BE VERY EFFICIENT AND

INNOVATIVE

THANKS TO DISORDER!

Xavier Warzee - Scrum Conseil

31 October 2014 - Agile Tour Brussels

Xavier Warzee

• Web : http://www.scrumconseil.fr

• Twitter : @xwarzee

• LinkedIn : http://www.linkedin.com/in/xwarzee

• Email : xwarzee@scrumconseil.fr

HOW ORGANIZATIONS

EVOLVE?According to Seth Godin

Struggle

At the beginning, no one

knows what you make or

why they need it. … But

the struggle is always

there. …

Servant

As a soon-to-be-

successful organization

gains traction, it has a

choice. It can move to

servant mode, delighting

and connecting

customers, exceeding

expectations and

performing what seems

like miracles. …

Bully

As the organization

gains power (and

constituents) it is under

pressure to increase

profits and market share

and lock in. … “We

make the rules now.”

Utility

No organization stays in

bully mode forever. The

step after this is utility,

the organization that

serves a function,

makes a profit, and is

often taken for granted.

What after Utility?

Go Nowhere Go Somewhere

Nowhere / Somewhere

Solution for organization to survive?

“Organizations as Ecosystems:

Probing the Value of a

Metaphor”

by Matthew Mars, Judith Bronstein,

Robert Lusch

Havard Business Review

HOW ECOSYSTEMS

EVOLVE?According to Lance H. Gunderson and C. S. Holling

Much

Little

Cf. Resilience Alliance

http://www.resalliance.org/index.php/adaptive_cycle

Value maximization in the adaptive cycle

Value renewal in the adaptive cycle

Seth’s Path Adaptive Cycle Practices Organizational culture

Struggle – no one knows what you make or why they need it

Collapse or release (Ω) – the established order breaks down

and uncertainty increasesLean Startup Learning

Servant – delighting and connecting customers, exceeding expectations and

performing what seems like miracles

Reorganization (α) – new players and alternatives emerge Agile

Collaboration / Empowerment

Bully – under pressure to increase profits and market share and lock in

Growth or exploitation (r) – a period of growth and competition among

entrepreneurs and survivors previous cycles

Expertizes Competence

Utility – serves a function, makes a profit, and is often taken for granted

Conservation (K) – the winners consolidate and then maintain

the existing orderProcess Command & Control

A “crisis” always happens even for

leading organizations

A FIRST TRY TO AVOID

CRISISSystems/Organizations as Complex Adaptive Systems

Systems/Organizations needs

Efficiency

•to be managed to limit resource usage i.e. they need to be efficient

Productivity

•to be managed to optimize time to develop itself

Robustness

•maintain critical functionality in the face of significant stress

Innovation

•ability to generate disruptive, qualitative and fundamental improvements which enables it to undergo transformational change

RobustnessAbility to Innovate

Resilience

Resilience Stability

Efficiency

Productivity

Robustness

Ability to Innovate

HOW TO MITIGATE BETWEEN

RESILIENCE AND STABILITY?

The essence of control is the

elimination of disorder

Efficiency and stability are

both fundamental to control

To the extent that the control

process and the model that

guides this process are

accurate and reliable, control

itself delivers stability.

To the extent that the model is inaccurate i.e. to the extent that

the map does not match the territory,

the system needs to maintain some slack and redundancy to buffer against environmental

changes that are not anticipated by the model.

FROM STABILITY TO

FRAGILITY

Extended periods of stability

and, by extension, policies that

focus on stabilization frequently

end in collapse.

Examples of this phenomenon

• forests transformed across the countryinto a veritable tinderbox prone toincreasingly catastrophic fires.

Suppression of forest firesin the United States

• But an increasing frequency ofcatastrophic floods.

Levees and embankmentson many of the world’srivers may have succeedingin controlling their path innormal years

• the prelude to the deepest economicrecession since the Great Depression.

The economic ‘GreatModeration’ that thedeveloped economiesenjoyed since the 80sturned

Attempt to control CAS> Simplification of German Forest

Illegible, complex

Legible, simplified

ControlSimplification

/ Legibility

Eventual Illegibility of Control Process

• Fragile

• Deteriorating Productivity

• Illegible, Complex Domain due to complexity of control process and past interventions

Late Control

• Fragile

• High Productivity

• Legible, Simplified Domaine

Initial Control

• Resilient

• Low/Moderate Productivity

• Illegible, Complex Domain

Pre-Control

FROM FRAGILE TO

ANTIFRAGILE

The leaping frog

Porcelain Brass Real

The leaping frog after earthquake

Fragile Robust Antifragile

Muscles are

Adaptive

The Body is

Antifragile

Learning is Adaptive

“The only sustainable competitive

advantage is an organization's

ability to learn faster than the

competition.”

Peter M. Senge,

The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of

The Learning Organization

IT Systems Perfection

Enlightenment Bias

Sub-parts of a complex system are

simpler

A stable system is made from very

hard & durable sub-parts

“Stability is a Time Bomb”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile

Adaptive Systems crave Exercise

Forests are Adaptive

Monocultures are Fragile

“Nature loves small error, humans

don’t — hence when you rely on

human judgment you are at the

mercy of a mental bias that disfavors

antifragility.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile

Enforcing a single best practice on the

organization, can make it …

fragile

Fragile

• Fragile things are typically large

• Responses to variability and stress come from the outside

• Fragile things are overly optimized

• Fragile people and systems seek to eliminate variability,

noise, and tension

Fragile

Things that are fragile

break or suffer from

chaos and randomness.

Fragile

systems/people/things

seek out tranquility

because they have more

to lose than to gain

during volatile times.

Antifragile

• Less is usually more with antifragility

• Responses to variability and stress are built into the

antifragile

• Antifragile things have built-in redundancies

• Nature and tradition do a good job of creating antifragility

Antifragile

Things that are

antifragile grow and

strengthen from volatility

and stress (to a point).

When people or systems

are antifragile, there’s

more upside than

downside when Black

Swan events occur.

Antifragile systems feed

on chaos and

uncertainty like a

primordial god.

How to become antifragile ?

• Intentionally inject stress in your life

• Add redundancies in your life

• Employ the “barbell strategy”• 90% of your wealth in robust investments that are rock-solid,

• and the last 10% spread around a number of highly speculative investments that have big upsides – be part of the “black Swan”

• Never take advice from someone who doesn’t have “skin in the game.”

• Practice via negativa

• Keep your options open

ANTIFRAGILITY @

GOOGLE

PROJECT “CURIOSITY”

@ TOYOTA

Toyota - Entering the US market

NUMMI and the Adaptive Cycle

Toyota - Entering the luxury

Toyota - Against the trend with Hybrids

References

• Diamond, Jared M. Collapse: How Societies Choose to

Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking Press, 2005.

• Gunderson, Lance H. and C.S. Holling, Eds. Panarchy:

Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural

Systems. Washington: Island Press, 2002.

• Resilience Alliance and Santa Fe Institute. 2004.

Thresholds and alternate states in ecological and social-

ecological systems. Resilience Alliance. (Online.) URL:

http://www.resalliance.org/index.php?id=183

References Web

• Count to 4… and repeat!

• http://atfortytwo.com/2014/10/23/count-to-4-and-repeat/

• Resilience: Adaptation on the Rebound

• http://nmnh.typepad.com/rogers_archaeology_lab/2012/12/resilience.html

• Panarchy: Out with the Old, In with the New

• http://nmnh.typepad.com/rogers_archaeology_lab/2013/02/panarchy.html

• Creative Destruction: Think like a Forest!

• http://thenatureofbusiness.org/2013/02/06/creative-destruction-think-like-a-forest/