An introduction to systems thinking with a view into it's applicability when considering the design of software teams.

1. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
it’s systems all the way
down!

2. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Headache

3. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Mechanism

4. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Thinking
“It’s foolish for a society to
cling to it’s old ideas in new
times just as it’s foolish for a
grown man to try to
squeeze into a coat that fit
him in his youth”
Thomas Jefferson

5. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
What is a system?
“An interconnected set of
elements which is coherently
organised in a way that achieves
something”
Donnella Meadows

6. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Interdependence
“Each part of the system,
when it affects the system, is
dependent on its affect for
some other part
In other words the parts
are interdependent”
Russell Ackoff

7. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
“The essential or defining
properties of any system
are properties of the
whole that none of its
parts have.”
Russell Ackoff
Defining Properties

8. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Feedback

9. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Balancing & Reinforcing

10. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Resilience

11. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Self-Organisation

12. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Time

13. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Boundaries

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Holistic
“The systems approach
to problems focuses on
systems taken as a
whole, not on their
parts taken separately.”
Russell Ackoff

15. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Complexity
“Linearity is seductive"
Dave Snowden

16. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Operation Cat Drop

17. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Fundamental
Attribution Error

18. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Appreciation of a System
95% of the
performance of an
organisation is
attributable to the
system (processes,
technology, work
design, regulations,
etc) and 5% are
attributable to the
individual
W Edwards Deming

19. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
GM Freemont

20. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
NUMMI

21. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
What about Software Development?

22. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down

23. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down

24. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Purpose
“The whole problem with the world
is that fools and fanatics are always
so certain of themselves, and wiser
people so full of doubts.”
Bertrand Russell

25. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Agile
A way of working that accepts we
can’t know everything in advance and
things we do know about might
change.
We manage this by intervening in
social systems through the use of
processes that promote learning
which enable organisations to adapt
quickly when new information
emerges.

26. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down

27. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Scrum

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3 Amigos

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Sub-optimisation

30. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Lean
“All we are doing is looking at
the time line, from the moment
the customer gives us an order
to the point when we collect the
cash.And we are reducing the
time line by reducing the non-
value adding wastes.”
Taiichi Ohno

31. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
kanban
With Kanban we introduce enabling
constraints to highlight governing
constraints
kanban
With Kanban we introduce enabling
constraints to highlight governing
constraints

32. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Continuous Delivery
"potentially shippable"... seriously, "do
or do not, there's not bloody
potentially shippable software"
- Torbjörn Gyllebring

33. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
“There is nothing quite so
useless, as doing with great
efficiency, something that
should not be done at all.”
Peter Drucker

34. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
Lean UX

35. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
95/5... ?

36. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
References
Anything from Russell Ackoff
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=russell+ackoff
Jabe Bloom on Systems Thinking
http://www.infoq.com/interviews/jabe-bloom-systems-thinking-lean-ux14
John Seddon Keynote Rethinking IT
https://vimeo.com/19122939

37. @chrisvmcd - it’s systems all the way down
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https://pixabay.com/en/cat-babies-trio-22400/
https://jrbenjamin.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/thomas-jefferson.jpg
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wnet/nature/files/2008/06/image_intro3.jpg
Images