Straightforward lean agile systems thinking principles helping agile with sustainability

Running sustained iterative design-build-test introduces the risk of becoming blind-sighted from the longer term perspective, in terms of how individual features or groups of features are expected to develop over time. 

Holism sooner or later becomes elusive as smaller more frequent incremental releases can lead to release silos disconnected from the whole. 

End-to-end value chains can become fragmented and the benefits promised by agile may soon be overshadowed by other challenges.  

We love agile but sometimes find it difficult to see into the future

Just like every paradigm agile needs some help, especially when continual and sustained agile delivery is the goal. In the LAST (lean, agile, systems thinking) method,  learning, design and anasynthesis provide a view that helps to understand sustainability.  

We continue to learn, but we no longer develop or build, instead we design, and we don't analyse and plan anymore we do anasynthesis. This combination remains viable in a virtuous loop, until other internal or external forces intervene.

LAST can augment DevOps and sustained agile delivery

Explore the LAST method on Kumu through the dimensions of why, what and how - simply drag the model and tap or click on the various elements to see how they interact and support each other. Here's a link as the embed may not work reliably from the Blogger app :/ https://kumu.io/James/the-last-method

Fixes that fail: decommissioning

What starts out as a successful quick-win turns into a low-leverage intervention that causes more trouble than its original root cause.  With the advent of IaaS and SaaS the example used in "fixes that fail" seems a little dated, truth being I haven't had time to update it, however the central principles are still valid and very much applicable in our organisations (first published in 2009). 

Fixes that fail: Decommissioning from Systems Thinking IT



When I started looking at the world through models the penny dropped, the overwhelming feeling was "IT people must know about this". That was in 1994 and I've been banging on about it ever since.

The system archetypes are in control and it is very hard to do anything about it, but if we don't try, what does that make us? I talk about this in the conclusion of Sea of Systems "well at least I helped this one".

I explore this and other system archetypes in my eBook Sea of Systems, download it at my blog https://systemsthinkingit.blogspot.com.au

Gems from the deep "learning wisdom"

Here are 4 good learning habits 
I have found 
invaluable over 
the years

• Reflection — internal
• Self-inquiry — internal
• Feedback — external
• Surfacing — external

Reflection is when I spend quiet time mulling things over, trying to understand spheres of influence and other reasons why things turned out the way they did. 

Self-inquiry is when I try to understand my motivation in a particular situation, making a mental note of how my motivation influenced the outcome. 

Feedback is when I seek opinions from others, learning from people's colourful narratives and perspectives, upgrading my mental models and adjusting my approach.

Surfacing is when I use facilitation skills to learn more and go deeper than the symptoms of problems, usually with a group of people who experience similar issues.

I have found by using this combination of techniques I can make more impartial and better informed decisions or choices. 

Sometimes it's hard to find time in IT with back-to-back meetings, operational issues and impending deadlines—but trust me the small investment pays off.  

I explore these and other learning techniques in my eBook Sea of Systems, download it at my blog https://systemsthinkingit.blogspot.com.au




About — "gems from the deep" takes a quick dive into the more detailed and involved concepts explored in the eBooks Sea of Systems and Transparent Delivery (forthcoming).