Managing for Serendipity

We know that in our landscape of people and technology, aiming for a particular outcome doesn't always lead to us getting what we want. Sometimes the best results come from approaching a problem obliquely. But in Agile our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through the early and continuous delivery of valuable software. We like to start with the outcome, meet the needs of our users, delivering high-quality working software with happy teams and true agility... but how might that focus be holding us back, and what are the alternatives?

In this talk we look at some different strategies for approaching complex ecosystems, starting from where we are right now, and allowing innovation to emerge through obliquity, naivety, and serendipity.

Transcript

1. Liz Keogh @lunivore http://lizkeogh.com @lunivore
2. http://lizkeogh.com “Off the Charts”
3. @lunivore O-S Late D Cap P-Tr Tr-J K-Pg %age of marine animal genera extinct ma
4. CC-BY-SA 4.0 Bjoervedt CC-BY 4.0 Dinoguy2 CC-BY-SA 3.0 N. Tamura Anchiornis Huxleyi
5. @lunivore Exaptation
6. Complicated Obvious Chaotic Complex sense-analyse-respond sense-categorise-respond probe-sense-respond act-sense-respond Governing constraints Fixed constraints Enabling constraints No effective constraint Good Practice Best Practice Emergent Practice Novel Practice Material in this slide is Copyright © 2017 Cognitive Edge Pte Ltd.. Used with kind permission. Cynefin
7. @lunivore
8. @lunivore
9. A Safe-To-Fail Probe has… Indicators of success Indicators of failure Amplification actions Dampening actions Coherence http://cognitive-edge.com/methods/safe-to-fail-probes/
10. Coherence A realistic reason for thinking the probe might have a positive impact A sufficiency of evidence to progress Can you give me an example? @lunivore
11. In uncertainty… coherence over hypothesis @lunivore
12. Correlated in Retrospect n t @lunivore
13. @lunivore G.H.R. Koenigswald CC BY-SA 3.0 Tropenmuseum
14. @lunivore “…the company that put more emphasis on profit in its declaration of objectives was the less profitable in its financial statements.” - John Kay
15. @lunivore Viagra photo by Tim Reckmann, CC SA 3.0 Walkman by Esa Sorjonen Space invaders by Bago Games, CC BY 2.0 Car Genie copyright AA
16. @lunivore My favourite thing
17. @lunivore http://www.goodexperience.com/blog/ 2011/04/ignore-the-customer-e.php
18. @lunivore
20. “Humans do not make rational logical decisions… they pattern match with either their own experience, or collective experience expressed as stories. It isn’t even a best fit pattern match but a first fit pattern match.” - Dave Snowden, “Managing for Serendipity” @lunivore
22. @lunivore
23. @lunivore “We may conclude from an effect to the pre-existence of a cause competent to produce that effect.“ - Thomas Henry Huxley CC-BY-SA 3.0 N. Tamura
24. @lunivore With kind permission of Dr Lucy King (pictured) http://elephantsandbees.com
25. @lunivore
26. “Once prototypes are set free in the market, they will link with the nearly infinite universe of idiosyncratic needs, contexts, wants and combinatorial imagination of users out there.” - Pierpaolo Andriani (via Tim Kastelle, “Innovation through Exaptation”) @lunivore
27. Radical Emergence “Some things that weren’t possible at all before suddenly become possible. A valley opens up where there was a mountain ahead of you before.” - Alicia Juarrero @lunivore
28. A Wardley Map Simon Wardley CC-BY-SA 3.0 Not just the customers you’ve got, but the customers you could have.
29. @lunivore
30. @lunivore Liz Keogh liz@lunivore.com @lunivore http://lizkeogh.com
31. Resources: Dave Snowden, Managing for Serendipity Alicia Juarrero, Constraints that enable innovation Tim Kastelle, Innovation through Exaptation Dave King, Using technology to facilitate “aha” moments @lunivore