@natematias asks "Why can't someone design public loos that don't result in 40 women queueing?" (via @j4ngis).
There are of course two different questions here - not just the challenge (designing a more convenient convenience) but the frustration ("why can't someone DO something?").
There are many annoying design problems that are never solved, not because they are technically difficult but because they are organizationally difficult. Lots of stakeholders who are sometimes inconvenienced, but nobody cares enough about the problem to do anything serious about it.
One of the expectations we have of architects is that they should anticipate as many of these problems as possible, and design systems and spaces that don't unnecessarily inconvenience the user. Unfortunately, many architects are more interested in grand sweeping designs than in paying attention to small details. (And in the built environment, architects often seem to lose interest in a building once it's been constructed; fixing any design problems is someone else's job and comes out of the maintenance budget.) When I travelled through Heathrow Terminal Five for the first time, I was shocked to discover that the toilets were at the end of a long corridor, as if they were added as an afterthought. (You might expect that kind of thing after a building has been modified a few times, but not in a brand new building.) Obviously the convenience of passengers ranked far lower than the commercial interests of the retail units.
Coming back to the toilets at St Pancras Station, which was Nathan's starting point. There are toilets on the platform, there are toilets on the trains, and there are toilets in nearby pubs; all these vary by convenience, cleanliness and price. But whose responsibility is it to provide adequate toilet facilities to passengers? The obvious answer is - those who sell the liquid refreshment should provide the outlet. In other words, the pubs outside the station, and the countless coffee stalls inside.
Nathan presents the problem in terms of an unwanted outcome - forty women in a line. (And I'm imagining at least forty men waiting for the forty women - obviously not one each but unevenly distributed - a husband and two sons here, a boyfriend over there, a chauffeur and a few press photographers near the exit, Nathan himself pacing up and down. Not even talking to each other, but glancing at their watches twice a minute.)
There are many ways of eliminating an unwanted outcome. For example, someone could build more loos, or install mirrors alongside the queue. Someone could erect a separate urinal for the men, and then make all the existing loos unisex. They could ban coffee from the station platforms, so people wouldn't need the toilet so often.
But who is "someone"? Who is "they"? That's the real design problem here.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
What's wrong with Silver Bullets?
#magic People have always believed in silver bullets ... even while denying this belief. Advocates of this or that technology often spend a lot of time refuting the claims of earlier technologies to be silver bullets, while modestly and disingenuously avoiding making such claims for the technological breakthrough they are championing.
But the modern notion of silver bullet is based on a misreading of fairy tales and ancient myth. The silver bullet (or any other magical weapon) is not a general-purpose quick fix, providing generic protection against all evils. It is a precisely targeted weapon, providing overpowering force only when used by the right person against the right opponent at the right time. In the wrong hands, the weapon either fails altogether, or proves dangerous to the person using it.
The silver bullet itself has a very specific purpose within horror fiction - to kill or subdue vampires [Monstropedia: Vampires]. As Sam Leith explains, vampires and zombies represent middle-class fear of the upper and lower classes respectively. In other words, silver bullets kill those born with a silver spoon in their mouths. This is based on the important magical principle of similars - the notion that the solution mirrors the problem. As in the belief that rabies can be cured by a hair of the dog that bit you, or that the best cure for a hangover is another drink.
Interestingly, the belief that the solution should mirror the problem happens to be popular among IT folk. For example, they may try justify the use of object-oriented software by the curious argument that business "is made of objects", or they may use "structured" tools and methods that smoothly and painlessly go from a descriptive model of "the business" (AS-IS or TO-BE) to a "logical" system architecture or system design, without tackling the difficult design tradeoffs addressed by real design thinking. This is one of the reasons why New Systems Don't Work.
Meanwhile, the reason why magical thinking survives is that it sometimes works. Primitive man believed that if you want something to fly, you attach a symbol of flight. So they tied feathers to their arrows. As luck would have it, this improved the aerodynamic qualities of the arrows, thus confirming their superstitions.
Modern man is just as superstitious as primitive man, but just about different things. Many so-called best practices are merely optimistic attempts to replicate the lucky successes of the past.
But the modern notion of silver bullet is based on a misreading of fairy tales and ancient myth. The silver bullet (or any other magical weapon) is not a general-purpose quick fix, providing generic protection against all evils. It is a precisely targeted weapon, providing overpowering force only when used by the right person against the right opponent at the right time. In the wrong hands, the weapon either fails altogether, or proves dangerous to the person using it.
The silver bullet itself has a very specific purpose within horror fiction - to kill or subdue vampires [Monstropedia: Vampires]. As Sam Leith explains, vampires and zombies represent middle-class fear of the upper and lower classes respectively. In other words, silver bullets kill those born with a silver spoon in their mouths. This is based on the important magical principle of similars - the notion that the solution mirrors the problem. As in the belief that rabies can be cured by a hair of the dog that bit you, or that the best cure for a hangover is another drink.
Interestingly, the belief that the solution should mirror the problem happens to be popular among IT folk. For example, they may try justify the use of object-oriented software by the curious argument that business "is made of objects", or they may use "structured" tools and methods that smoothly and painlessly go from a descriptive model of "the business" (AS-IS or TO-BE) to a "logical" system architecture or system design, without tackling the difficult design tradeoffs addressed by real design thinking. This is one of the reasons why New Systems Don't Work.
Meanwhile, the reason why magical thinking survives is that it sometimes works. Primitive man believed that if you want something to fly, you attach a symbol of flight. So they tied feathers to their arrows. As luck would have it, this improved the aerodynamic qualities of the arrows, thus confirming their superstitions.
