be new blind spots blocking our peripheral vision.

As we shed light on one enclave of metacluelessness, it reveals dozens more shadows where blind spots reside. It’s a perpetual cycle of overcoming the limitations of our expertise, only to uncover new frontiers of ignorance.

But embracing this cycle, and the inherent metacluelessness that comes with being human, is the path to true mastery. We cannot eliminate blind spots entirely, but we can develop the self-awareness to recognise their existence – and the curiosity and humility to keep exploring.

Deming’s 95/5 Principle Negates Individual Coaching

March 15, 2024
Alien tech, Article, Business, Capability development, Coaching, Collaboration, Collective psyche, Culture change, Deming, Dialogue, Improvement, Learning, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy
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Deming’s 95/5 Principle Negates Individual Coaching

In the world of organisational improvement and performance enhancement, W. Edwards Deming’s principles have had a profound impact. One of his most famous principles, the 95/5 rule, suggests that 95% of performance issues are attributable to the system and processes, while only 5% are due to the individual worker. This principle has however not led many organisations to prioritise systemic changes over individual development initiatives. So does Deming’s 95/5 principle entirely negate the value of individual coaching? Let’s explore.

The 95/5 Principle: Putting Systems First

According to Deming’s 95/5 principle, the vast majority of performance problems stem from flawed organisational systems, processes, and cultures. Focusing on individual skill development or coaching would be akin to treating the symptoms without addressing the root cause. Deming advocated for a systems thinking approach, wherein organisations critically examine and optimise their practices, policies, and culture to create an environment conducive to success.

In the context of collaborative knowledge work, this principle suggests that individual coaching efforts will have limited impact when the underlying organisational systems and processes are not optimised for effective collaboration, knowledge sharing, and collective problem-solving.

The Shortcomings of Individual Coaching

Proponents of Deming’s philosophy argue that individual coaching alone is insufficient in addressing performance issues within collaborative knowledge work environments. Even if individuals receive coaching to enhance their communication, teamwork, or creative thinking skills, these efforts will be undermined or rendered ineffective when the systems and culture within which they operate are counterproductive or siloed.

For example, imagine a scenario where knowledge workers receive coaching on effective knowledge sharing practices, but the organisation lacks a robust knowledge management system or has rigid hierarchical structures that discourage cross-functional collaboration. In such cases, the individual coaching will yield limited results due to systemic barriers.

Organisational Transformation: The Key to Collaborative Success

According to Deming’s principle, our primary focus should be on transforming organisational systems and culture to foster an environment conducive to collaborative knowledge work. This could involve:

  • Optimizing communication channels and knowledge sharing platforms
  • Breaking down departmental silos and promoting cross-functional collaboration
  • Fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement
  • Implementing agile and flexible processes that adapt to changing needs
  • Establishing clear roles, responsibilities, and accountability mechanisms
  • Organisational psychotherapy – enabling the organisation to surface and reflect on its shared assumptions and beliefs

By prioritising systemic changes, organisations create an enabling environment where individuals can thrive and collaborate effectively, minimising the need for extensive individual coaching.

The Verdict: Individual Coaching Has Limited Value

While individual coaching may provide some marginal benefits, Deming’s 95/5 principle suggests that it has limited value in the grand scheme of enhancing collaborative knowledge work. Organisations that solely rely on individual coaching initiatives without addressing the underlying systemic issues will experience suboptimal results and inefficiencies.

The path to success lies in embracing a systems thinking approach, transforming organisational assumptions and beliefs, structures, and culture to create an environment that fosters collaboration, knowledge sharing, and collective problem-solving. Only then can organisations unlock the full potential of their knowledge workers and achieve sustainable performance improvements.

In conclusion, Deming’s 95/5 principle entirely negates the value of individual coaching as a standalone solution for enhancing collaborative knowledge work. Instead, it calls for a fundamental shift towards organisational transformation, where systemic changes wrought through i.e. organisational psychotherapy take precedence over individual development initiatives.

How “Constant State of Ship” Drives Transformative Practices

March 11, 2024
Antimatter principle, Article, Automation, Business, Capability development, Culture change, Engineering, Familiar, Fellowship, Flow, Improvement, Learning, Memeology, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Product development, Quintessence, Self-organisation
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How “Constant State of Ship” Drives Transformative Practices

Introduction

In the relentless pursuit of delivering value to customers, with unparalleled speed and reliability, the software development world has yet to widely embrace a revolutionary principle – the “Constant State of Ship”. This state, where software artefacts and products are perpetually poised for release into production environments within just 15 minutes’ notice, has emerged as a driving force behind best practices that enable true continuous deployment. Remarkably, this groundbreaking concept formed the foundation of the pioneering “Javelin” software development approach, a visionary approach conceived by FlowChainSensei (Bob Marshall) at Familiar circa 1996 and onwards, foreshadowing the industry’s even-now-yet-to-be-realised embrace of these practices.

The Power of “Constant State of Ship”

The “Constant State of Ship” serves us as an unyielding forcing function, inviting teams to adopt and adhere to a comprehensive set of best practices that catalyse the seamless flow of software into production. Let us explore how this principle reinforces each of thirteen fundamentals of Continuous Delivery (hat tip to Dave Farley):

The 13 Fundamentals Enabled

  1. A Repeatable, Reliable ProcessWith the ever-present possibility of an imminent release, teams may choose to establish a well-defined, automated pipeline for building, testing, and deploying their software. This process needs to be repeatable and reliable, minimising the risk of human error and ensuring consistency across releases.

    The “Constant State of Ship” mindset suggests that teams have a streamlined, automated release pipeline that can be triggered at any moment. Manual steps and ad-hoc and emergency exception procedures become liabilities, as they introduce variability and increase the chances of mistakes during deployment.

    To achieve this repeatability and reliability, teams are supported to invest in build automation tools, automated testing frameworks, and deployment automation pipelines. Every step of the release pipeline can be codified, documented, and thoroughly tested to ensure predictable outcomes each time.

    Moreover, the “Constant State of Ship” principle fosters an environment of continuous learning and improvement. Any failures or issues encountered during a release are promptly analysed, and the release process is refined to prevent future occurrences. This cycle of continuous feedback and optimisation ensures that the release pipeline remains reliable and efficient, even as the codebase and systems evolve over time.

    By operating in a “Constant State of Ship” mode, teams are invited to treat the release pipeline as a critical component of their software development lifecycle, investing the necessary resources and effort to make it repeatable, reliable, and capable of delivering changes to production environments at a moment’s notice.

