20:03:01 So 2 things before starting, the first thing is we are recording.
20:03:06 This event is that second one is we're asking all of these to remain muted for the whole session.
20:03:11 If you have questions we can ask you to put them in the chat.
20:03:16 There will be a 2 next section to answer those questions. and if the speaker needs more information you will be asked to admit to just clarify or ask additional things.
20:03:29 So welcome everyone. We are very happy that you join us.
20:03:33 My name is Sarah. I am a member of the Sppm. and I will explain a little bit about the sppn for those that are new, and since it's the organization organizing, so thank you M is a nonprofit.
20:03:46 organization founded to help professionals. To learn agile is kind of fun.
20:03:50 Mentals. the mission is to create a community of a child.
20:03:55 Think thinkers and practitioners. I have to share lesson. Learn the background management on top of newcomers the hat on experience through the Svpm. a scramping program that we have.
20:04:07 So, for example, if you're a semester, but you have never had the opportunity to be a product owner, you could get that experience here.
20:04:17 Or if, for instance, you are interested to become as master you have some sort of education, you have to some certifications, but you don't have hands on experience.
20:04:25 You could gain it here. So you can think that the Svpms cramping program is kind of the bridge between the Academics and the job experience.
20:04:34 We will be adding the link here for everyone that is interested to look at it.
20:04:39 I'll ask you to look at it after the event and of course, if you have any questions just both I mean chat or contact us to our contact email before I introduce andrew I want to say a special thanks to our
20:04:52 funders. So David Pacman i'm gonna Mr.
20:04:54 Gary, who have been this organization around learning practices and sharing and growing together.
20:05:01 So thank you so much for creating this space and we further Do we're very happy to introduce under Western is our guest speaker today with so many years of hard air experience, and broad background, in many industries.
20:05:17 So he has worked as a senior semester, product, owner, enterprise, agile, organizational coach.
20:05:24 Among other leadership positions. so we are very excited and thankful that you are accepted to share some of your wisdom with us today.
20:05:33 So welcome, Andrea, and over to you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
20:05:39 Thank you for a little introduction that shows me having to go through it all.
20:05:43 I'm I'm always easily persuaded to talk about my career, not to impress people, but to impress upon them that such a career is possible.
20:05:51 You know, I mean i've been in in technology now for oh, gosh!
20:05:56 Over 25 years, I mean originally it's a job developer, and that's a great that was a great start to my career, jumping in and out of many different industries doing little bits of coding here a little
20:06:08 bit of coding there big projects, little projects that led eventually, when I moved to America, I was born in the Uk. then lived in Australia, then moved to America, and I like to say that I've lived in 3 countries, and Alabama but it
20:06:23 was here in America that I became a scrum master, and that had me start to pay a lot of attention to initially process.
20:06:35 But as it felt like everything I was learning about page all processes and frameworks just seem to make so much sense, but it still didn't seem to necessarily make things better in the workplace.
20:06:47 It got me asking myself, Why not? Why not and i've spent an enormous amount of time answering that question, and I love it.
20:06:57 It's it's taken me into all of the allergies, you know psychology, sociology, anthropology all of those.
20:07:06 And it was through that that eventually I was persuaded to level up to be an angel coach, and that exposed me to even more dysfunction in the workplace.
20:07:17 And a different set of questions about Why is it like this?
20:07:22 And that led me further and further into being an enterprise. coach, even executive coach or personal coach, acquired certification after certification after certification.
20:07:37 And eventually it it felt like I was an individual version of the parable of the blind men.
20:07:44 They they are, you know all of them trying to figure out what's in the room with them.
20:07:48 It's a or it's a branch it's a snake.
20:07:51 It's a wall. No, it's an elephant and the elephant is simple.
20:07:57 The elephant is what's between people's ears and what's between people and it's actually working there that you'll make the most difference.
20:08:05 So once I discovered that I then realized that an awful lot of what was missing is what we're going to be talking about today.
20:08:13 It's people not only dealing with themselves but being able to be aware of the context in which they're operating.
20:08:20 So what was missing from an awful lot of educational certification was situational awareness.