Modern man is just as superstitious as primitive man, but just about different things. Many so-called best practices are merely optimistic attempts to replicate the lucky successes of the past.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Magical Problem-Remover
"Even if you don't believe in magic" tweets @j4ngis, "Would it not be great if magic could remove ALL problems?"
I can see that this is a seductive fantasy. But we only have to open the pages of Harry Potter to see some of the reasons why this fantasy won't work. J.K. Rowling repeatedly emphasizes three important points about the power of magic.
1. Magical solutions to common problems are often incredibly clumsy and ineffective when compared to their muggle equivalents. When people in the magical world wish to communicate with one another, they are forced to resort to owls, fairy dust, magic mirrors and other devices, instead of just picking up the phone or sending a tweet.
2. Many of the problems faced by people in the magical world are caused by previous acts of magic. So maybe they would be better off with no magic at all.
3. And muggles are better off not knowing that magic is possible, because they will be tempted to seek magical solutions instead of taking responsibility for their own lives.
Am I really interested in magic? No, but I'm interested in technology, which sometimes seems to be almost the same thing. JK Rowling's magical world is a satirical reflection of our own, with stupid governments, narrow-minded people, and technology that doesn't work properly or has unintended side-effects - what Mary Catherine Bateson calls The Revenge of the Good Fairy.
And my final reason why magic cannot remove all problems is that magic is compelled to follow what I call Fairy-Tale Logic - a rigorous logic that produces an inevitable outcome. Which leaves no room for the kind of authentic and creative solution that I am sure @j4ngis believes in as much as I do.
I can see that this is a seductive fantasy. But we only have to open the pages of Harry Potter to see some of the reasons why this fantasy won't work. J.K. Rowling repeatedly emphasizes three important points about the power of magic.
1. Magical solutions to common problems are often incredibly clumsy and ineffective when compared to their muggle equivalents. When people in the magical world wish to communicate with one another, they are forced to resort to owls, fairy dust, magic mirrors and other devices, instead of just picking up the phone or sending a tweet.
2. Many of the problems faced by people in the magical world are caused by previous acts of magic. So maybe they would be better off with no magic at all.
3. And muggles are better off not knowing that magic is possible, because they will be tempted to seek magical solutions instead of taking responsibility for their own lives.
Am I really interested in magic? No, but I'm interested in technology, which sometimes seems to be almost the same thing. JK Rowling's magical world is a satirical reflection of our own, with stupid governments, narrow-minded people, and technology that doesn't work properly or has unintended side-effects - what Mary Catherine Bateson calls The Revenge of the Good Fairy.
And my final reason why magic cannot remove all problems is that magic is compelled to follow what I call Fairy-Tale Logic - a rigorous logic that produces an inevitable outcome. Which leaves no room for the kind of authentic and creative solution that I am sure @j4ngis believes in as much as I do.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Good Ideas from Flaky Sources
There are some institutions and practices that, for various reasons, always trigger a negative response whenever they are mentioned.
NLP has evolved into a highly commercial and apparently superficial set of practices, but it has respectable antecedents in the systems world (via Bateson and his associates). Furthermore, the founders of NLP were far more aware of its scientific and ethical limitations, than their present-day followers appear to be. I happen to find most of the recent literature tediously monotonous, but I have found some fascinating ideas in some of the early books, including concepts like reframing.
Researchers at the Rand Corporation and at the Tavistock Institute made significant contributions to our understandings of complex sociotechnical systems. However, both organizations have been accused of ethically questionable activities, and are frequently mentioned in conspiracy theories. Even if these accusations were accurate (which I don't know), I can't see that this prevents us drawing on their work.
Finally the whole defence thing. On Twitter recently, @david_harvey complained (in reference to an article suggesting we can learn something about agility from the marines) that "someone else has "discovered" the military metaphor. There's a reason this stuff appeals to (male) execs!"
I agree with David that crude parallels are often tedious and unhelpful (as David says, there are books with titles like "The Leadership Secrets of Genghis Khan" and endless management books about Sun Tzu). but I don't agree with his implicit suggestion that we can't learn anything from the military unless we're covert militarists.
Surely there are always going to be military innovations that have peaceful civilian applications. The military has always experimented with both technology and organization, and much of the technology we have today might not have been possible without initial military funding. Just as a vegetarian may refuse to kill an animal to wear its skin, but may be happy to wear the skin of an animal that has died a natural death, so even the most fervent pacifist is not necessarily going against his principles by stealing ideas from the military. (Remember that Gandhi's most successful protest was formulated as a march.)
Don't miss an opportunity to steal ideas, even from people whose beliefs and values you don't share. I'm not endorsing NLP when I acknowledge that I've found one of its ideas useful; I'm not affiliating myself with Rand or Tavistock; and I'm not a secret militarist. I just appreciate good ideas.
- Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
- Rand Corporation
- Tavistock Institute
- Warfare
NLP has evolved into a highly commercial and apparently superficial set of practices, but it has respectable antecedents in the systems world (via Bateson and his associates). Furthermore, the founders of NLP were far more aware of its scientific and ethical limitations, than their present-day followers appear to be. I happen to find most of the recent literature tediously monotonous, but I have found some fascinating ideas in some of the early books, including concepts like reframing.
Researchers at the Rand Corporation and at the Tavistock Institute made significant contributions to our understandings of complex sociotechnical systems. However, both organizations have been accused of ethically questionable activities, and are frequently mentioned in conspiracy theories. Even if these accusations were accurate (which I don't know), I can't see that this prevents us drawing on their work.
Finally the whole defence thing. On Twitter recently, @david_harvey complained (in reference to an article suggesting we can learn something about agility from the marines) that "someone else has "discovered" the military metaphor. There's a reason this stuff appeals to (male) execs!"
