I got Trapped!
Systems thinking traps
of IT Teams
and how to battle them
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The hands that manipulate it
suppress or release some behaviour
that is latent within
the structure of the spring
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A system is an interconnected set of
elements that is coherently organized in
a way that achieves something.
(Function or Purpose)
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Some systems examples
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Element
Interconnections
Function/Purpose
Most easy to observe
and change
Changes greatly
alters the system
Least obvious and
changes can be drastic
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Inflow Outflow
Water in tub
(Stock)
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Inflow Outflow
Water in tub
(Stock)
desired temperature
Discrepancy
B B
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Other examples
“Temporary code or fix”
Hire more manual testers
Hire more developers
Security
Operations
Consultants
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The way out
Take the focus off short-term relief and put it on
long-term restructuring.
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A group of people is not a team,
focus on collaboration as a team.
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Guiding heuristic
Focus on team collaboration
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Drift to low performance
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Other observations
Sprint forecasting
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The way out
Keep performance standard absolute.
Let standards be enhanced by
the best actual performance.
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Guiding heuristics
Make agreements on team standards,
improve collaboration by mobbing and pairing.
Keep repeating and reiterating
on made agreements.
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Success to Successful
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Other observations
Maturity models and job hierarchy with promotions
can lead to:
Peter principle
Social darwinism
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The way out
Diversification
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Guiding heuristics
Pair up with new team members
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guiding heuristics
Focus on (neuro)diversity,
everyone is an individual and different.
Focus on equality,
equal access to opportunities
Focus on inclusion,
create a sense of belonging.
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guiding heuristics
Create collective autocracy within teams.
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Policy Resistance
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Other observations
Technical debt vs quick delivery
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The way out
Bring in all the actors and
seek out mutually satisfactory ways
for all goals to be realised
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Guiding heuristic
Create a shared mindset
of how software is delivered.
Use visualisation and measure the delivery.
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Other observation
unrealistic deadlines
KPI
Ops solving incidents
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The way out
Reflect the real welfare of the system.
Don’t confuse effort with result.
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Guiding heuristics
The team should be autonomous,
focus on result rather than effort.
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Escalation
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Other observations
Gamification between teams,
like who has the best quality software, who writes
the most LOC, or has the most code coverage
->
Can lead to seeking the wrong goal
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The way out
Refuse to compete, disarm.
Negotiate a new system with balancing loops.
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Guiding heuristics
Reform teams when needed to balance.
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Guiding heuristics
Remove toxic people from the team
when all else fails.
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Rule beating
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Other observation
User story templates
Giving user story points to fixed time work
The under the shelve build station
Code review
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The way out
Design, or redesign, rules to release creativity not
in the direction of beating the rules, but in the
direction of achieving the purpose of the rule.
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Guiding heuristics
The team should be autonomous,
focus on purpose rather than rules.
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Tragedy of the commons
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Other observations
Shared data to reports
Shared database
end to end (chain) testing
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The way out
Educate, exhort and create awareness,
so people understand
the consequences of abusing the resource.
Restore or strengthen the feedback loop
by privatizing or giving direct consequences.
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Guiding heuristics
Make a team owner of the shared library.
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Guiding heuristics
Put in place proper CI/CD
Only change the software when
other team(s) collectively reviewed it.
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If we have a system of improvement
that is directed at improving the parts
taken separately.
You can be absolutely sure that the
improvement of the whole
will not be improved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqEeIG8aPPk
Russ Ackoff
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Order Payment Packaging
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Big Picture EventStorming
https://leanpub.com/ddd_first_15_years