"The myth of Certainty - Is implementation a naughty word?" by Steve Bell

Copyright © Institut Lean France 2011

The Myth of Certainty

Is Implementation a naughty word ?

Copyright 2011 Steven C. Bell

Steve Bell


2

Steve Bell

2006 2010 2012

[email protected]


“The Big Ball of Mud”

The Myth of Certainty, Steve Bell 3

How to Untangle Enterprise IT?


4

Detroit 1983Auto executives visit Japan

on a “discovery tour”

The Myth of Certainty, Steve Bell


“There were no inventories in any of the plants. I’ve been in manufacturing

operations for almost thirty years and I can tell you those were not real plants. They had clearly been staged for our

tour.”

Detroit Auto Executive

Source: Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline 5


6

Mental Models

Source: Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

The problems with mental

models arise when they

become implicit – when

they exist below the level of

our awareness.


7

Could we have adysfunctional mental model of IT and we don’t even know it?



Source: Apriso Software, Inc. 8

Caption: “Shouldn’t we wait to see what the other team does?”


Enterprise IT is:�Fast�Complex�Competitive�Disruptive

And the future of many companies and industries is at stake

The Challenge



• IT Consumerization - pace of expected change

• Smart, location/context aware, mobile devices

� The security challenges they create

� The useful information they produce

• Social networking – new relationships with our customers – they’re informed and in charge

• The cloud and EaaS (Everything as a Service)

Enterprise IT Disruptors

10The Myth of Certainty, Steve Bell


The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed

William Gibson

Source: Kent Beck, Software G Forces 11


Can our traditional approach to Enterprise IT survive?



Traditional IT

Presentation title- Speaker Name 13

CIO

Development Operations Support Advisory

IT Related

product/service

development



IT Management

Governance, Portfolio Management,

Finance, Performance Dashboards, ,

Strategy Deployment, Knowledge

Management

Application

Data and

Integration

Infrastructure

Business Facing

(outward)

IT Organization Facing

(inward)

IT Operations (hosting, infrastructure,

security, telecom, etc)

IT Service Management

Enterprise

Integration

and

MiddlewareBusiness

Intelligence

Performance

Management

Enterprise-wide

Applications

(ERP, CRM, SCM, etc)

Lean Software

Development

(Agile and Scrum)

DevOps

Business

Process

Management

What is

this thingcalled “IT”?


1. Run : Keeping the lights on, operations

2. Grow : Doing new stuff to grow revenue through new customers, products, and markets

3. Transform : Doing radically new, disruptive stuff that changes markets and creates competitive advantage

Focus for IT Expenditure and Investment

Source: A Simple Framework to Translate IT Benefits into Business Value Impact, R. Hunter et al, Gartner Research

15


Transformation

16

80%Keeping

Lights

On

20%Grow and Transform

50%Keeping

Lights

On


Operational

Excellence

Innovation



Doing new

things is

RISKY



What do we want in a leader?



Incompetence irritates me

Overconfidence frightens me

Malcolm GladwellExpert Failure



Humility is demonstrated by

a willingness to learn


What is the opposite

of overconfidence?


22

Simple

•Standard formula is essential

•Strict adherence to formula produces quality

results every time

•No particular expertise required

Baking a cake

Complicated

•Standard formulae are necessary, clarity of

cause and effect

•Expertise also important since many variables

and interdependencies

•High degree of outcome certainty, diagnosis and

prognosis are often accurate

Sending a rocket

to the moon

Complex

•Systems have many variables and interactions

so expertise is necessary but not sufficient

•Multivariate causes, gradual onset of problems

over time, diagnosis and prognosis are often

obscure

•Systems are adaptive, respond to change in

unpredictable ways, so rational assumptions do

not always apply

Raising a child

Source: Study by the Canadian Healthcare SystemBrenda Zimmerman, York UniversitySholom Glouberman, University of Toronto


23

Simple

•Standard formula is essential

•Strict adherence to formula produces quality

results every time

•No particular expertise required

Baking a cake

Complicated

•Standard formulae are necessary, clarity of

cause and effect

•Expertise also important since many variables

and interdependencies

•High degree of outcome certainty, diagnosis and

prognosis are often accurate

Sending a rocket

to the moon

Complex

•Systems have many variables and interactions

so expertise is necessary but not sufficient

•Multivariate causes, gradual onset of problems

over time, diagnosis and prognosis are often

obscure

•Systems are adaptive, respond to change in

unpredictable ways, so rational assumptions do

not always apply

Raising a childBehavioral

Deterministic(rules-based)


Implementation Thinking

Source: Mike Rother, Toyota Kata 24



"Having an implementation orientation actually impedes our organization's progress and the development of people's capabilities.

The way from where we are to where we want to be next is a gray zone full of unforseeable obstacles, problems and issues that we can only discover along the way. The best we can do is to know the approach, the means, we can utilize for dealing with the unclear path to a new desired condition [the lean problem solving approach] not what the content and steps of our actions- the solutions - will be.

If someone claims certainty about the steps that will be implemented to reach the desired destination,

that should be a red flag to us.“


Transformative Thinking



27

80%Keeping

Lights

On


50%Keeping

Lights

On


Operational

Excellence

Innovation

What obstacles are in our pathto Lean IT transformation?



The “G Word”

Source: Dreamworks 28

GovernanceRequiring an “accurate” estimate at the beginning of a project can dramatically increase project risk instead of decrease it as intended.

Scott Ambler and Per Kroll, IBM

By attempting to artificially create certainty we create more risk . . .

These projects that are “designed to fail”


• Slow and bureaucratic

• Disconnected from the dynamic world, resisting rapid change, stifling creativity, innovation, and agility

• Forces change and decision making into slow periodic cycles, often tied to the annual budget

• Emphasizes resource utilization and promotes large projects that attract the most attention during the funding process

• It is often a “game” to be played, to advance special interests, encouraging a project “black market”

• Tactical tradeoff decisions and short-term interventions increase instability and variation in the long run

What’s Wrong with Traditional IT Governance?



• Iteration speed• Small batch size• Level schedule• Quality: test early and often • Engagement• Adaptive learning

Agile and LeanDrinking from the same source



“A Lean organization optimizes the whole value stream, from the time it receives an order to address a customer need until software is deployed and the need is addressed. If an organization focuses on optimizing something less than the entire value stream, we can just about guarantee that the overall value stream will suffer.”

Mary and Tom Poppendieck

Implementing Lean Software Development

How can Lean Thinking add value?



“Although Scrum may help teams isolate themselves from dysfunction in the organization (which can lead to limited improvement), it is better for them to help the organization become more functional.”

Shalloway, Beaver & Trott

Lean-Agile Software Development




The division between projects and operations has become a serious constraint both on the ability of businesses to get new functionality to market faster and, ironically, on the ability of IT to maintain stable, highly available, high-quality systems and services.

Jez Humble and Joanne MoleskyWhy Enterprises Must Adopt DevOps to Enable Continuous Delivery




Continuous Concept to Delivery Lifecycle

Pull and Flow

34

ContinuousInnovation


Continuous Improvement


35

Thank you to the entire

Lean IT Community!

"The myth of Certainty - Is implementation a naughty word?" by Steve Bell

Technology

Transcript of "The myth of Certainty - Is implementation a naughty word?" by Steve Bell