I agree with David that crude parallels are often tedious and unhelpful (as David says, there are books with titles like "The Leadership Secrets of Genghis Khan" and endless management books about Sun Tzu). but I don't agree with his implicit suggestion that we can't learn anything from the military unless we're covert militarists.
Surely there are always going to be military innovations that have peaceful civilian applications. The military has always experimented with both technology and organization, and much of the technology we have today might not have been possible without initial military funding. Just as a vegetarian may refuse to kill an animal to wear its skin, but may be happy to wear the skin of an animal that has died a natural death, so even the most fervent pacifist is not necessarily going against his principles by stealing ideas from the military. (Remember that Gandhi's most successful protest was formulated as a march.)
Don't miss an opportunity to steal ideas, even from people whose beliefs and values you don't share. I'm not endorsing NLP when I acknowledge that I've found one of its ideas useful; I'm not affiliating myself with Rand or Tavistock; and I'm not a secret militarist. I just appreciate good ideas.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Why New Systems Don't Work
In response to my previous post Passive Adoption, which suggested that real adoption was always optional, @oscarberg replied that adoption is optional in theory only - if you resist adopting new ERP you will likely lose your job.
Here's how I rescue my suggestion from being disproved by Oscar's counterexample. In many organizations, I agree that individuals can't openly rebel or resist the official adoption of some corporate system such as ERP. However, despite the absence of visible resistance, the organization somehow frustrates the purposes of the ERP system.
How does this happen? Over-simplying enormously, let's say the business case (top-down purpose) of adopting ERP across the organization is based on the cost-saving from eliminating surplus stock. But local managers like to have surplus stock, because it gives them more flexibility to achieve their targets. So we can observe the local managers diligently complying with the demands on the ERP system, and yet for some mysterious reason the surplus stock doesn't disappear. In other words, people whose departmental interests may be slightly at odds with the overall corporate interest, or who may feel their autonomy challenged by a centralized ERP system, may somehow manage to mislead the ERP system in order to preserve their local surpluses.
So in what sense has an organization in this position actually adopted ERP at all? Sure, the software has been installed, but the people in the organization are subverting the operation of the system so that it fails to do what it was designed to do.So this isn't true ERP after all.
There are many other examples of this kind of failure. We have seen many examples of target-based systems that are intended to improve customer service and value-for-money, yet achieve the exact opposite. (Followers of Deming and John Seddon are constantly railing against this kind of folly.) So-called knowledge management systems, that perennially fail to make any serious inroads into corporate knowledge. And so on, and so on. (Please feel free to add more examples in the comments.)
Oscar's conclusion from this is that whereas the old approach has been to design apps without involving users & then force adoption from top down, optional software require even more focus on people to be adopted.
I agree with this, but I'd go a lot further. Yes we should design all software recognizing that its correct adoption is always kind-of optional: however compulsory it may seem, covert subversion is always possible. But it's not just about software design. When we forget to look at the human organization as a joined-up system, using systems thinking lenses, then we are likely to design software that is highly vulnerable to this kind of failure.
New systems can work. But we need to understand why new systems and attempted innovations often don't work, why "best practice" in systems design often fails to produce the desired outcomes, and how innovation benefits from a whole-system perspective.
Related post: Enterprise POSIWID (March 2012)
Passive Adoption
@oscarberg writes Adoption of new practices and systems has always been about the people, but making adoption optional makes it even more so
.
One common pattern of adopting an innovation (whether technology or practice) is when people just go through the motions for the sake of compliance - superficial adoption without real commitment.
So real (committed, authentic) adoption is always optional. You can force people to adopt something superficially, but enthusiasm and commitment can never be mandatory.
This is why, in the context of change management, the concept of resistance
is more complicated than people usually admit. Lack of resistance isn't necessarily a good sign; it may merely indicate that people have worked out how to comply superficially with the innovation without actually making any meaningful change. Or even that they have seen a way to divert the innovation to their own selfish advantage. Whereas real commitment is often preceded by a serious engagement with the substance of the innovation, which over-impatient managers may experience as resistance.
Related posts: Why new systems don't work (December 2009), Where is the fear? (March 2009)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
From Knowledge to Strategic Advantage
@jhagel asks Are Your Sources of Strategic Advantage Eroding? and points out how strategic advantage can be eroded if knowledge stocks are allowed to depreciate. Thus maintaining strategic advantage depends on intelligent processing of rich and diverse knowledge flows.
1 The first requirement is access to good knowledge flows. Hagel describes this as a positional advantage, but I think it is more accurate to describe this as a relational advantage - it is about our strategic relationships with sources of knowledge.
2. The second requirement is an ability to make sense of these knowledge flows. On the one hand, this means filtering and ranking, to avoid getting overwhelmed or spreading resources too thinly; but on the other hand, it is important to remain alert to weak signals that might suggest a change in direction.
3. Generating and leveraging knowledge (especially tacit knowledge) depends on trust-based relationships with knowledge-flow participants, both inside our own organizations and across our ecosystems. We need to engage (enable + encourage + empower) people into a learning process that is focused on "challenging performance issues".
4. Communicating and disseminating new capability-based knowledge through the organization (and out into the ecosystem) becomes the critical metacapability.
Hagel claims that "This new form of strategic advantage benefits from network effects and increasing returns." Now it may well be true that, under favourable circumstances, the more these knowledge flows and metacapabilities are exercised the more robust they become. However, this is not a classic network effect, and it is by no means certain that the positive feedback loops will outweigh the negative feedback loops. One limiting factor is organizational torque, defined by @liman as "when an organization fosters grass-roots collaboration externally, but has a resistant internal structure/philosophy". In other words, some modes of organizational change twist the organization out of the control of its legacy leadership.