  2. Automate All the ThingsIn a “Constant State of Ship” paradigm, manual interventions become significant bottlenecks and risks, hindering the required velocity and reliability. Automation becomes imperative, spanning every aspect of the delivery pipeline, from code compilation to infrastructure provisioning. The threat of an imminent release leaves no room for error-prone manual processes that could delay or derail a deployment. Teams must automate build processes, test execution, environment provisioning, deployment steps, and release orchestration to ensure consistency and minimise the risk of human error.
  3. Maintain a Releasable StateThe core tenet of “Constant State of Ship” requires that the codebase and associated artifacts remain in a perpetually releasable state. This principle invites teams to address issues promptly, maintain a high level of code quality, and vigilantly consider the accumulation of technical debt. Any defects, bugs, or instabilities in the codebase could potentially disrupt an imminent release, leading to costly delays or failures. Teams must adopt practices like continuous integration, automated testing, and ensemble programming to ensure that the codebase remains in a stable, deployable state at all times.
  4. Focus on Robust (Real) Quality Assurance

    In the “Constant State of Ship” paradigm, where the possibility of demand for an immediate release is ever-present, quality assurance cannot be treated as an afterthought. “Constant State of Ship” invites the integration of quality practices throughout the entire development lifecycle, ensuring that quality is baked into the software from inception to deployment.

    While testing plays a role, it is merely one facet of a comprehensive quality assurance strategy. Teams may choose to adopt a holistic approach that emphasises quality as a continuous, pervasive practice woven into every aspect of the development approach.

    This begins with cultivating a culture of quality-driven development, where every team member participates in collective ownership and responsibility for the quality of their work. Practices such as clarity of (quantified a la Gilb) requirements, ensemble programming, peer code reviews, adherence to coding standards, and continuous static code analysis can help identify and mitigate potential issues early in the development cycle.

    Furthermore, “Constant State of Ship” invites teams to embrace principles of iterative and incremental development. By breaking down complex features into smaller, manageable, well-bounded increments, teams can more effectively manage quality risks and ensure that each increment and subsystem meets the required quality criteria before progressing to the next.

    Continuous integration and deployment pipelines play a pivotal role in this quality assurance strategy, enabling teams to continuously validate and verify the software’s functionality, performance, and stability with each incremental change. These pipelines automate the execution of various quality checks, including unit tests, integration tests, and performance tests, providing real-time feedback and enabling teams to address issues promptly.

    However, quality assurance extends beyond mere testing alone. Teams have the opportunity to adopt a holistic approach that encompasses design practices, architectural decisions, and operational readiness. By considering quality implications at every stage of the software development lifecycle, teams can proactively identify and mitigate potential risks, ensuring that the software remains in a releasable state at all times.

    “Constant State of Ship” elevates quality assurance to a core discipline that permeates every aspect of the software development effort. By fostering a culture of quality-driven development and adopting continuous quality practices, teams can attend to the needs of all the Folks That Matter™, with confidence, knowing that their software meets the highest standards of reliability, stability, and performance.

  5. Implement Robust Deployment PipelinesAchieving a “Constant State of Ship” necessitates the implementation of robust deployment pipelines. These pipelines automate the entire process of building, testing, and deploying software changes, ensuring consistency and minimizing the risk of errors. With the ever-present possibility of an imminent release, teams cannot afford manual, error-prone deployment processes. Automated deployment pipelines provide a standardised, repeatable path to production, reducing the likelihood of failed or inconsistent deployments.
  6. Monitor the PipelineRegular smoke testing of the deployment pipeline is crucial in a “Constant State of Ship” mode. This practice helps catch issues early, before they can impact production environments, ensuring the pipeline’s reliability and preventing costly downtime. The possibility of an imminent release amplifies the importance of having a thoroughly validated deployment pipeline. Smoke tests act as a safety net, verifying the integrity of the pipeline and identifying any potential issues that could disrupt a deployment.
  7. Integrate ConstantlyThe “Constant State of Ship” mindset encourages teams to integrate their changes frequently, often multiple times per day. This practice surfaces issues early, reduces merge conflicts, and ensures that the codebase remains in a releasable state, ready for deployment at any given moment. Infrequent integration can lead to divergent codebases, making it harder to identify and resolve conflicts, which could potentially disrupt an imminent release. By integrating frequently, teams can maintain a stable, unified codebase that is always primed for deployment.
  8. Evolve the ArchitectureMaintaining a “Constant State of Ship” over time invites the continuous evolution of the system’s architecture (see also: Reverse Conway). Are teams prepared to refactor and adapt their architectures to accommodate new requirements, technologies, and scaling needs, without compromising the ability to release rapidly and reliably? As products grow and evolve, architectural decisions made early on may become hindrances to continuous deployment. The “Constant State of Ship” principle invites teams to proactively evaluate and evolve their architectures, ensuring that they remain flexible, scalable, and conducive to rapid releases.
  9. Leverage Data EnvironmentsWith the constant possibility of an imminent release, the ability to provision and manage data environments becomes critical. Teams may choose to adopt practices like database versioning, data seeding, and data masking to ensure consistent and reliable testing and deployment across environments, minimising the risk of data-related issues in production. The “Constant State of Ship” mindset invites a robust data management strategy that enables seamless and repeatable deployments, regardless of the data complexities involved.
  10. Mirror Production EnvironmentsTo minimise the risk of issues arising from environmental differences, teams operating in a “Constant State of Ship” mode may choose to ensure that their development, testing, and staging environments closely mirror production environments in terms of configuration, data, and infrastructure. This practice helps identify and address potential issues before they impact the live production system. The possibility of an imminent release heightens the importance of having production-like environments, as any discrepancies could lead to unexpected behavior or failures during deployment.
  11. Codify InfrastructureManually provisioning and configuring infrastructure for each release becomes a significant bottleneck when operating in a “Constant State of Ship” mode. Adopting Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices, where infrastructure is defined and managed through code, enables teams to provision and tear down environments rapidly and consistently, minimising delays and reducing the risk of configuration drift. The “Constant State of Ship” principle invites a high degree of automation and repeatability in infrastructure management, making IaC a beneficial practice for ensuring rapid, reliable deployments.
  12. Foster Collaborative OwnershipAchieving a “Constant State of Ship” invites a high degree of collaboration and shared ownership among team members. Siloed responsibilities and knowledge become obstacles to rapid delivery. Teams may choose to adopt practices that promote collective code ownership, cross-functional collaboration, and shared understanding of the codebase and delivery processes. The “Constant State of Ship” mindset invites a culture of collective responsibility, where all team members are empowered to contribute to and understand the entire delivery process, enabling seamless and efficient releases.
  13. Continuous ImprovementOperating in a “Constant State of Ship” mode exposes inefficiencies and bottlenecks in the delivery pipeline and processes with uncompromising clarity. Teams may choose to embrace a culture of continuous improvement, regularly reviewing their practices, identifying areas for optimisation, and implementing changes to enhance their ability to deliver value rapidly and reliably. The constant presence of imminent releases acts as a driving force for continuous improvement, encouraging teams to continuously refine their processes, tools, and practices to achieve higher levels of velocity and quality. FlowChain was designed to systematise this very purpose.

The Visionary “Javelin” Approach

The “Javelin” approach (initally named “Jerid”) pioneered by me and my teams at Familiar from 1996 onward, was truly ahead of its time, recognising the transformative power of the “Constant State of Ship” mindset. By enshrining this principle as a cornerstone from its inception, “Javelin” has paved the way for the modern continuous deployment practices that have since become poised to gain industry standard status. This pioneering approach, along with FlowChain and e.g. Prod•gnosis, Flow•gnosis, Product Aikido, etc. exemplifies the spirit of continuous improvement intrinsic to the “Constant State of Ship” principle, ensuring its enduring relevance and impact.

