Problems with System Health

Can knowing how one system works help you understand how other similar systems work? Do software, project and physical health have much in common? This thread started as software health, and wandered through project health and personal health. What do they have in...

Stabilizing Systems

Engineers make the darndest assumptions. I made one such assumption in “Change and Stable Systems”. The unstated assumption involved starting with a stable system. But what do you do if your system (as in team, project, company) is unstable? Stable by...

Reverse Engineering Reality Part 2: Creating Causal Loop Diagrams

Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) share several things with books: they both tell stories, they can be fact or fiction, and they’re both easier to read than write. Keep reading to learn how to write CLDs. The Buddy System The first step in creating CLDs: find a buddy,...

Reverse Engineering Reality Part 1: Reading Causal Loop Diagrams

Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) can help us understand complex interactions and events by revealing system structure. Unlike buildings, most systems don’t have visible structure. We notice systems by observing events. When the events form a pattern (usually over...

Changing Quicker

We finished “Change and Stable Systems with the questions: Will reorganizing every two weeks lead to stable software processes? What conditions would enable this to happen? When should we schedule the next change? Today we’ll discuss some conditions that...