1 The first requirement is access to good knowledge flows. Hagel describes this as a positional advantage, but I think it is more accurate to describe this as a relational advantage - it is about our strategic relationships with sources of knowledge.
2. The second requirement is an ability to make sense of these knowledge flows. On the one hand, this means filtering and ranking, to avoid getting overwhelmed or spreading resources too thinly; but on the other hand, it is important to remain alert to weak signals that might suggest a change in direction.
3. Generating and leveraging knowledge (especially tacit knowledge) depends on trust-based relationships with knowledge-flow participants, both inside our own organizations and across our ecosystems. We need to engage (enable + encourage + empower) people into a learning process that is focused on "challenging performance issues".
4. Communicating and disseminating new capability-based knowledge through the organization (and out into the ecosystem) becomes the critical metacapability.
Hagel claims that "This new form of strategic advantage benefits from network effects and increasing returns." Now it may well be true that, under favourable circumstances, the more these knowledge flows and metacapabilities are exercised the more robust they become. However, this is not a classic network effect, and it is by no means certain that the positive feedback loops will outweigh the negative feedback loops. One limiting factor is organizational torque, defined by @liman as "when an organization fosters grass-roots collaboration externally, but has a resistant internal structure/philosophy". In other words, some modes of organizational change twist the organization out of the control of its legacy leadership.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Selling the Big Picture
In my previous post, I asked what Getting the Big Picture meant, and what was it dependent upon. In this post, I shall explore the relationship between the people who "get" the bigger picture and the people who (for whatever reason) "don't get it".
@enectoux people are afraid of complexity. Show EA is NOT complex and you'll get them understand and calm down.
@richardveryard But show people that EA is NOT complex and they'll think they can do it themselves.
@pauljansen But EA is (all) about complexity. If not, it probably is not EA but f.i. Systems Engeneering
@enectoux EAs mission is to deal w/ this complexity, not to throw it in the face of their customers. Otherwise you are useless
@enectoux Look a Wimbledon tennis game, doesn't It seem easy for you? Do you thinking you'll ever be able to return Nadal's service?
But there is a deeper reason for my being uncomfortable about the relationship between those who "get it" and those who don't. What kind of authority does "getting the bigger picture" bestow? How do those who get the bigger picture avoid conveying a sense of we-know-best superiority over those whom they are trying to influence?
@pauljansen EA is about Servant Leadership and keeping the right, effective balance between serving and leading
@MartinHowittEA shouldn't be about being superior. there's no long-term model there. We need to focus on helping others realise potential
It is important to remember that even if a lens appears to provide a "bigger picture", this picture is never the only possible one, and should never be regarded as uniquely authoritative. Systems leadership doesn't mean pushing people into accepting the consequences of a picture they don't understand, it means working with them to create a meaningful, rich and well-grounded picture against which to steer a robust course of action.
Complexity
Some people think that the difficulty of "getting" the bigger picture is due to a kind of complexity. So to communicate with a broader audience, "we" have to hide the complexity from "them". But does this encourage "them" to undervalue the bigger picture? At what point does a simplistic "big picture" become merely a meaningless and content-free abstraction?@enectoux people are afraid of complexity. Show EA is NOT complex and you'll get them understand and calm down.
@richardveryard But show people that EA is NOT complex and they'll think they can do it themselves.
@pauljansen But EA is (all) about complexity. If not, it probably is not EA but f.i. Systems Engeneering
@enectoux EAs mission is to deal w/ this complexity, not to throw it in the face of their customers. Otherwise you are useless
@enectoux Look a Wimbledon tennis game, doesn't It seem easy for you? Do you thinking you'll ever be able to return Nadal's service?
Leadership
But there is a deeper reason for my being uncomfortable about the relationship between those who "get it" and those who don't. What kind of authority does "getting the bigger picture" bestow? How do those who get the bigger picture avoid conveying a sense of we-know-best superiority over those whom they are trying to influence?
@pauljansen EA is about Servant Leadership and keeping the right, effective balance between serving and leading
@MartinHowittEA shouldn't be about being superior. there's no long-term model there. We need to focus on helping others realise potential
It is important to remember that even if a lens appears to provide a "bigger picture", this picture is never the only possible one, and should never be regarded as uniquely authoritative. Systems leadership doesn't mean pushing people into accepting the consequences of a picture they don't understand, it means working with them to create a meaningful, rich and well-grounded picture against which to steer a robust course of action.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Getting the Big Picture
A discussion about enterprise architecture on Twitter exposed an interesting difference of opinion about this topic. In response to the question whether people felt threatened by enterprise architecture, @pauljansen replied "yes and rightfully so. An EA often sees the bigger picture 'they' cannot."
Paul's comment raises several interesting questions.
Firstly, let's acknowledge that enterprise architecture (as commonly practised) mandates a particular set of lenses for viewing the enterprise - based on a set of abstract structural models - and these lenses frame what enterprise architects mean by "seeing the bigger picture".
More generally, seeing the bigger picture entails an understanding of how things join up. EA models are supposed to document this understanding. For some people, "seeing the bigger picture" is equivalent to "strategic thinking", and the two terms were used interchangeably in the discussion.
Does "seeing the bigger picture" call for some special ability or mindset?
@jpmorgenthal said that "strategic is a skill that cannot be learned", adding "it's genetic", and in answer to @aleksb6, who asked "if all behaviors are both nature and nurture, why is strategic thinking unique in your opinion?", @jpmorgenthal answered "strategic thought is not a behavior, it's an attribute like eye color".