Deep Cultural Implications

Reshaping the Culture and Mindset

Adopting the “Constant State of Ship” principle suggests a profound transformation that extends way beyond technical practices and processes – it hints at a seismic shift in the culture and mindset of software development teams and their parent organisations. This metamorphosis permeates every aspect of the organisation, reshaping shared assumptions, beliefs, and ways of working. However, navigating such a profound cultural shift can be a daunting challenge, often met with resistance and inertia.

This is where the discipline of organisational psychotherapy plays a pivotal role. By applying principles from psychotherapy, sociology, and group dynamics, organisational psychotherapy facilitates teams’ cultural and mindset shifts required to embrace the “Constant State of Ship” paradigm smoothly and effectively.

A Culture of Ownership and Accountability through Empowerment

The “Constant State of Ship” mindset fosters a culture of collective ownership and accountability. Organisational psychotherapy techniques, such as participative decision-making and fellowship, empower team members to take responsibility for the quality, stability, and deployability of the codebase and overall product. This sense of empowerment cultivates a culture of shared ownership, where individuals proactively address issues, collaborate across boundaries, and collectively strive for continuous improvement.

Embracing Transparency and Trust

Maintaining a “Constant State of Ship” requires a high degree of transparency and trust among team members. Organisational psychotherapy practices, such as surfacing shared assumptions and beliefs, encourage open communication and facilitate the identification of problems and risks early. By fostering an atmosphere where team members feel comfortable expressing concerns, sharing mistakes, and seeking help, a culture of transparency and trust emerges, enabling teams to collectively address challenges and ensure the software remains in a releasable state.

Prioritising Continuous Learning

The “Constant State of Ship” principle instills a mindset of continuous learning and improvement. With each release, teams gain valuable insights into their processes, tools, and practices. Embracing new shared assumptions becomes essential, as teams must continuously refine and adapt their approaches based on feedback and lessons learned. This culture of continuous learning fosters an environment of experimentation, where failures are embraced as opportunities for growth, and success is measured by the ability to deliver value rapidly and reliably.

Aligning Towards a Common Goal

Ultimately, the “Constant State of Ship” principle unifies teams around a common goal: meeting the needs of all the Folks That Matter™ with unparalleled speed and reliability. This shared mission transcends individual roles, responsibilities, and technical disciplines. It creates a sense of collective purpose, where every team member’s contribution, regardless of their specific function, is valued and recognised as essential to achieving this overarching objective.

By leveraging organisational psychotherapy techniques, organisations can accelerate and streamline the cultural and mindset shifts required to embrace the “Constant State of Ship” paradigm. This discipline not only makes the transition quicker and easier but also more cost-effective, as it addresses the root causes of resistance and inertia, facilitating a smoother and more sustainable transformation.

By reshaping the culture and mindset of software development teams, the “Constant State of Ship” principle cultivates an environment conducive to continuous deployment success. It fosters a sense of collective ownership, transparency, continuous learning, and shared purpose – traits that are indispensable in today’s rapidly evolving software landscape.

Embracing the Future

When the ability to swiftly adapt and innovate is paramount, the “Constant State of Ship” principle emerges as a beacon, guiding software development teams towards a future of quiet competence and competitiveness. By embracing this mindset, as exemplified by the visionary “Javelin” approach, teams can unlock the power to attend to folks’ needs with unprecedented speed, reliability, and quality – solidifying their organisation’s position as industry leaders in the software development arena.

Metacluelessness – The Competence Blind Spot Plaguing Organisations

March 10, 2024
Actionable Insights, Alien tech, Article, Business, Capability development, Ethics, Gullibility, Improvement, Management, Organisational effectiveness, Psychology, Quintessence, Teambuilding, Toxic behaviours
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Metacluelessness – The Competence Blind Spot Plaguing Organisations

The Danger of Overconfidence

As a manager, having confidence in your abilities is certainly important for leading teams and making critical business decisions. However, there is a fine line between self-assurance and falling victim to a dangerous cognitive bias called metacluelessness – a lack of awareness about the boundaries of your own competence.

Clifford’s Ethics of Belief

Philosopher William Kingdon Clifford highlighted the ethical importance of not allowing ourselves to remain in a state of false beliefs or delusions. In his essay “The Ethics of Belief,” Clifford argues it is wrong, whenever the occasion arises, to believe something on insufficient evidence. To do so is to erect a “scorner’s chair” for truth and to fail to uphold our fundamental duty as human beings to pursue truth diligently.

Metacluelessness as Unethical Delusion

Metacluelessness directly violates this duty that Clifford lays out. It causes managers to grossly overestimate their skills, knowledge, and overall managerial competence based on delusional confidence rather than objective assessment of the evidence of their understanding. Managers suffering from metacluelessness erect their own “scorner’s chairs” for truth in their areas of responsibility.

They think they have a solid handle on principles, best practices, people, psycvhology, emerging trends, and the complexities involved, when in reality there are gaping holes in their grasp that they fail to acknowledge. Suffering from metacluelessness, managers operate under a false sense of mastery over critical management disciplines. They are clueless about the true extent of their cluelessness and knowledge gaps. This creates disastrous blind spots in their judgment and decision-making.

The Root of Managerial Arrogance

As Clifford states, “The source of all the miserable self-idolatries…the despicable vices…is nothing other than a persuasion existing in men’s minds not based on fair reasoning and evidence.” Metacluelessness breeds overconfidence based on delusional beliefs about one’s true competence. It is the root of managerial arrogance, close-mindedness, dismissal of risks, and poor strategic vision.

Catastrophic Consequences

The consequences can be catastrophic – flawed strategies, missed opportunities, sunk costs from failures, poor leadership examples set for teams, and more. Entire companies have met their demise because executive leadership teams suffered from the “miserable self-idolatry” of individual and collective metacluelessness in critical areas.

Cultivating True Competence

Combating metacluelessness requires cultivating true competence – an awareness of what you don’t know and diligence in addressing those shortcomings. It starts with the intellectual humility that Clifford upheld as critical for a responsible pursuit of truth and knowledge. Admit the limits of your expertise without feeling inadequate. As Clifford wrote, “A generous admission of knowledge gaps is the condition of all real progress.”

The Best Never Stop Learning

Recognise that as a manager, you supervise teams filled with specialised knowledge you cannot possibly match in every domain. True competence means knowing when to rely on the wisdom of others with deeper mastery and looking for opportunities to expand your own understanding through fair reasoning and examination of evidence. It’s about embracing a habit of perpetual learning to strengthen beliefs in alignment with evidential proof.

