It has been a while since I posted a blog entry directly to blogger.com (though I hope that some people are enjoying my weekly roundup of interesting findings via diigo.com).
I finally have the beginnings of a plan for a bunch of entries that will hopefully say something interesting about the connections between systems thinking, design thinking, agile methods and business modeling.
I suspect that it is going to take quite a while for me to formulate this out (think years rather than months), but I just watched a talk by Tim Harford (known from the "undercover economist" books and newspaper columns) at TED Global 2011, that I think is a good way to kick things off, since it made a lot of sense to me and brings together the iterative and exploratory methods of both agile and design thinking for innovation with a degree of structure:
The basic premise is a simple one; the world is too complex for us to be able to find solutions to issues by thought and analysis alone, we need to accept that we do not understand everything and, more importantly, accept that trial and error is a valid way to find solutions. As Harford says, this is obvious, but not accepted (check out some of my earlier posts on common sense solutions not necessarily being applied).
Having accepted this premise, the key thing in my eyes is to work out how to become great (and efficient) at trial and error - that is, learning incrementally from what we do and the agile, design thinking worlds have a lot to offer on that front, be it sprints, retrospectives, exploratory design, customer centric learning. Add to this the rigour of systems thinking approaches to build better understanding of complexity to building or support decision-making frameworks and you have a winning combination.
More to follow.
Here is the video:
Showing posts with label systems thinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label systems thinking. Show all posts
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Saturday, 16 October 2010
Twinstan's interesting links roundup on Diigo (weekly)
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E-Commerce News: Opinions: The Do Not Track List and the Law of Unintended Consequences
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borderline philosophy, but intriguing...if I could just understand it...
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Who’s Suing Whom In The Telecoms Trade?
nice visualisation, amusing message ;-)
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Harvard Business Review article by booz fellows arguing for core competence/focused approach for companies - damn right!
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Business analysis is a career ender…
Be proud of the job ;-)
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Tim Jackson's economic reality check | Video on TED.com
Quite a thought-provoker, this one!
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Hans Rosling: The good news of the decade? | Video on TED.com
Not as mindboggling as his earlier lectures at TED, but still thoroughly informative.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, 25 September 2010
"Thinking in Systems" - my favourite book this year
As some of you may have noticed, my reading this year has largely been around systems thinking (see here and here for earlier book reviews and thoughts on the topic).
This is largely a result of my ignorance regarding this approach to analysis and modeling, combined with a gut feeling that it is a "must-have" capability for a really good business architect or consultant.
Having been disappointed thus far by the competition, Donella H. Meadows' (sadly deceased) introductory book, "Thinking in Systems - a primer" has really impressed me.
Her book starts as a relatively dry introduction into some of the key concepts in systems thinking (she calls it the "systems zoo" - stock and flows, stabilising vs reinforcing feedback loops, response delays), but then moves on to describe some typical system archetypes in the real world (from business to government to the environment and back again) that really show how the thinking can and should be applied.
Even more interestingly, she then moves on to describe typical system traps and then defines her personal list of "leverage points" to address them.
As a consultant, this initially feels like it could be the holy grail of business architecture; it provides a lexicon to think about problems in complex environments, recurring patterns to look for and a process for identifying a solution. But, before you all run out and buy the book, let me bring you back from your euphoria; Meadows is smart enough to drag expectations back down - understanding is just the start, enacting the change necessary to move forward is the next challenge.. and enacting the change without building in more counterproductive issues to boot. On this topic, Meadows has little to say.
This notwithstanding, let me be very clear - this is the best book I have read on systems thinking (please note, there are still a load of books on my list, including the seminal work, "The Fifth Discipline", so this could change ;-). It is short, well structured and keeps you interested throughout.
So impressed was I that I actually ended up reading it twice. Indeed, this is the first book in a long time that I have added to my Amazon must-read list for business analysis and architecture.