@pauljansen took the view that it was both nature and nurture. "Some had 'the right eye color' but never used / recognised / cultivated it." @pauljansen "Short: left brain versus whole brain; those in certain positions came there because their rational focus, by talent or nurtured."
This sounds like enterprise architects have some special power to understand complex problems, which distinguishes them from the rest of the management team. To my mind, the trouble with this belief is that it encourages a kind of them-and-us attitude, which perhaps reinforces the feelings of threat and frustration on both sides.
The idea that some people have a superior ability to see the bigger picture resembles an earlier belief that some people had a superior ability to take a long-term view. Elliott Jaques based his theory of requisite organization on the principle that each level in the management hierarchy should be associated with a different time horizon, and it was this that justified higher remuneration for people in senior management positions.
In contrast with this view, @aleksb6 thought that many people would be capable of seeing the bigger picture if they wanted to. "They can, but not incented to see!" In other words, not seeing the bigger picture is often a question of perspective and motivation, not intrinsic ability. I agree with this.
I also partially agree with @enectoux 's comment that "Not everyone is able to see the big picture. Take an expert in any area... Not the right mindset." as long as it is understood that mindset changes with perspective and motivation. If someone goes to work for a large software vendor, or a technical person moves into a sales role, she will need to adopt a mindset that is appropriate for the new role.
And it is not hard to see how the "bigger picture" mindset conflicts with the mindset needed for certain activities, as @pauljansen acknowledges. "Alas, for many clients it is a disability, be it 'unlearned' in favor of focus (convergence)."
Perspective and mindset, motivation and interest - these are all important factors that influence which pictures we see. I recently came across a great example of the importance of perspective. Here's a pretty rural cottage for sale ...
... and here's a bigger picture ...
Source: Daily Mail, 29 October 2009
The Daily Mail bills the second picture as "Reality" - but of course it is only one reality, and there are many other big pictures. If you take the photograph from the other side, you can see miles of uninhabited landscape surrounding the cottage [BBC News, 28 October 2009, Daily Telegraph, 29 October 2009]. How you take the picture depends on what outcome you want. Bigger isn't necessarily better, if you are standing in the wrong place.
@pauljansen perspective is a nonrational rightbrain ability, and there4 it matters indeed @sboray perspective is a notion not logically deduced
@sboray what meets the eye and what meets the mind r different
@jpmorgenthal re: pictures, a strategic person would not look at each in isolation, but in relation to each other
In my next post Selling the Big Picture, I shall discuss (with further quotes from the Twitter debate) how pictures great and small, simple and complex, can be used to help or hinder the relationship between those who think they "get" the big picture, and those who apparently "don't get it".
For another example, see Big Picture Again (June 2011) See also Special Powers of the Architect - Getting The Big Picture (December 2010)
Paul's comment raises several interesting questions.
- What does "seeing the bigger picture" really mean?
- What is the ability to "see the bigger picture" dependent on - is it inborn talent or something else?
- What is (or should be) the relationship between people who "see the bigger picture" and those who don't (for whatever reason)?
Firstly, let's acknowledge that enterprise architecture (as commonly practised) mandates a particular set of lenses for viewing the enterprise - based on a set of abstract structural models - and these lenses frame what enterprise architects mean by "seeing the bigger picture".
More generally, seeing the bigger picture entails an understanding of how things join up. EA models are supposed to document this understanding. For some people, "seeing the bigger picture" is equivalent to "strategic thinking", and the two terms were used interchangeably in the discussion.
Does "seeing the bigger picture" call for some special ability or mindset?
@jpmorgenthal said that "strategic is a skill that cannot be learned", adding "it's genetic", and in answer to @aleksb6, who asked "if all behaviors are both nature and nurture, why is strategic thinking unique in your opinion?", @jpmorgenthal answered "strategic thought is not a behavior, it's an attribute like eye color".
@pauljansen took the view that it was both nature and nurture. "Some had 'the right eye color' but never used / recognised / cultivated it." @pauljansen "Short: left brain versus whole brain; those in certain positions came there because their rational focus, by talent or nurtured."
This sounds like enterprise architects have some special power to understand complex problems, which distinguishes them from the rest of the management team. To my mind, the trouble with this belief is that it encourages a kind of them-and-us attitude, which perhaps reinforces the feelings of threat and frustration on both sides.
The idea that some people have a superior ability to see the bigger picture resembles an earlier belief that some people had a superior ability to take a long-term view. Elliott Jaques based his theory of requisite organization on the principle that each level in the management hierarchy should be associated with a different time horizon, and it was this that justified higher remuneration for people in senior management positions.
In contrast with this view, @aleksb6 thought that many people would be capable of seeing the bigger picture if they wanted to. "They can, but not incented to see!" In other words, not seeing the bigger picture is often a question of perspective and motivation, not intrinsic ability. I agree with this.
I also partially agree with @enectoux 's comment that "Not everyone is able to see the big picture. Take an expert in any area... Not the right mindset." as long as it is understood that mindset changes with perspective and motivation. If someone goes to work for a large software vendor, or a technical person moves into a sales role, she will need to adopt a mindset that is appropriate for the new role.
And it is not hard to see how the "bigger picture" mindset conflicts with the mindset needed for certain activities, as @pauljansen acknowledges. "Alas, for many clients it is a disability, be it 'unlearned' in favor of focus (convergence)."
Perspective and mindset, motivation and interest - these are all important factors that influence which pictures we see. I recently came across a great example of the importance of perspective. Here's a pretty rural cottage for sale ...
... and here's a bigger picture ...
