Fairly dated practice (i.e. common knowledge in some circles for 15 years) but still a good article by @HarvardBiz (cough, am I really saying that?) on use of Agile -
NB. There is a world of difference between using Agile Methods (see Map) and ...
@HarvardBiz ... "being Agile" which requires the use of appropriate methods. This was explained in Salamon and Storey's innovation paradox (2002) but still ... nice to see HBR consistently catching up.
The maps are from 2012. I could dig up earlier ones but, I like these.
It is really important to understand that as things evolve their characteristics change and how you manage them also has to change ...
... however, without a map to help guide you on where to use them then that knowledge is about as useful as a fart in a spacesuit.
Funny eh, in my world this was well understand circa 2006. It's 2021 and people are still discussing it.
Anyways, don't mix up "Using Agile"
(as in an agile method such as XP) with "Being Agile" (as in speed and responsiveness of organisation which requires appropriate methods applied to the context).
X : Is use of appropriate methods enough to be Agile?
Me : It's a start. The maps give you a focus on user, user needs, understanding the details (the chain), understanding what is being considered (i.e. how evolved the components are), using appropriate methods etc ... BUT ...
... it's the beginning of your journey. If you really want to be an agile organisation then there are a lot of principles you need to implement. Here's a handy list - the doctrine table (a collection of universally useful principles).
X : There's a difference between "Agile the method" and "Being agile as an organisation"
Me : Yep. Always has been. "Using" is not the same as "Being" because of context. If you're looking for a simple one size fits all method then that's probably not what you want to hear ...
... but life isn't one size fits all and simple. Things evolve, characteristics change. You can't avoid it.
It's also not only things that evolve but methods do as well ...
which is why we end up with different evolving competencies each specialising in one material instance of the same evolving thing.
Again, if you don't map, then you have almost no hope of getting this right.
X : Why no hope without a map?
Me : It's just a simple case of permutations. Take a systems graph (not a map) and try to apply "appropriate methods" ... the combinations can be vast i.e. 300M+. Chances are you will get it very wrong (and that's what I see regularly) ...
... it only gets worse when people try and break things it into "contracts", grouping by things that sound familiar. Most contracts I see are doomed to failure before they've even been signed.
X : How can you tell?
Me : Well ...
Me : ... take the contract, overlay it on the map. I can tell you that the "engineering" contract above will cause massive cost overruns before you've even started.
X : Does anyone do this?
Me : Some people do ...
... and they save hundreds of millions if not billions.
X : I thought you didn't like this Government?
Me : I don't like this Government. I don't trust Boris. I think some of them are dogmatic jerks and don't know what they are doing. But I want them to succeed. They are my Government after all. Nation first, party second ... always.
X : Always?
Me : Yes. Our society first (represented by our nation) and that means the collective values of the society not of any one party.
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dX: How do you deal with strategy?
Me: First, we need to answer the Where question, which depends a lot on the what and why.
dX: And?
Me: Ok, some very simple steps ...
Step 1: Visualise your environment. That means getting people to discuss, collaborate & challenge in order to create a "good enough" map of your environment. Should be a couple of hours.
Step 2: Look at what's changing which is competitor moves, your moves & economic patterns.
Step 3: Using the map, determine where you could invest/focus on. You're not making a decision yet, you just want the options. By now, you could have spent four hours on the exercise.
Step 4: Decide where you should invest i.e. look at the options using why & what
Those born in the 1890s experienced electrification, telephone, radio, television, nuclear age, penicillin, two world wars, commercial flight, computer age and a moon landing. By the 60s we had AI, VR and 3D printing.
Today, we have the internet / www and have improved stuff.
Is it me, or is human progress slowing down? Great breakthroughs, moments of change, and radical transformations seem like a thing of the past. What we call "revolutions" in industry today seems mostly a marketing slogan.
If you think back to 1957 and the Mark I Perceptron machine that was built at Cornell, then consider the changes in the previous 60 years ... you can't help but think they would be bitterly disappointed with how slow we have progressed in the following 60 years.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.