Tag Archives: Agile

Wirearchy – a pattern for an adaptive organization?

Posted on July 28, 2014 by

What is a Wirearchy?  How does it work?  When should it be considered?  When should it be avoided?  What are the advantages?  This post covers the basics elements of a Wirearchy.

Posted in Adaptive, Agile | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Emergence versus Entropy in Management

Posted on December 12, 2013 by

Julian Birkinshaw professor at the London Business School had an interesting article in Forbes a couple weeks ago titled “Managing Complexity: The Battle Between Emergence And Entropy” which comes close to, but falls just short of, making a good recommendation … Continue reading →

Posted in complexity | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

The Origin of Reductionism

Posted on October 11, 2013 by

I have written many times about how culturally we have a tendency to want to simplify problems, and solve the separate parts, and this is reductionism.  Scientific management is based on this idea, and it is one of the ideas … Continue reading →

Posted in Adaptive, complexity | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Race-cars, Drivers, and Mechanics

Posted on September 23, 2013 by

I met with a Fujitsu executive last week, and we naturally got onto the topic of software development methodology. I presented my case that it is critical that programmers know the actual customer because 90% of all decisions that effect … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile, complexity, Software | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Adaptability as a Competitive Advantage

Posted on July 8, 2013 by

One of the better summaries on how companies need to be adaptable is the Harvard Business Review article by Martin Reeves and Mike Deimler called “Adaptability: The New Competitive Advantage“.

Posted in Adaptive | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Naive Intervention makes Poor Process Design

Posted on March 18, 2013 by

Continuing the pattern from my past few post on Antifragile concepts, today consider Naive Intervention, that idea assuming that simple model actually represents a complex system can lead to disastrously bad decisions.

Posted in Adaptive, Adaptive Case Management | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Ancient Wisdom teaches Business Processes

Posted on March 4, 2013 by

Jared Diamond spoke at the Commonwealth Club last month.  I have always been a huge fan of his Pulitzer prize winning book “Guns, Germs, and Steel” as well as “Collapse” and other works.  This talk introduced his new book “The World Until Yesterday: … Continue reading →

Posted in Adaptive, Adaptive Case Management | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments