Deliberate Discovery and the Myth of Certainty

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Deliberate Discovery and the myth of Certainty Cara Turner South Africa Agile Coach | User Group Chairman | Rigorous Tinkerer

Transcript of Deliberate Discovery and the Myth of Certainty

Deliberate Discovery

and the myth of Certainty

Cara Turner South AfricaAgile Coach | User Group Chairman | Rigorous Tinkerer

“Once upon a time…

There was a software development project in which

everything that would happen was Known and Certain.

And so the project began.

And it happened that the world stood still while the

application was being built, so that it was delivered exactly

as it had been envisaged, and was perfect.

And everyone rejoiced for they were able to work more

efficiently than ever before.

(But exactly as had been known they would, with no other impact on

the world around them.) ”

Our Myth

What’s the Story?

the dramatic arc

What’s the Story?

the dramatic arc

the wrong story(we know this)

no

Our thinking is stuck

the devil we know

The cost of change

shapes our discovery process

The cost of change

… but it’s changed, tooshapes our discovery process

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All our creativity goes…

All our creativity goes…

… into a poorly imagined future

… and gets fixed…

…in our contractmodel

And then we…

… the most dangerous word in software …

“Hope”

What’s the Story?

What’s the Story?

Still uncertain + locked into a bad script

“We are uncovering…

better ways of developing software

by doing it and helping others do it.”

- The Agile Manifesto

Learning is what we do

and the world keeps changingDan North

The world keeps changing

Delay decisions

Prioritize Options

Know the Cost and Benefit

“Never commit early unless you know why”

Real Options

Information Arrival Process

Switch!

when effort exceeds return

Keep switching!

What we can start with

Where we think we want to be

What kind of choices we need to make

What do we need to know?

which problem we’re tackling

how we’ll make decisions

what’s uncertain

what we can know

(Not just) Vision

impact mapping – Gojko Adzic

Why

Who

How

What

The gist of the thing

story mapping – Jeff Paton

Making sense of what we know

Obvious

ComplicatedComplex

Chaotic

Disorder

Cynefin framework – Dave Snowden

Complex: Experiments

inspect & adapt feedback loop

Create possibilities

innovation exercises

How we’ll discover

make sense

experiment

invent

Pay to Learn Early

- Alistair Cockburn

Focused Discovery

Risks DependenciesAssumptions Unknowns

What do we need to prove early?

How we’ll Decide

Impacts Options

Surprise!

make sense

experiment

innovate

assess impact

What’s the Story?

What’s the Story?

The Grand Adventure

Embrace Uncertainty

And the journey of discovering, deliberately

Cara TurnerCape Town, South Africa

Get in Touch

projectcodeX.co sugsa.org.za

twitter: @cara_fayefacilitatingagility.comslideshare.net/carafaye

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.”

- John Allen Paulos