Source: Daily Mail, 29 October 2009
The Daily Mail bills the second picture as "Reality" - but of course it is only one reality, and there are many other big pictures. If you take the photograph from the other side, you can see miles of uninhabited landscape surrounding the cottage [BBC News, 28 October 2009, Daily Telegraph, 29 October 2009]. How you take the picture depends on what outcome you want. Bigger isn't necessarily better, if you are standing in the wrong place.
@pauljansen perspective is a nonrational rightbrain ability, and there4 it matters indeed @sboray perspective is a notion not logically deduced
@sboray what meets the eye and what meets the mind r different
@jpmorgenthal re: pictures, a strategic person would not look at each in isolation, but in relation to each other
In my next post Selling the Big Picture, I shall discuss (with further quotes from the Twitter debate) how pictures great and small, simple and complex, can be used to help or hinder the relationship between those who think they "get" the big picture, and those who apparently "don't get it".
For another example, see Big Picture Again (June 2011) See also Special Powers of the Architect - Getting The Big Picture (December 2010)
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Every Picture Tells A Story
@ashalynd Two green parrots are sitting on the tree just outside of our window (it's December and it's Amsterdam). If only my mobile had a good camera!
@richardveryard Why not "if only my camera had better mobility" ? How did we all get persuaded to rely on the phone for this kinda functionality?
@j4ngis Hmm...evolution. Phones are more fit than cameras - attracting more functions etc. Dominating
@richardveryard "Quick-snap-to-share-with-friends-and-post-onto-internet" dominates over "Artfully-composed-picture-to-print-and-keep".
@HotFusionMan "Worse is better." Emotion / social psychology over reason. As it ever was.
@richardveryard Where does the value judgement come from? Why is one purpose superior to another? How has tech produced this particular shift?
@j4ngis We also have (with new tech) more pics and far more photographers. Maybe the sum of "art-value" is constant?
@j4ngis Thinking: Quality of television is constant over time. But now spread over more channels and networks.
@HotFusionMan I don't think a value judgment's being made, just an observation. For "worse is better" here's a citation: The Rise of "Worse is Better" (By Richard Gabriel)
One of the interesting questions that this brief Twitter discussion brings out is what exactly triggered a change in the way we think about photography?
Clearly there is a whole lot of technology change here as well as technologically-led business change (these are not the same thing). My list would include the introduction of digital cameras, the growth of the internet, the ability to send photos by email, the ability to post photos onto websites like Flickr, the appearance of tiny lens cameras on personal devices such as mobile phones, phone networks wanting to sell picture messaging.
But there are many other technological opportunities that have not taken off in quite this fashion, so the other half of the explanation needs to look at the emotional and social drivers for this particular change. It's interesting to see how an older obsession with a certain notion of quality (perfect pictures, perfect sound) has been supplanted with a desire for convenience. In the past, people who could afford it would spend considerable amounts of money on expensive hi-fi equipment in order to escape from scratchy record-players and hissy radios, as well as large cameras with fancy lenses; their children and grandchildren now cheerfully consume low-fi music and video via phones and internet. One is only better than the other if you accept an apparently outdated obsession with perfection. This would be my take on the "worse is better" narrative.
Meanwhile, professional or serious hobby photographers will always use whatever tools are available to them. For example, in the days before digital cameras, professional photographers used Polaroid to get an instant preview of a shot, before adjusting the lighting for the "real" photograph. Thus perhaps the "art-value" remains constant, as @j4ngis suggests. Or at least quasi-stable.
@ashalynd tells me she doesn't have a camera now (not a working one, at least :) ) Obviously she isn't the only one. The distribution of camera-power has changed, in a way that nobody could have predicted. Technology has certainly changed the landscape, but it is people who have chosen to follow certain paths rather than others. That's what I find fascinating.
@richardveryard Why not "if only my camera had better mobility" ? How did we all get persuaded to rely on the phone for this kinda functionality?
@j4ngis Hmm...evolution. Phones are more fit than cameras - attracting more functions etc. Dominating
@richardveryard "Quick-snap-to-share-with-friends-and-post-onto-internet" dominates over "Artfully-composed-picture-to-print-and-keep".
@HotFusionMan "Worse is better." Emotion / social psychology over reason. As it ever was.
@richardveryard Where does the value judgement come from? Why is one purpose superior to another? How has tech produced this particular shift?
@j4ngis We also have (with new tech) more pics and far more photographers. Maybe the sum of "art-value" is constant?
@j4ngis Thinking: Quality of television is constant over time. But now spread over more channels and networks.
@HotFusionMan I don't think a value judgment's being made, just an observation. For "worse is better" here's a citation: The Rise of "Worse is Better" (By Richard Gabriel)
One of the interesting questions that this brief Twitter discussion brings out is what exactly triggered a change in the way we think about photography?
Clearly there is a whole lot of technology change here as well as technologically-led business change (these are not the same thing). My list would include the introduction of digital cameras, the growth of the internet, the ability to send photos by email, the ability to post photos onto websites like Flickr, the appearance of tiny lens cameras on personal devices such as mobile phones, phone networks wanting to sell picture messaging.
But there are many other technological opportunities that have not taken off in quite this fashion, so the other half of the explanation needs to look at the emotional and social drivers for this particular change. It's interesting to see how an older obsession with a certain notion of quality (perfect pictures, perfect sound) has been supplanted with a desire for convenience. In the past, people who could afford it would spend considerable amounts of money on expensive hi-fi equipment in order to escape from scratchy record-players and hissy radios, as well as large cameras with fancy lenses; their children and grandchildren now cheerfully consume low-fi music and video via phones and internet. One is only better than the other if you accept an apparently outdated obsession with perfection. This would be my take on the "worse is better" narrative.