As I have already talked about in a previous posting, I am convinced that the combination of systems thinking and visual thinking is a winning recipe for the consulting industry and this book has already gotten me thinking about how that might look in practice (hopefully more to follow on this soon, time permitting!).
Now go and buy it.
This is largely a result of my ignorance regarding this approach to analysis and modeling, combined with a gut feeling that it is a "must-have" capability for a really good business architect or consultant.
Having been disappointed thus far by the competition, Donella H. Meadows' (sadly deceased) introductory book, "Thinking in Systems - a primer" has really impressed me.
Her book starts as a relatively dry introduction into some of the key concepts in systems thinking (she calls it the "systems zoo" - stock and flows, stabilising vs reinforcing feedback loops, response delays), but then moves on to describe some typical system archetypes in the real world (from business to government to the environment and back again) that really show how the thinking can and should be applied.
Even more interestingly, she then moves on to describe typical system traps and then defines her personal list of "leverage points" to address them.
As a consultant, this initially feels like it could be the holy grail of business architecture; it provides a lexicon to think about problems in complex environments, recurring patterns to look for and a process for identifying a solution. But, before you all run out and buy the book, let me bring you back from your euphoria; Meadows is smart enough to drag expectations back down - understanding is just the start, enacting the change necessary to move forward is the next challenge.. and enacting the change without building in more counterproductive issues to boot. On this topic, Meadows has little to say.
This notwithstanding, let me be very clear - this is the best book I have read on systems thinking (please note, there are still a load of books on my list, including the seminal work, "The Fifth Discipline", so this could change ;-). It is short, well structured and keeps you interested throughout.
So impressed was I that I actually ended up reading it twice. Indeed, this is the first book in a long time that I have added to my Amazon must-read list for business analysis and architecture.
As I have already talked about in a previous posting, I am convinced that the combination of systems thinking and visual thinking is a winning recipe for the consulting industry and this book has already gotten me thinking about how that might look in practice (hopefully more to follow on this soon, time permitting!).
Now go and buy it.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Systems thinking - book review
Another short post. As mentioned earlier this year, I am merrily working my way through the enormous backlog of books that I built up over the Christmas holidays.
The latest book was "Systems thinking - managing chaos and complexity: a platform for designing business architecture". Just from the name, I had high expectations. Add to this the author, Jamshid Gharajedaghi, a protege of Russell Ackoff (Mr Systems Thinking) and I was really looking forward to this book.
I was disappointed. Now, the difficult thing is that I am not sure whether to be disappointed with the book, or myself; I did not understand half of the thinking in the book. Every time I thought I had a grip on a concept and how it related to the other parts of the frameworks presented, Gharajedaghi applied it in a way that I could not follow.
I am intuitively drawn to systems thinking (with its emphasis on the whole, on the interdependence of working parts in a system, organisation or problem and the analysis of their relationships with one another) and am sure that this book does provide lots of good material for those that have truly understood the basics, but as a primer, I have been defeated.
Next on the list: "Thinking in systems" - perhaps I will have more luck with this one - post to follow later this year.
The latest book was "Systems thinking - managing chaos and complexity: a platform for designing business architecture". Just from the name, I had high expectations. Add to this the author, Jamshid Gharajedaghi, a protege of Russell Ackoff (Mr Systems Thinking) and I was really looking forward to this book.
I was disappointed. Now, the difficult thing is that I am not sure whether to be disappointed with the book, or myself; I did not understand half of the thinking in the book. Every time I thought I had a grip on a concept and how it related to the other parts of the frameworks presented, Gharajedaghi applied it in a way that I could not follow.
I am intuitively drawn to systems thinking (with its emphasis on the whole, on the interdependence of working parts in a system, organisation or problem and the analysis of their relationships with one another) and am sure that this book does provide lots of good material for those that have truly understood the basics, but as a primer, I have been defeated.
Next on the list: "Thinking in systems" - perhaps I will have more luck with this one - post to follow later this year.
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