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 : [email protected]
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 @
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/