"Embracing Uncertainty: A Most Difficult Leap of Faith" - - PDF document

KT1

Keynote 11/8/2012 8:30 AM

"Embracing Uncertainty: A Most Difficult Leap of Faith"

Presented by: Dan North Lean Technology Specialist

Brought to you by:

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Dan North

Lean Technology Specialist Programmer and organizational change specialist Dan North applies principles from lean

• perations and agile software development to help organizations align their technology

capabilities with their business objectives. With twenty years of experience in IT, Dan is a frequent speaker at technology conferences worldwide, has published feature articles in numerous software and business publications, and contributed to The RSpec Book: Behaviour Driven Development with RSpec, Cucumber, and Friends and97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts. The originator of Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) and Deliberate Discovery, Dan is currently working on his book Patterns of Effective Delivery, helping organizations radically improve their delivery. He blogs at dannorth.net.

Embracing Uncertainty

Dan North Dan North & Associates @tastapod

Patterns of Effective Delivery

@tastapod

Faster Software Delivery

@tastapod

With apologies to George Lucas…

Fear leads to Risk Risk leads to Process Process leads to Hate …and suffering and product backlogs

@tastapod

With apologies to George Lucas…

Fear leads to Risk Risk leads to Process Process leads to Hate …and suffering and product backlogs

@tastapod

Understanding risk

Impact Likelihood [0.0, 1.0]

∞

@tastapod

Snowbird 2001

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan

@tastapod

Everywhere 2012

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan

@tastapod

Everywhere 2012

Processes and tools over individuals and interactions Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan

@tastapod

Everywhere 2012

Processes and tools over individuals and interactions Comprehensive documentation over working software Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan

@tastapod

Everywhere 2012

Processes and tools over individuals and interactions Comprehensive documentation over working software Contract negotiation over customer collaboration Responding to change over following a plan

@tastapod

Everywhere 2012

Processes and tools over individuals and interactions Comprehensive documentation over working software Contract negotiation over customer collaboration Following a plan over responding to change

@tastapod

We crave certainty!

Faith becomes religion Complex questions become simplistic answers Interpretation becomes dogma We would rather be wrong than uncertain

@tastapod

So we resist uncertainty

We resist uncertainty of scope We resist uncertainty of technology We resist uncertainty of effort We resist uncertainty of structure We resist uncertainty of the future

@tastapod

Three Ages: a model of growth

• 1. Explore
• ptimize for discovery
• 2. Stabilize
• ptimize for repeatability
• 3. Commoditize
• ptimize for efficiency

Agile methods optimize for the Second Age

@tastapod

Agile methods optimize for certainty

Certainty gives us predictability Predictability gives us repeatability Repeatability gives us a feeling of safety

@tastapod

Deliberate discovery

Ignorance is your biggest constraint You are second order ignorant (but not third!) Ignorance is multivariate and disjoint Some unexpected bad things will happen

@tastapod

Deliberate discovery

Ignorance is your biggest constraint You are second order ignorant (but not third!) Ignorance is multivariate and disjoint Some unexpected bad things will happen

@tastapod

Deliberate discovery

Ignorance is your biggest constraint You are second order ignorant (but not third!) Ignorance is multivariate and disjoint Some unexpected bad things will happen

@tastapod

Deliberate discovery

Ignorance is your biggest constraint You are second order ignorant (but not third!) Ignorance is multivariate and disjoint Some unexpected bad things will happen

@tastapod

Real Options

Options have value Options expire Commit deliberately “Never commit early unless you know why”

@tastapod

Embracing uncertainty

Embrace uncertainty of scope Embrace uncertainty of technology Embrace uncertainty of effort Embrace uncertainty of structure

@tastapod

Why you won’t believe me

Attribution bias Confirmation bias Bias bias But most of all, that craving for certainty!

@tastapod

tl; dr

Expect the unexpected

@tastapod

tl; dr

Expect the unexpectable Anticipate ignorance Embrace uncertainty – it’s inevitable!

@tastapod

Thanks for listening

@tastapod http://dannorth.net dan@dannorth.net

@tastapod