Meanwhile, professional or serious hobby photographers will always use whatever tools are available to them. For example, in the days before digital cameras, professional photographers used Polaroid to get an instant preview of a shot, before adjusting the lighting for the "real" photograph. Thus perhaps the "art-value" remains constant, as @j4ngis suggests. Or at least quasi-stable.
@ashalynd tells me she doesn't have a camera now (not a working one, at least :) ) Obviously she isn't the only one. The distribution of camera-power has changed, in a way that nobody could have predicted. Technology has certainly changed the landscape, but it is people who have chosen to follow certain paths rather than others. That's what I find fascinating.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Social Media and Political Action
Politicians are fascinated by social media, for several reasons. They are impressed by the apparent contribution of social media to the electoral success of Barack Obama (coordinating local initiative as well as fund-raising), and they are also attracted by the possibility of communicating directly with their supporters.
So I was interested to see the latest Conservative Party experiment in crowdsourcing. The Party has obtained a leaked copy of a government report on public sector IT, and has published it on a website called Make IT Better, with the following statement.
As it happens, I do have some reactions to the leaked government report, which I may cover elsewhere, but what I want to cover here is not what the next government's IT policy should be, but the much more fundamental question "how policy should be designed".
The production of policy is an inescapably political process. In several recent cases, we can see how ministers attempt to steer an uncomfortable path between public opinion on the one hand and expert advice on the other.
It would be crazy to say either that public opinion should always trump expert opinion, or that expert opinion should always trump public opinion. And of course "public opinion" and "expert opinion" are not two separate worlds, but there are strong links between them. Thus opinion is rarely simple and consistent, but may contain vigorous disagreement. However, that cannot be an excuse to ignore opinion. Politicians cannot and must not abdicate from this arena.
What's the relevance of social media to this process? There are two important points here.
Firstly, social media provide platforms for self-appointed experts of all kinds to share and attempt to mobilize their opinions. Sometimes these opinions can strike a chord with a broader audience, and feeds into a movement that subverts the established policy - whether by fostering popular suspicion about scientific issues (such as GM crops and mass vaccination), or by mobilizing local opposition to some central funding decision (such as closing a well-loved hospital).
Secondly, governments have traditionally received expert advice from a relatively small elite of professional scientists and businessmen. This has the result of pushing policy in certain directions, often to suit the vested interests of powerful lobbies. But these vested interests are increasingly hard to conceal from the public gaze (thanks in part to social media - think Trafigura), and public opinion can sometimes be roused against these vested interests (as we have seen in the case of bank bonuses). So some kind of crowdsourcing might conceivably offer alternative sources of advice.
There is an important trust issue here as well. Governments are not trusted to spend large amounts of money on IT; anyone who reads the IT press (Computer Weekly, The Register) will be able to quote lots of reasons for this lack of trust. This isn't just an IT issue of course: as Stephanie Flanders, the BBC's economics editor, puts it, "We all believe the savings are there to be had. We just don't trust the government to find them." (Efficiency Trap, 7 December 2009)
Crowdsourcing perhaps offers the possibility of forging a different kind of trust. So the challenge is not to find a better way of generating input for a traditional strategy report, but to find a better way of doing strategy. Politicians may wish to regard certain areas of policy as being purely technological (and not political at all, hem hem), and therefore be willing to delegate these policy areas to "friendly" technocrats, but this is essentially a Faustian pact in which the technocrats (generally senior representatives of the major IT firms) promise to solve all the technical problems in return for a shed-load of cash. Some politicians may have gone along with this kind of deal in the past, but there is an increasingly blatent history of project failure and cost over-runs. (Today it was announced that the NHS IT System is being "scaled back" [BBC News, 6 December 2009].) So there is a major strategic risk here that can no longer be swept under the carpet.
The political challenge for politicians in these situations is to forge a constituency that will support productive action. Not a small club of powerful players, but a broad range of stakeholders with varying levels of power, proximity and interest - and also a wide range of social ties to the people who will vote in the next election. That's the lesson of social media that politicians should learn from Barack Obama: use of the Internet not as a one-sided fund-raising mechanism but as a way to build a new kind of constituency.
And that's where I think the Conservative experiment in crowdsourcing should go - not just collecting negative comments from which to score debating points against the Government, but developing an entirely new way of producing policy out of a genuine conversation with well-informed public opinion. Not easy by any means, but (given the present situation) it has to be worth trying.
So I was interested to see the latest Conservative Party experiment in crowdsourcing. The Party has obtained a leaked copy of a government report on public sector IT, and has published it on a website called Make IT Better, with the following statement.
"We want to throw open the process and allow people to contribute their ideas on how policy should be designed. In the post-bureaucratic age, we believe that crowdsourcing and collaborative design can help us to make better policies."
As it happens, I do have some reactions to the leaked government report, which I may cover elsewhere, but what I want to cover here is not what the next government's IT policy should be, but the much more fundamental question "how policy should be designed".
The production of policy is an inescapably political process. In several recent cases, we can see how ministers attempt to steer an uncomfortable path between public opinion on the one hand and expert advice on the other.
- Bank bonuses. Banking experts insist that large bonuses are required to keep the banks operating effectively, but popular opinion is largely hostile to this proposition.
- Drug classification. Scientists argue that drug classification should be based on the evidence of harm caused by each drug, but politicians fear that this would be politically dangerous and would "send the wrong message".