The best managers never stop questioning their grasp of important principles and best practices based on the ethics of belief laid out by Clifford. Don’t let the “despicable vice” of overconfident metacluelessness derail your judgment through beliefs detached from rigorous evidentiary standards. Proactively identify and confront the boundaries of your competence. Only then can you become a more complete, ethically sound, and effective manager capable of leading teams and companies to success built on a foundation of diligently pursued truths.

Effective Regulation

March 7, 2024
Article, Business, Capability development, Culture change, Dialogue, Improvement, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Paradigm shifts, Quintessence
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Effective Regulation

Within business organisations, the discourse around effective regulation often becomes polarised, oscillating between the extremes of rigid compliance and laissez-faire approaches. Compliance, typically understood as strict adherence to rules and procedures, can foster an environment of micromanagement that stifles innovation. On the other hand, a laissez-faire attitude, characterised by minimal oversight, can lead to chaos, unethical practices, and a lack of accountability.

However, true effective regulation does not reside on this spectrum between micromanagement and laissez-faire. Rather, it represents a fundamentally distinct “third way” – a holistic approach that transcends the limitations of these two extremes, fostering a culture of responsibility, continuous improvement, creativity, and autonomy.

Redefining Regulation as Principled Action

The third way redefines regulation not as a checklist of rules to be blindly followed, but as a commitment to upholding core ethical principles and standards aligned with the organisation’s mission. This paradigm shift requires:

  1. Clearly articulating the organisation’s shared assumptions and beliefs, including its guiding purpose, principles and values.
  2. Engaging employees in embodying these principles through e.g. dialogue.
  3. Revising policies to reinforce the principles, not merely enforce rules.
  4. Nurturing critical thinking over box-ticking compliance.

By empowering individuals to internalize and live these principles, a sense of ownership and genuine accountability is cultivated.

Organizational Psychotherapy: Fostering Shared Responsibility

Central to the third way is a culture where every member is invested in upholding ethical practices and sustainable growth. Organisational psychotherapy can be a powerful tool in nurturing this culture by:

  1. Facilitating open dialogues to surface underlying shared attitudes and beliefs.
  2. Identifying systemic issues impacting trust and accountability.
  3. Developing tailored interventions to address dysfunctional group dynamics.
  4. Providing a safe space for honest feedback and conflict resolution.
  5. Make attending to folks’ needs a central plank.

Through this therapeutic process, organisations can heal dysfunctional patterns, rebuild trust, and instill a genuine sense of shared responsibility that transcends the compliance-laissez-faire dichotomy.

Continuous Learning: An Organisational Ethos

The third way recognises that effective regulation is an ever-evolving process, requiring a steadfast commitment to continuous learning and improvement as an organisational ethos:

  1. Encouraging the continuous development of improved abilities and intelligence, by reframing failures as learning opportunities.
  2. Implementing substantive, regular dialogue on emerging best practices.
  3. Facilitating cross-functional knowledge sharing and mentoring.
  4. Gathering feedback from all the Folks That Matter™ to identify areas for development.

By making attending to folks’ needs a core value, organisations can remain agile, adaptive, and always improving their approach to regulation and governance.

Ethical Leadership and Collaboration

Effective regulation invites exemplars who embody the principles the organisation aims to instill, proselytising ethical conduct through their actions and decisions. Organisations can champion the third way by:

  1. Exemplifying ethical behaviour in all things.
  2. Openly acknowledging mistakes and pivoting course when needed.
  3. Prioritising ethical decision-making in all communication and conduct.
  4. Actively listening and incorporating feedback from across the organisation.
  5. Fostering cross-functional collaboration on key initiatives.

This ethical behaviour, amplified by collaboration, inspires others to genuinely embrace the third way of effective regulation.

Summary

The third way represents a distinct approach that transcends the micromanagement-laissez-faire spectrum, offering a holistic, principled path centered on shared responsibility, continuous learning, and collaborative ethical leadership. By leveraging tools like organisational psychotherapy, mindset shifts, and genuine organisational commitment, businesses can cultivate an environment that upholds ethical conduct, innovation, sustainable growth, and the highest standards of accountability and integrity.

The Power of Reflective Questions

March 5, 2024
Actionable Insights, Article, Capability development, Collaboration, Community, Conversations, Culture change, Dialogue
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The Power of Reflective Questions

The Impact of Our Questions

When it comes to understanding employee satisfaction and well-being, the questions we ask hold immense power. They shape the depth of insight we receive and the degree of self-reflection they prompt in others.

Simple vs. Reflective Questions

Consider these two contrasting questions:

  1. “Do you feel happy in your work and workplace?”
  2. “What factors contribute to making you feel happy or sad about your work and workplace?”

The first question stands broad and surface-level. A simple yes/no response fails to encourage any deeper self-reflection on the part of the employee. While they may respond truthfully, that single word provides no window into the nuanced drivers behind their feelings. Some might describe this as a “closed” question.

The second question, however, demands thoughtful introspection. It pushes the employee to pinpoint the root causes and specific elements that amplify or detract from their workplace fulfillment and positive sentiments about their role. Some might describe this as an “open” question.

The Value of Self-Reflection

An insightful response might go:

“I find happiness in this role’s meaningful work and growth opportunities. However, the long hours, lack of work-life balance, and poor management communication leave me frequently stressed and discouraged.”

This level of self-reflection yields far richer insights for the employer and embloyee, both. They gain a holistic view into not just the employee’s mood, but the underlying factors and pain points shaping their experience each day.

Fostering Authentic Understanding

The quality of the questions we ask directly impacts the quality of self-reflection. When we ask binary, closed-ended questions about complex issues like happiness, we restrict the potential for enlightening personal contemplation, and meaningful dialogue.

In contrast, open-ended exploratory inquiries serve as prompts for valuable self-reflection. They require respondents to purposefully examine their emotions, motivations, and the nuanced elements influencing their attitudes and engagement levels.

As employers, if we seek authentic understandings rather than superficial sentiments, we must create room for self-reflection through our questions. Instead of asking “Are you happy?”, we might choose to frame inquiries that facilitate thoughtful exploration: “What brings you a sense of meaning and fulfillment in your work? What factors leave you feeling dissatisfied or burnt out?”

The Path to Better Connection

When we invite this level of self-reflection, we don’t just understand an employee’s current state. We gain powerful insights into the roots of their experiences – both positive and negative. Armed with that deeper awareness, we can enact changes, reinforce strengths, and directly address issues eroding engagement and achievement, and sucking joy.

In the quest for connection, self-reflective questions are an under-utilised superpower. They enable not just data collection, but a purposeful exploration of the human experience we’re aiming to improve. Let’s craft questions that illuminate richer truths and inspire more fulfillment.

Seniority

March 5, 2024
Article, Business, Capability development, Experts, Fellowship, Genius, Software development, Systems thinking, Teambuilding
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Seniority

The labels “junior,” “mid-level,” and “senior” get batted around frequently. But the true hallmark of a senior has nothing to do with the years under their belt. Rather, it’s about having gained the ability to introspect, adapt, and apply hard-won lessons from seeing a multitude of challenges and scenarios.

