Tobias Fors

På konferensen Agila Sverige 2009 gjorde jag ett blixttal på temat lättrörlighet och lärande, med titeln “Att lära sig tillsammans”. Konferensarrangörerna filmade alla tal, och mitt har nyligen blivit publicerat. Bäddar in det här nedan.

Lära sig tillsammans - Tobias Fors from agilasverige on Vimeo.

The first time I heard Kent Beck’s voice for real was in a podcast interview. I remember that he spoke with passion about concepts that were, as I listened, obviously connected with the practices of XP: trust and accountability. Still, I hadn’t made the connection that clearly up until then, so that interview stood out for me. In this video on InfoQ, Kent Beck talks more about accountability, trust, why they are so important for effectiveness - and how this relates to agile software development.

Here’s a video of a talk by Jeff Sutherland at Öredev 2008. Although I still find all his numbers suspect, because I don’t understand what he does to actually measure productivity of the teams he works with - I still like to listen to him speak. His ambition to push the envelope and find new ways to look at the things we work with is what manages to inspire me, not all his numbers.

Three short clips featuring systems thinker Russell Ackoff have been made available on YouTube, and embedded below. Ackoff speaks plainly about profound things, so listen closely, and don’t mistake his plain words for a lack of depth. I’m not an expert, just an interested student, but it seems to be that Ackoff’s great contribution is a clear and understandable explanation of how systems concepts can be applied in organizational thinking. Here are a few key points about the nature of systems, presented by Ackoff in these clips:

• Every system is defined by its function in the larger system which contains it
• An essential property of a system is that it cannot be divided into independent parts
• A system’s properties derive out of the interaction of its parts, and not the actions of its parts taken separately

As an example, here are a few quick thoughts on how our thinking about software development teams needs might change if we look at them through the systems thinker’s eyes.

• To understand why a given software development team performs the way it does, we need to examine the organization in which the team exists. We can’t find the answers by analyzing the team in isolation.
• The true team most likely differs from the team as defined on the org chart. The team on the org chart probably contains non-essential parts: that is, parts that cannot be said to be a part of the system, because they can be removed without impacting the output of the system. Also, the true team most likely contains people that are found in a totally different place in the formal organization.
• We can’t split an effective team in two halves and expect each part to have fifty percent of the efficiency of the whole team. A team’s effectiveness derive out the interaction of its members, not the actions of the team members taken separately.

Here’s a video of a speech with Johanna Rothman, one of the hosts of our upcoming PSL workshop, and also the subject in this mp3 interview.

Here’s a video with Esther Derby and Diana Larsen on the topic of agile retrospectives.

Here’s a link to an InfoQ interview with Jeff Sutherland, on the topic of Scrum.

UPDATE, JAN 11, 2009 Three short clips with Russell Ackoff have been posted to YouTube.

UPDATE, OCT 26, 2008: Kevin, who first pointed out to me that the video links in this post were broken, have managed to get in touch with Chicago-Kent. He received the direct links to the missing Ackoff lectures, and passed them on to me. Here they are:

• rtsp://broadcast.kentlaw.edu/judgelink/girlslink/girlslink01.rm
• rtsp://broadcast.kentlaw.edu/judgelink/girlslink/girlslink02.rm
• rtsp://broadcast.kentlaw.edu/judgelink/girlslink/girlslink03.rm
• rtsp://broadcast.kentlaw.edu/judgelink/girlslink/girlslink04.rm

UPDATE: Russell Ackoff’s talks on Girls Link seem to have been taken down. Readers Kevin and Lennart have asked me if there is a way to get hold of them again. I have not yet found such a way. I have, though, tried to get some more info on this via email, but without luck so far. If I find out more about this, I’ll post about it here. Check back here or/and post a comment if you want to know if I find a way to see them again.

UPDATE 2: Over on Anders Vesterberg’s blog, reader Eric posted links to the Girls Link talks in the comments section. The link’s go to cached content at Web Archive. I’m not able to access the talks, but some seem to be, so go ahead and give it a try.

UPDATE 2: I’ll be adding links to Ackoff material on this page as I come across it on the web.

• Russell Ackoff’s page on Wikipedia
• A concise overview of some of Ackoff’s key learnings, in a BBC News article by Peter Day.
• Some words from Ackoff on learning to manage, in another BBC News article by the same author.
• Ackoff’s Disciplinary Matrix, which I have not heard of before, but seems interesting
• Interview: Russell L. Ackoff, iconoclastic management authority, advocates a ‘‘systemic’’ approach to innovation

Original post:

Oh my, oh my! Is this sweet or what? A full set of videos with systems thinker Russell Ackoff. Russell Ackoff can argue like no other for the idea that we are in the middle of a paradigm shift, in which we are moving away from the old Newtonian, or mechanistic, way of looking at the world, towards something else - something based on the realization of the importance of synthetic thinking.

Ackoff explains how analytical thinking can help us understand how something works, but it cannot help us understand why that same thing works the way it does. To understand the why, we need to look outside of that which we are inspecting - we need to look at its context.

For more on Russell Ackoff and systems thinking, check out these previous posts.

Author, consultant and speaker Mike Cohn has a two-part video out on YouTube. In it, he talks about his area of expertise - the planning and estimation of agile projects.

Mike will be visiting Sweden this fall, and do a couple of his popular courses, hosted by Citerus. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn about Mike’s accessible methods of planning agile projects - they will be an excellent addition to your toolbox.

Here’s a new interview with Tom and Mary Poppendieck on the topic of lean software development. Thanks to Rickard Johansson for the tip!

Around 25 minutes into the interview, the topic of RUP appears. Tom points out the amount of knowledge available in the RUP, but also how it has often been implemented with a focus on the specific practices, rather than on the principles that lie behind the RUP: iterative, incremental software development.

This problem is not entirely unexpected, since people who need the guidance provided by the RUP manuals are probably not yet at a skill level where they can work from principles. When learning something new, we need rules and practices. Unfortunately, in projects and management, the same rules and practices will not work for everyone. A skilled practitioner knows this, and works from the principles he believes in to deduce practices that are useful in the current context. When people “implement” the RUP by copying practices without knowing why, problems are likely.

At around 36 minutes, Mary discusses the difficulty of applying lean and agile over company borders. This is an interesting question, but one that needs some care. Any project run over company borders is challenging. Lean and agile have the nasty and necessary habit of talking openly about uncertainties and risk, and recommending transparency. Obviously, this will put a strain on any relationship between parties who are used to contracting defensively with each other.