Simon Wardley Profile picture
Sep 7, 2020 11 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Lean management or agile? The right answer may be both - mckinsey.com/business-funct… ... may I be the first to congratulate McKinsey on finally arriving at 2006. Still not quite right though ... here's a hint, try three.
Anyway, the good news is :-
1) McKinsey is waking up to "use appropriate methods"
2) McKinsey is normally at the vanguard of the laggards

... hence it'll only be 10-15 years before the rest realise. About 25 - 30 years for new management practices to spread is quite normal. ImageImage
I do wonder if anyone should tell them that "use appropriate methods" is just one of about 40 basic principles (i.e. doctrine) that matter? Or maybe that's pushing it too far? Image
X : Where's that map from?
Me : This one? Really? It's one of the common examples I use. It's from 2012 and covers the building of HS2 (high speed rail) in a virtual world. @GoAgileGov has the details. Image
X : Is that the first time maps and different methods were used?
Me : Hell no. That goes back to 2005/06. You can probably find videos of me speaking on these topics at various conferences.
X : Why don't you write a book on the subject?
Me : I have, several times. The latest unfinished version is here - medium.com/wardleymaps
X : I mean a proper book
Me : I'm an old gamer. Rather than writing a book, I'd rather build a worldwide guild and let them work it out.
... I'll be blunt, it's far easier for me to use nothing at all to build a worldwide community of many thousands of motivated people to conquer a space than it is for me to write a book. I'm terrible at writing. Books and stories are way too hard.
X : What about academic work?
Me : Academia? LSE, Harvard Kennedy, Moscow Institute of Technology ... there's people out there teaching and researching on mapping. It's far easier to build something you find useful, give it away and then let others say whether you're deluded.
X : What if mapping is wrong?
Me : Oh, let me stop you there. Mapping is definitely wrong (it's a model). Also, all maps are imperfect by nature. So, it's wrong and imperfect and that's fine. The question is always whether it's useful.
X : Is mapping useful?
Me : I think so. The only person who can decide whether it's useful for you is ... you.
X : How do you build communities of thousands with nothing at all?
Me : Happens all the time. You learn the craft on games like World of Warcraft (WoW) or EVE online. It's a skill though, it takes work.
X : Any tips?
Me : Sure. Send your executives to train on WoW for a year.

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More from @swardley

Mar 25
No surprises, this was clearly signalled back in 2015.

During this decade has the US disentangled its reliance on China in the semiconductor industry?

I'll let you guess.
We will be entering a phase in which the US high-tech industry (including the military complex) is highly dependent upon China, whilst China is not dependent upon the US.
For those who doubt how clear the intentions were ... go read Made in China, 2025.

China's government made its intentions evident in 2015. The US sabre rattling of sanctions reinforced that purpose whilst the US essentially continued with a misguided "market knows best" policy.
Read 5 tweets
Mar 5
A couple of prompts with Claude 3 creates a Wardley Map for economic sovereignty in the defence space.

Not bad at all -

On par with political, military and defence folk I've spoken to. I'm also finding I can have a reasonable discussion about mapping with Claude 3.onlinewardleymaps.com/#clone:XvHskIi…Image
It's not perfect but it's not bad. There's more I want to interrogate Claude over ... i.e. the link to secure sourcing, the positioning of some components etc. But it's almost good enough that I can start a discussion over strategy and investment.
Anyway, upshot is that Claude 3, from my perspective, has left ChatGPT4 in the dust. Of course, I'll use Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini to cross-compare for now but if I do start building anything more complex then the obvious path is AWS Bedrock which gives me Mistral etc.
Read 15 tweets
Feb 28
dX: What is the single most significant problem facing AI today? Safety? Lack of skills? Inertia?
Me: Overinflated expectations by the business.
dX: You don't think AI will become widespread?
Me: Of course, it will; industrialised components are rapidly becoming cost of doing business. Don't confuse that with expectations. There will be an awful lot of disappointed businesses hoping it would create some advantage.
dX: I don't understand.
Me: Imagine you're just finishing off your plan for how AI will revolutionise your business. Six months for budget approval, one year to build team, 18 months to deliver something ... that's 3 years from now. Any advantage you thought of is long gone.
Read 9 tweets
Feb 16
For those who don't know, I'm working increasingly on and with Glamorous Toolkit - ... I have become fascinated by our willingness to blame humans for problems that are created by our toolsets ...gtoolkit.com
... I saw this last night at Cloud Camp. Apparently, the issues with understanding, explainability and observability in AI are down to humans' inability to deal with complex environments... no, they're not. The problem is with the tools and the type of tools we are creating ...
... we've imported concepts from a physical world where tools are constrained by physics - hence a hammer is a hammer, a drill is a drill - into a world without such constraints. Rather than building contextual tools, we've built constrained tools.
Read 7 tweets
Feb 2
dX: Have you thought about adding another axis for your maps
Me: Hmmm. Maps start with identifiers users and their needs ... Image
... the understanding the chain of components needed ... Image
... then determining how evolved components are ... Image
Read 7 tweets
Jan 18
Faulty products, harm to users, executives profiteering, fighting compensation ... what is truly bizarre about the Fujitsu Horizon case is that the public seems to think that this is an isolated example rather than the normal way that traditional corporations act.
Just take a look into any industry, pick something like retail with BNPL (by now pay later) to EWA (earned wages access) to use of slave labour. It's story after story of despicable behaviour, of exploitation of both workers and consumers in pursuit of profit.
Or pick something like energy, where misinformation and self-interest abound from carbon capture to hydrogen - both technologies which are not primarily for the benefit of consumers or the environment but instead prolong a fossil fuel industry and all the harm it causes.
Read 15 tweets

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