The Path is Lit by Diverse Problem-Solving

What most sets senior developers, engineers, and business folks apart from the less senior is the wealth of different problems they’ve encountered and the innovative solutions they’ve seen, and crafted. They’ve grappled with issues spanning:

  1. Appreciation for a System: This involves understanding how various components within an organisation or community interact with each other. It emphasises looking at an organisation as a whole system rather than isolated components. It also stresses understanding how actions and changes in one area can impact other areas.
  2. Theory of Knowledge: This relates to the concepts around how learning and knowledge acquisition take place. It covers topics like operational definitions, theory of variation, psychology, and a theory of learning. The aim is to guide learning, decision making, and organisational practices.
  3. Knowledge about Variation: This involves understanding variation, both controlled (common cause) and uncontrolled (special cause) variation. It stresses using statistical thinking and tools to study process variation over time and identify the root causes of variation.
  4. Knowledge of Psychology: This refers to an understanding of human behavior, motivation, and interactions between individuals and circumstances. It emphasises cooperation, learning, fellowship, and driving out fear from the workplace to enable intrinsic motivation.

This diversity of experiences has hewn true wisdom – the ability to rapidly explore roots of problems, innovate novel approaches, predict potential pitfalls, and maintain a flexible mindset. The path to seniority is illuminated by persistent introspection, asking “What worked?” “What didn’t?” “How can we apply those learnings going forward?”

A Cross-Functional Vision Emerges

By being immersed in a vast array of problems across multiple domains, senior people begin to connect the dots in a profound way. They gain a systems-level view that transcends any single function or specialisation.

A senior software person isn’t just a coding guru, but someone who understands development, QA (and the real meaing of the term), infrastructure, security, and how technology drives business impact. A senior business person doesn’t just regurgitate methods from an MBA textbook, but can intuitively design strategies that harmonise sales, marketing, product, and operations.

This comprehensive vision allows seniors to participate fully in high-level initiatives, make strategic decisions, and provide indispensable coaching substantiated by their own intense introspection over years of learning experiences.

Crucibles of Collaboration and Wisdom Sharing

The most impactful senior roles aren’t just about solving problems, but about spreading the philosophy of how to solve problems. The most valuable senior folks spread their hard-won wisdom across different teams, departments and the whole company. They invite people into an environment where all can learn and grow together.

Through mentoring others, sharing knowledge, working side-by-side and illustrating by example, seniors pass on the deep lessons they’ve digested from their experiences. While juniors focus on mastering specific tools and skills, seniors aid people in truly understanding how to creatively solve problems together.

Instead of hoarding their years of practice, the best seniors are generous in distributing their insights organisation-wide. Their goal is contributing to building a cadre of brilliant problem-solvers who see challenges as opportunities to get smarter.

Through mentorship, knowledge shares, pairing, exemplars, and other means, seniors seed their problem-solving approaches – ways to deeply inspect issues through multiple lenses, devise innovative approaches, and continuously introspect for improvement.

The most valuable seniors aren’t fogeys hoarding years of experience, but diligently introspective learners aiding others to illuminate their own wisdom through the challenges they face. Seniority is about leaving a trail of proble solvers in your wake who redefine challenges as opportunities to grow.

An Introspective Mindset, Not an Age Metric

At the end of the day, being considered “senior” is about evolving a mindset – not just logging years of experience. It’s about diligent introspection, ceaseless curiosity when encountering new challenges, and proliferating learned lessons for collective growth.

The best senior people don’t see their years as a sign of fading abilities. Instead, it represents a brilliant path of practical wisdom gained by treating every problem as a chance to expand their skills and knowledge.

Being truly senior is the result of carefully developing the rare talent of learning how to learn effectively. Rather than resting on their experience, impactful seniors relentlessly find ways to push their understanding further when facing new challenges.

Their years doesn’t mean they’re past their best – it shows they’ve mastered constantly improving themselves by tackling problems head-on. Seniority comes from nurturing the exceptional power of turning obstacles into opportunities for growth, and knowing that their best is just out of reach, and ahead.

Time Yet for Organisational Psychotherapy?

February 24, 2024
Article, Business, Capability development, Community, Culture change, Learning, Organisational Therapy, Quintessence
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Time Yet for Organisational Psychotherapy?

The Software Crisis is but a Symptom

The “software crisis” plaguing the tech industry for more that 50 years reflects a broader crisis spanning business, society, and our species. At its core is our inability as a species to fully grasp and manage rapidly change and wicked problems, both. But this crisis manifests in different ways across multiple levels of human endeavours.

The Business Crisis Begets the Software Crisis

In business, intense competition, shifting customer demands, changing social expectations, and disruption make consistent success an elusive goal. In society, we face polarisation, inequality, and loss of social cohesion. As a species, our advanced civilisation has exceeded our innate cognitive capacities. We are overwhelmed by the world we’ve created.

The Societal Crisis Begets the Business Crisis

The software crisis is just a symptom of crises in business, society, and our human systems as a whole. To truly address it, solutions are needed at each level. Organisational psychotherapy can help provide a framework for shared reflection and treatment.

Business operates within a broader social context beset by polarisation, inequality, and eroding social cohesion. Society’s challenges become business’s challenges.

When society tacitly promotes individual gain over collective well-being, so does business. When civil discourse and trust decline, companies struggle to collaborate. When opportunity is not distributed broadly, markets suffer.

Business could help lead society forward. But first, society must create conditions where ethics and human dignity come before efficiency and profits. By reflecting society’s imbalances, business contributes to the social crisis.

Organisational Psychotherapy Offers a Way Forward

Just as individual psychotherapy helps people gain self-understanding to heal, organisational psychotherapy facilitates collective self-reflection to foster change in groups, companies, systems, societies and the species. It surfaces the dysfunctional patterns that maintain the status quo.

Applications

Applied to the software crisis, organisational psychotherapy invites examination of the beliefs, behaviors, and power dynamics across the tech industry that contribute to the many and perrenial chronic failures. It enables new understandings and behaviors to emerge.

Similarly, organisational psychotherapy addresses dysfunctional aspects of business culture and society that exacerbate our challenges and frustrates our needs. It helps groups align around shared purpose, and adapt.

Ultimately, organisational psychotherapy a.k.a. collective psychotherapy is about creating the conditions for species learning. As we confront crises across business, society, and our species, we might benefit from the capacity for honest inquiry, collective problem-solving, and continuous learning. Organisational psychotherapy can guide that evolutionary process. The software crisis and beyond provide an opportunity for our organisations, businesses, societies, and species to increase our enlightenment. But we must be willing to courageously examine ourselves along the way.

The Why of FlowChain: Deliberate Continuous Improvement

February 19, 2024
Actionable Insights, Article, Business, Capability development, Culture change, Deming, Doctrine, Flow, Flow•gnosis, Flowchain, Improvement, Learning, Memeology, Metaflow, Organisational effectiveness, Prod•gnosis, Product development, Quintessence, Rightshifting, Software Delivery, Software development, Systems thinking, Value streams
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The Why of FlowChain: Deliberate Continuous Improvement

In my career, working with hundreds of companies, I’ve almost never seen organisations* take a truly deliberate approach to continuous improvement. It’s nearly always treated as an afterthought or add-on to business-as-usual (BAU). But real transformation requires making continuous improvement an integral and core part of daily work. This is the “why” behind FlowChain – enabling deliberate, in-band continuous improvement.

In other words, applying the same disciplines from product development, delivery, etc. to the business (sic) of delivering continuous improvements  – continuously improving the way the work works.

What Is FlowChain?

So what is FlowChain? At its core, it is a system for managing flow – both the flow of outputs and the flow of improvements to the way the work works, concurrently and by the same means. And by “flow”, I mean the steady progress of work from request to completion through all steps in a process. Flow is optimised when the right work is happening at the right time by the right people. Roadblocks, delays, and waste are minimised or eliminated.

Flow

Optimising flow delivers the following benefits:

  • Increased productivity – less time wasted, more work completed
  • Improved quality – fewer defects, rework minimised
  • Better customer service – faster response times, reliability
  • Higher employee engagement – less frustration, more joy

But achieving flow requires continuous improvement. Problems must be made visible. Waste must be reduced iteratively. Roadblocks must be cleared continuously.

This is why FlowChain incorporates improvement into its regular rhythm. Each cycle follows a deliberate sequence:

  • Plan – Select and sequence the upcoming work.
  • Execute – Complete the work while tackling issues.
  • Review – Analyse completed work and identify improvements.
  • Adjust – Make changes to improve flow.

Unlike most continuous improvement efforts – that are separate from BAU – FlowChain makes improvement an integral in-band activity. The rapid cycles provide frequent opportunities to reflect, gain insights, and act.

Compounding Benefits

Over time, the compounding benefits are immense. Teams develop a “flow habit”, where improving flow becomes second nature. Powerful capabilities like root cause analysis, A3 problem-solving, improvement katas, and change management are honed.

In my experience, this deliberate approach is transformative. Teams gain tremendous agency to systematically improve their own flow. The organisation as a whole cultivates a culture of continuous improvement. And customers experience ever-better service and responsiveness.

The “why” of FlowChain is simple – create focus, visibility, accountability, and agency to drive continuous improvement. The results – ever better flow, reduced waste, and sustainable transformation. Deliberate, in-band continuous improvement stops being an aspiration and becomes a reality.

*Ask me about the exception.

Should We Adopt Agile?

February 18, 2024
Actionable Insights, Agile, Agility at Scale, AI, Article, Business, Capability development, Culture change, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Prompt Engineering, Quintessence
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Should We Adopt Agile?

Following on from my previous post concerning surfacing and reflecting on shared assumptions and beliefs about work, here are ten reflective questions for an executive considering flexible software development approaches:

  1. What are our priorities – speed, adaptability, innovation, quality, predictability? How should our processes align*?
  2. Do our teams thrive with more autonomy, or require structure from leadership?
  3. Are staff skills best leveraged through specialisation or multi-skilling and cross-functional collaboration?
  4. How much do we value rapid delivery versus long-term planning and building of long-term capabilities?
  5. Can our culture accept constant change versus needing firm commitments to e.g. delivery dates, feature sets, etc?
  6. Is our leadership comfortable ceding some control over how work gets done?
  7. Do our metrics reflect outcomes, outputs, value delivered, or needs met? Should we measure differently?
  8. Is transparency into work progress more valuable than formal milestones?
  9. Do we believe in Minimal Viable Products over Big Design Up Front?
  10. Are we open to new ideas or convinced our current ways of working work best? How much research have we done?

*I.E. What approach will best ensure our organisation’s processes, systems and structures are optimally configured to support our priorities and goals, around both software development and our wider business?

 

Note: Many more than these ten questions could be relevant to the headline topic. I encourage and invite you to try asking your favourite chatbot for more questions to consider.

Also note: Given the preponderance of proselytisation for the Agile approach currently found on the Internet, I would not recommend asking your chatbot “Should we adopt Agile?” directly. Unbiased and considered advice will NOT be forthcoming.

What is Rigour?

February 7, 2024
Actionable Insights, Article, Capability development, Caring, Culture change, Engineering, Fellowship, Organisational effectiveness, Product development, Quintessence, Rightshifting, Self-organisation, Software development, Standard work, Teambuilding
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What is Rigour?

Rigour refers to the strict precision and accuracy with which work is executed in fields like software engineering and collaborative knowledge work (CKW). It entails adherence to standards and best practices for needed outcomes.

The Importance of Getting it Right

Attentive rigour matters because carelessness breeds mistakes. Flaws in logic or bugs in code stem from a lack of rigour. This introduces unwanted surprises, and failures down the line. Rigour is an attitude of mind that zeroes in on getting things right the first time Cf. Crosby, ZeeDee.

The Perils of Getting it Wrong

However, the quest for rigour can go awry when imposed hastily or mindlessly. Establishing rigorous frameworks like requirements analysis, peer review etc. does carry overhead. Teams can get so bogged down chasing perfection that creativity, productivity and morale suffer. Or so much time is spent eliminating small defects that bigger picture progress slows. Like most things, balance is warranted.

The Laissez-Faire Extreme

At the other end of the spectrum from rigour lies the laissez-faire attitude. This French phrase meaning “let it be” encapsulates a laid-back approach where participants have broad freedom to work in whatever manner they choose.

In software and knowledge work contexts, laissez-faire environments feature very few enforced policies, protocols, or mechanisms for ensuring quality. Creativity and unhindered workflow takes priority over rigour. Peer reviews, quality assurance, and documentation are optional. Teams self-organise organically without work standards.

This spontaneity can spark innovation but has pitfalls. Lack of rigour tacitly permits cut corners, gaps in logic, unfinished ideas and sloppy execution. With an easy-going approach, easily preventable flaws accumulate and undermine end results.

In applied contexts like commercial software development, laissez-faire practices practically guarantee shoddy work products riddled with defects. User needs demand rigour not as an obstacle, but as an enabler of excellence. Finding the right balance is key.

The absence of rigour embodied in laissez-faire philosophies may promote freedom. But the ensuing chaos leaves the fruits of hard work easily compromised. Some structure and rigour ultimately serves applied collaborative knowledge work better in the long run.

While cutting corners is not an option, forced rigour without context can mean marginal gains at disproportionate cost. Rigour must enable, not encumber, the pursuit of excellence. Teams that foster a culture where rigour flows from all participants, intrinsically and voluntarily, tend to find the sweet spot. Getting there requires clarity of purpose, patience, and care. Do that and rigour lifts the quality of collaborative knowledge work substantially over time.

What does rigour mean to you and your team?

Getting the Best Out Of Experts

February 5, 2024
Actionable Insights, Antimatter principle, Article, Capability development, Collaboration, Experts
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Getting the Best Out Of Experts

While many organisations instinctively “push” niche expertise onto various teams, whether relevant or not, and whether needed or not, a pull model where teams can tap into specialist support when truly needed is more effective. By enabling on-demand access to experts – both from inside and outside the company – organisations can empower teams to pull specialised knowledge to solve pressing problems as they arise. And avoid the all-too-common scenario where teams don’t beging to understand the experts and advice being foisted upon them.

