November 2005

It Looks Good From Here

I went on a kayaking trip with some friends. We stopped and looked at the first rapid on the first river from the bridge. I distinctly remember saying, "It looks good from here." And it did. What I didn't see was around the corner. The river bed narrowed, the rocks got closer together, and paddling became, well, much more interesting.

At the bottom of the third rapid, there were three paddlers on the shore in various stages of "where's my gear?" Everyone was safe, and with a little time, we found all the gear. The river widened, the rocks got further apart, and everyone made it to the take out.

As I thought about the experience, the parallels to software projects struck me.

• Some people had more skills than the others.
• We could see the start, but didn't know all the problems we'd find along the way.
• Everyone on the team knew how to take care of themself.
• When someone got in trouble, other people would help out.
• We moved as a group, although different people lead at different times.
• We all got to the finish.

Now, What Is Change?

Re-reading my blog titles occasionally leads to interesting thoughts. Many titles mention change, and most entries have something to do with change. But after all these entries no one has asked me, "Don, what do you mean 'change'?". Until recently, I haven't asked me either.

It's understandable. We all know what change is. We've been involved with change all our lives. Thus we each have an idea what change means. However, as I mentioned earlier (Different But Useful), the map is not the territory. It's quite likely that your definition varies from mine. Like the air we breath, we don't notice it until something goes wrong.

So, what is change? Change is the transition in a system between two steady states.

Transitions requires time. Smaller less complex systems generally require less time to make transitions. As an independent consultant, I can implement changes much faster that Microsoft can. I don't have empirical data but I'd guess by the time I'm finished with a change, they'd still be discussing it.

Transitions also require energy. Some energy is required to move the system from its stable state. If an external event creates a life and death response in the system, this energy probably isn't hard to find. If the change "comes down from on high" and involves doing something differently (such as process improvement), the energy may not exist to get the transition started. Once the transition gets underway, more energy than normal gets expended as the system attempts to re-organize and find its new stable state.

Seem reasonable? Got a question or something to say? Let me know. don@donaldegray.com

So, What is a System?

I'm working backwards. I started this entry on defining change. Then I realized change can't exist without systems. So, what is a system? I like the following (heavily inspired by Systems Thinking Basics: From Concepts to Causal Loops)

Systems have several essential characteristics:

1. A system’s parts must all be present for the system to carry out its purpose optimally. If you can take components away from something without affecting its functioning and its relationships, then you have just a collection, not a system. A pile of quarters on the table would be a collection. The company for which you work is a system.
2. A system’s parts must be arranged in a specific way for the system to carry out its purpose. If the components of a collection can be combined in any random order, then they do not make up a system.
3. Systems have specific purposes within larger systems. To paraphrase, "It's systems all the way down." Your company, your department, your team, you, your various physical systems, and smaller the systems get until you reach the sub-cellular level.
4. Systems maintain their stability through fluctuations and adjustments. Systems achieve this stability through the interactions, feedback and adjustments that continually circulate among the system parts, and between the system and its environment. If a systems doesn't achieve stability, it generally doesn't last long enough to get noticed.
5. Systems have feedback. Feedback is the transmission and return of information. The most important feature of feedback is that it provides the catalyst for a change in behavior.

A system has feedback within itself. But because all systems are part of larger systems, a system also has feedback between itself and external systems.

Finally, feedback is not necessarily transmitted and returned through the same system component or even through the same system.

What would you add or change? Send me a note: don@donaldegray.com