- ID cards, databases and so on. At first, public opinion largely supported such schemes, in the belief that these security mechanisms would provide reliable protection against a range of social ills including illegal immigration and terrorism. However, several highly respected security experts have pointed out the flaws in the government schemes, and have indicated a strong likelihood that the costs will be far higher than the official estimates. Public opinion now seems to be shifting against these schemes.
It would be crazy to say either that public opinion should always trump expert opinion, or that expert opinion should always trump public opinion. And of course "public opinion" and "expert opinion" are not two separate worlds, but there are strong links between them. Thus opinion is rarely simple and consistent, but may contain vigorous disagreement. However, that cannot be an excuse to ignore opinion. Politicians cannot and must not abdicate from this arena.
What's the relevance of social media to this process? There are two important points here.
Firstly, social media provide platforms for self-appointed experts of all kinds to share and attempt to mobilize their opinions. Sometimes these opinions can strike a chord with a broader audience, and feeds into a movement that subverts the established policy - whether by fostering popular suspicion about scientific issues (such as GM crops and mass vaccination), or by mobilizing local opposition to some central funding decision (such as closing a well-loved hospital).
Secondly, governments have traditionally received expert advice from a relatively small elite of professional scientists and businessmen. This has the result of pushing policy in certain directions, often to suit the vested interests of powerful lobbies. But these vested interests are increasingly hard to conceal from the public gaze (thanks in part to social media - think Trafigura), and public opinion can sometimes be roused against these vested interests (as we have seen in the case of bank bonuses). So some kind of crowdsourcing might conceivably offer alternative sources of advice.
There is an important trust issue here as well. Governments are not trusted to spend large amounts of money on IT; anyone who reads the IT press (Computer Weekly, The Register) will be able to quote lots of reasons for this lack of trust. This isn't just an IT issue of course: as Stephanie Flanders, the BBC's economics editor, puts it, "We all believe the savings are there to be had. We just don't trust the government to find them." (Efficiency Trap, 7 December 2009)
Crowdsourcing perhaps offers the possibility of forging a different kind of trust. So the challenge is not to find a better way of generating input for a traditional strategy report, but to find a better way of doing strategy. Politicians may wish to regard certain areas of policy as being purely technological (and not political at all, hem hem), and therefore be willing to delegate these policy areas to "friendly" technocrats, but this is essentially a Faustian pact in which the technocrats (generally senior representatives of the major IT firms) promise to solve all the technical problems in return for a shed-load of cash. Some politicians may have gone along with this kind of deal in the past, but there is an increasingly blatent history of project failure and cost over-runs. (Today it was announced that the NHS IT System is being "scaled back" [BBC News, 6 December 2009].) So there is a major strategic risk here that can no longer be swept under the carpet.
The political challenge for politicians in these situations is to forge a constituency that will support productive action. Not a small club of powerful players, but a broad range of stakeholders with varying levels of power, proximity and interest - and also a wide range of social ties to the people who will vote in the next election. That's the lesson of social media that politicians should learn from Barack Obama: use of the Internet not as a one-sided fund-raising mechanism but as a way to build a new kind of constituency.
And that's where I think the Conservative experiment in crowdsourcing should go - not just collecting negative comments from which to score debating points against the Government, but developing an entirely new way of producing policy out of a genuine conversation with well-informed public opinion. Not easy by any means, but (given the present situation) it has to be worth trying.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
The Power of Self-Knowledge
@jonerp asked if there was a better/more challenging business philosophy than "If you build it, they will come?"
So I tweeted the first decent philosophical saying I could think of that was short enough to Tweet, namely Socrates' slogan "Know Thyself".
Jon replied: "I like that one though I do have friends who have very good self-knowledge who are not good at biz."
Of course, the point isn't that self-knowledge will guarantee business success, any more than regular exercise will turn you into a top athlete, but that self-knowledge together with other factors might enhance business success. I'd include collective self-knowledge here as well as personal self-knowledge.
But is that necessarily true? A contrary view of business success is that it is sometimes associated with a single-minded obsession, which too much self-knowledge might conceivably undermine. And as Jon pointed out, "self-knowledge might dictate a need for more 'balance' in life vs. the grind/obsession of biz success". Jon went on to propose the following formula "self-knowledge ~ biz goals aligned with values ~ visibility in your field ~ intimate dialogue with customers ~ market relevance ~ success"
Jon's formula calls out for a VPEC-T analysis. Self-knowledge is a Policy that aligns Events and Content with Values. And to get the intimate dialogue with customers (Trust), we need a particular kind of self-knowledge, sometimes referred to as authenticity. That's quite the opposite of single-minded obsession.
So I tweeted the first decent philosophical saying I could think of that was short enough to Tweet, namely Socrates' slogan "Know Thyself".
Jon replied: "I like that one though I do have friends who have very good self-knowledge who are not good at biz."
Of course, the point isn't that self-knowledge will guarantee business success, any more than regular exercise will turn you into a top athlete, but that self-knowledge together with other factors might enhance business success. I'd include collective self-knowledge here as well as personal self-knowledge.
But is that necessarily true? A contrary view of business success is that it is sometimes associated with a single-minded obsession, which too much self-knowledge might conceivably undermine. And as Jon pointed out, "self-knowledge might dictate a need for more 'balance' in life vs. the grind/obsession of biz success". Jon went on to propose the following formula "self-knowledge ~ biz goals aligned with values ~ visibility in your field ~ intimate dialogue with customers ~ market relevance ~ success"
Jon's formula calls out for a VPEC-T analysis. Self-knowledge is a Policy that aligns Events and Content with Values. And to get the intimate dialogue with customers (Trust), we need a particular kind of self-knowledge, sometimes referred to as authenticity. That's quite the opposite of single-minded obsession.
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