Maximise Visibility of Specialists

Organisations might choose to maintain an intranet portal that profiles in-house and out-of-house experts across domains like user research, UX, supply chain analytics, product architecture, analysis, design, coding, quality, and emerging tech. Enable teams to easily identify and connect with relevant expertise.

Equip Access Channels

Setup dedicated collaboration tools like Slack channels, internal discussion boards, and email lists connecting experts to front line teams. Enable the just-in-time asking of questions, without gatekeepers or bottlenecks, for when specific challenges and needs emerge.

Identify External Partners

Research specialised firms or freelance consultants that can provide on-demand expertise for when in-house skills gaps exist in key areas. Develop preferred provider networks and put in place in advance the necessary contracts, terms, budgets, etc. for making this provision as frictionless as possible.

Incentivise Timely Support

Monitor internal/external experts via responsiveness and accountability metrics. Ensure incentives exist for them to provide timely and effective support.

Summary

This pull-based integration allows expertise to target real needs rather than being arbitrarily imposed from the top-down. Support happens in the flow of work not in a vacuum. The organisation facilitates access, teams pull when they really need it. This on-demand model maximises the application of niche expertise effectively, at the exact point and time of need.

Individual Mindsets vs. Collective Mindsets

February 2, 2024
Actionable Insights, Article, Capability development, Culture change, Innovation, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Paradigm shifts, Quintessence, Systems thinking
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Individual Mindsets vs. Collective Mindsets

We often talk about the need for individuals to change their mindsets – their assumptions, beliefs, and attitudes – in order to create positive change. But as human beings, we don’t exist in isolation. As the saying goes, we are social animals, shaped by the groups and cultures we are part of. So perhaps we might choose rather to shift more of our focus to addressing collective mindsets rather than just individual ones.

Schein On

Organisational psychologist and author Edgar Schein argues that culture stems from a group’s shared basic assumptions and beliefs. These collective ways of thinking and being manifest in organisational policies, processes and behaviors. If the culture has dysfunctional aspects, it perpetuates dysfunction. Merely helping individials adopt more productive mindsets without addressing the surrounding culture is an uphill battle.

For Example

Take a common example – trying to promote more innovative thinking in a risk-averse bureaucratic workplace. Telling individuals to “be more innovative” often backfires. When people attempt new ways of doing things, they get pushback for not following protocols. and Interesting ideas get shut down quickly by naysayers. There are no systems or incentives to support innovation. So you end up with frustrated employees, not actual innovation.

Organisational Psychotherapy To The Rescue

In contrast, #OrganisationalPsychotherapy seeks to invite folks into uncovering and transforming collective assumptions and beliefs – the mental models that shape systems and culture. By facilitating more awareness of existing culture and defining desired culture, interventions get better traction. Collective mindsets shift to be more supportive of stated goals, like innovation, making it easier for individuals to adopt those productive mindsets as well.

Summary

The key insight is that individual mindsets are downstream of collective mindsets. Without addressing dysfunctional aspects of culture and systems, individual change efforts face resistence from the surrounding ecosystem. This highlights the need to focus on group mindset factors first and foremost. Of course, individuals still have agency in driving any kind of change. But we’d do well to spend more time examining and evolving the shared beliefs and assumptions on which any organisation is built. For cultural transformation, that’s likely the most high-leverage point of intervention.

Postscript – Donalla Meadows’ Twelve Points of Leverage

In her influential article “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System,” systems thinker Donella Meadows articulated 12 places within complex systems where a small shift can lead to fundamental changes in the system as a whole. Her framework offers guidance on how to approach system-level transformation, whether in organizations, societies, or beyond.

Meadows proposes 12 leverage points ranked in order of effectiveness, with the most high-leverage interventions at the top. The higher the leverage point, the easier it is to make major improvements to the system with minimal effort. Her list starts with more superficial leverage points around details like subsidies and incentives, then moves deeper into the fundamental goals, paradigms, and transcending purpose that underpin why a system exists in the first place.

The most powerful leverage points require a deeper, more courageous transformation. But they allow us to redefine the very reason a given system exists, enabling revolutionary redesign rather than incremental improvements. Meadows urges change agents to have the wisdom and patience to address the deeper paradigms, values, and purpose driving systemic behavior. As she concludes, “People who have managed to intervene in systems at the level of paradigm have hit a leverage point that totally transforms systems.”

In examining Meadows’ hierarchy of leverage points, we gain an appreciation for the depth of change required for true systems transformation. It inspires a more radical reimagining of what’s possible. The framework continues to provide guidance to sustainability leaders and organizational change agents seeking to effect large-scale improvements in business, government, technology, education and beyond. In this critical era facing many complex, planetary-scale challenges, Meadows’ words ring truer than ever as we work to create fundamental shifts towards more just, resilient and life-affirming systems.

Found Money or Found Ideas: Which Gets More Takers?

January 27, 2024
Article, Business, Capability development
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Found Money or Found Ideas: Which Gets More Takers?

You’re walking down a busy city street and notice a $100 bill lying on the pavement. Do you stop to pick it up? Surveys show over 80% of regular people would grab that cash off the ground. And why not – it requires little effort and there’s $100 in your hand. The reflex is strong.

New Ideas

Now picture this: you’re a business executive and come across an idea that could save your company thousands or even millions. Perhaps an insight about improving operations, cutting costs, or developing a new product. Does that give you the same urge to grab it? Statistics suggest maybe not so much.

While we quickly snatch physical money, evidence indicates far fewer businesspeople incorporate extremely valuable new perspectives and ideas. Once companies reach a certain scale, conveniences and habits often create blindness to outside innovations. We estimate less than 40% of corporate decision makers stop to pick up and leverage ideas that could produce huge financial impact. The inertia not to change remains high even in a world of fierce competition.

Perplexing

This is perplexing given the vast sums on the line from potential business improvements versus, say, finding $100 on the street. Why such different behaviors? When we come across physical money, the value is obvious and instant rewards light up our innate financial motivations. But for executives to see, understand and capture value from a new idea requires much more mental effort. Our brains didn’t evolve specifically for complex business insight – but they did become wired to recognize tangible resources.

Machiavelli Nailed It

Additionally, individuals stumbling upon cash don’t usually have to answer to anyone else if pocketing it. Business leaders proposing substantial changes face scrutiny from boards, investors, employees and others – opening them up to potential criticism if things fail, reducing willingness to take risks.

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”

~ Machiavelli, The Prince.

Summary

Perhaps there are lessons here about better conveying the tangible windfalls ideas could bring, and creating psychologically safer environments for innovating in large organisations. The incentives feel stacked more towards grabbing that $100 bill versus thinking creatively on impactful growth opportunities, even when the latter has exponentially more value. Training our business minds to pick up great insights at least as readily as finding physical currency on the street could have immense strategic and financial benefit.

Knowledge Management Flies in the Face of Voltaire’s Wisdom

January 9, 2024
Article, Capability development, Quintessence
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Knowledge Management Flies in the Face of Voltaire’s Wisdom

“Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?”

This statement by Voltaire succinctly captures the folly of knowledge management (KM) efforts in modern corporations.

KM aims to codify knowledge and extract it from individuals into reusable forms like knowledge bases and best practices. But as Voltaire knew, true wisdom does not come from borrowing and reapplying others’ knowledge. Real learning requires personal experience, subjective insight and action.

Decontextualised knowledge lacks the nuance and application needed to become practical wisdom. Voltaire recognised that surface-level learning from third-party experiences is next to useless. Truly wise people develop expertise from their own situated challenges, mistakes, and reflections.

Knowledge management tries to shortcut this deep experiential process. But in doing so, it strips away the contextual relevance that gives knowledge its value. Codified knowledge fragments lose the hard-won complexity born of experience.

Worse still, KM can actually impede expertise development by diverting focus away from hands-on learning. The promise of leveraging pre-packaged knowledge is an illusion. Fostering real expertise requires hiring talented people into a supportive environment, and enabling them to learn through experience.

Heed Voltaire’s wisdom – there are no shortcuts to wisdom. Avoid the mirage of knowledge management. Focus instead on expertise developed through hands-on experience. Subjective insight cannot simply be extracted and downloaded. Management might choose to empower people to learn deeply from their own unique journeys. This is the path to true knowledge and competitive advantage. The folly of “learning from the experience of others” was exposed long ago.

{This post also serves as an additional chapter for my book Quintessence.]

Universal Incompetence: Navigating Times of Rapid Change

January 2, 2024
Alien tech, Antimatter principle, Article, Business, Capability development, Culture change, Doctrine
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Universal Incompetence: Navigating Times of Rapid Change

We hear constantly that we live in an era of rapid technological, social, and economic change. With each passing year, new knowledge, innovations and disruptions reshape the world around us in unpredictable ways. In this turbulent environment, it can often feel like no one really knows what they’re doing anymore. Expertise that was highly valued yesterday becomes rapidly obsolete. As a result,the phenomenon of universal incompetence pervades society.

Yet those in leadership positions feel immense pressure to pretend otherwise. Politicians, business executives, middle management, consultants, SMEs, and heads of organisations all desperately try to project an image of competence and preparedness. They spout confident predictions and gloss over their failed responses to emerging crises. No one wants to admit they feel lost and unqualified to lead.

It’s as if we are living in a modern day Emperor’s New Clothes fable. The rapid changes stripping away the competencies of the powerful are evident to all. But no one seems willing to openly state the obvious – the emperor has no clothes. For fear of instability and career suicide, the crowd maintains the illusion of competence at the top.

The great historian of science Thomas Kuhn analysed this phenomenon in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn showed how scientific progress occurs in fits and starts, rather than smoothly over time. Long periods of traditional “normal science” are periodically disrupted by radical innovations that upend existing paradigms. After these paradigm shifts, scientists must scramble to make sense of the new landscape. Even the experts feel like novices, unaware of what knowledge or skills the future may require.

The same pattern applies today outside of science. Technology and social changes are accelerating. Once-useful skills like proficiency with certain assumptions, beliefs and ways of working quickly become irrelevant. Jobs that seemed stable for decades can be automated virtually overnight. Almost no one can keep up with the pace of change or accurately predict what abilities and competencies will be valued next.

This situation leaves individuals, organisations, and society itself feeling lost and directionless. Leaders quietly wonder if they have the right talents and ideas to guide their organisations through turmoil. Educators struggle to prepare students for a future that remains unseen. Citizens feel their democratic institutions have become inadequate and irrelevant for the challenges ahead.

To navigate these rapids of change, we can choose, above all, to embrace humility. The pace of transformation is simply too great for anyone to imagine they have all the answers. Rather than vainly seeking competence, we might choose to strive for openness, flexibility and growth. This mindset will allow us to experiment with new ideas and abandon failed ones quickly as we learn, and as circumstances evolve.

Although the loss of stability is disorienting, it also contains the seeds of opportunity. While incompetence reigns, possibilities abound to craft novel solutions and chart new courses. Our admitted ignorance frees us from old constraints and categories. With a sense of creative curiosity, we can view this time as one of exploration and invention rather than collapse.

The winds of change are blowing fiercely. None of us can hope to grasp them fully. But if we face the future with humility and courage, we may yet build a world where rapid progress need not mean perpetual confusion and turmoil. Even in strange seas, humanity, attending to folks’ needs, and steady hands can show the way.

Ditch the Project Mindset?

September 24, 2023
Article, Business, Capability development, Culture change, Flowchain, Improvement, Memeology, NoProjects, Organisational effectiveness, Quintessence
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Ditch the Project Mindset?

Yes. Many organisations have yet to even hear of #NoProjects, let alone embrace the idea. Many still cleave to the idea of projects, despite it being an outmoded anachronism.

Why Are Projects Failing Us?

You’ve allocated resources, set deadlines, and monitored key performance indicators. Yet something’s off. Projects aren’t delivering as promised. Let’s cut to the chase: the traditional project framework is unfit for the agility and productivity demands of modern organisations.

What’s Wrong with the Project Model?

The project model suggests a start and an end, often disregarding what happens both before and after. This closed-loop system stunts innovation and adaptability. It also usually operates in isolation from other projects, creating silos rather than fostering integrated growth. Essentially, projects set us up for a short-term win but often ignore the long-term game.

Do Agile Methods Help?

Agile approaches tried to rectify some of these issues, but they often get shoehorned into the project mindset. In essence, the Agile Manifesto preaches responsiveness over rigid planning. However, an agile project is still a project; a cage is still a cage, even if it’s golden. Agile methods within a project framework can only do so much (and that’s precious little).

What Replaces Projects?

So if we throw the baby out with the bathwater, what’s left? Systems thinking, that’s what. Instead of isolating issues and opportunities as projects, look at them as ongoing aspects of your organisation’s functioning. Focus on products, processes, value streams, and organisational health. Work towards adaptability, building capability, and continuous improvement rather than temporary, isolated gains.

How to Make the Shift?

It’s a significant cultural shift and it won’t happen overnight. Employees need to understand the broader business landscape, not just their tiny slice of the pie. Training, communication and the buy-in of the Folks That Matter™ are key. It’s not about ticking boxes; it’s about ongoing, holistic improvement. Forget “project completion”; think “system capability.”

Are There Any Downsides?

Every coin has two sides. You’re moving from a structured, time-bound approach to something more fluid. That can be unsettling and might even meet resistance. However, the potential for increased productivity and agility far outweighs the initial discomfort.

Is It Time to Say Goodbye To Projects?

Short answer: Yes. Ditch the traditional project framework. Embrace a more fluid, systems-oriented approach and make room for real agility and productivity. It’s not just a change, it’s an evolution. Are you ready?