20:08:29 And so let me get my deck going for you guys. Hang on.
20:08:33 Let me just slow that down there fate that over to that.
20:08:37 It had me really start to pay attention to this, to how work was that became for me the big question, How does work work?
20:08:49 So that's good into it. Now we're gonna start i'm gonna ask you a rhetorical question.
20:08:56 If you want to throw any answers into chat feel free. I'm gonna tell the story of a friend of mine called Mea, and when Mayor came to me I was working as a coach, and she came to me she'd
20:09:07 just been put in charge of a project, and she was terrified.
20:09:12 To be honest. So ask for a question as I look at the beginning of working on a project.
20:09:20 So if there's circle represents everything you could possibly know about your project you saying the slides are not visible.
20:09:34 Huh? I'm not doing this through a screen share i'm doing this through my camera.
20:09:39 Let me just do a quick tech check with people, Andrew that happened to me.
20:09:45 What you could do is you go the far right corner and you sit your view.
20:09:49 If you're a guest, just set your view and you will see the in the presenter view, you'll see the your presentation.
20:09:58 Yes, no. it should be the actually you should see the presidentation coming through.
20:10:02 Yeah, yeah. if you is everybody saying it now, good it's all pinned me.
20:10:10 Yes, good all right, i'll carry on so here's Mayor.
20:10:12 She sat with me going I I She had certifications.
20:10:16 She was a scrum master can't remember she had a couple of other certifications.
20:10:21 She had a tremendous degree. She had a master's in computer science and economics, and she'd been given this project.
20:10:28 It was a really important project. This was at a big Fintech company that I worked in in the Bay Area.
20:10:34 So I answer this question. I drew this circle for, and said at the beginning of the project, If this circle represents absolutely everything you could possibly know, how much do you think you know at the beginning?
20:10:48 And bless her she drew this little splodgy dots in the middle, so that well let's let's be a little more generous than that.
20:10:55 Let's say it's this slice this is this is what you know.
20:10:59 In fact, it's not just what you know this is what you know that you know the test, for that is that you can speak about it.
20:11:07 You could take action about it. you could plan for it you may also recognize that the stuff that you don't know and you know that you don't know it.
20:11:20 So what's what's all the rest of it what's this big blue shaded bit?
20:11:25 Why, didn't take along she's a smart woman she pointed out. This is what you don't know, and of course it's what you don't know that you don't know.
20:11:35 Oh, yeah, and do you think there's gonna be more work in there or less?
20:11:39 Are they going to be any surprises in the Oh, there's another slice?
20:11:46 This is the slice of what you don't know that you do know, we can actually spend an entire session just on this slice.
20:11:56 This is the area of organizational knowledge management where other people in the organization may know the stuff that you need to know.
20:12:06 But you don't know that it's known this can be the personal knowledge, where, in context, you remember it out of context, you don't.
20:12:17 But the point is that at the time that you're expected to make commitments.
20:12:23 You're only working with this bit represented by the green arrow by the time you're done, if you try to complete the entire project as expected.
20:12:33 Oh, you're actually gonna be working with that whole red arrow bit?
20:12:40 Is it any wonder that occasionally people have their projects come in late?
20:12:45 Actually, this is a good good moment for me to tell another little story.
20:12:49 I was invited a few years ago to talk to Pmi San Francisco, and this was for their volunteer appreciation event, and they brought me in as a sort of agile Stand up, comedian.
20:13:03 Thanks, thanks, guys, and I did a little thing that I call my agile appetizer, and about halfway through it I realized I was in the room with about a 100 of some of the World's greatest project managers people that could
20:13:14 turn our projects with billions of dollars. And so I stopped and I went halver.
20:13:20 Set guys. do you want to ask for your question hands are anybody here?
20:13:23 That's ever had a project come in on time on budget on spec. and the room was very quiet, and maybe 2 people kind of tentatively wiggled their fingers.
20:13:38 Wow! wow! but this is why, it's because of what you don't know that you don't know Well, interesting.
20:13:49 If somebody else had thought this on it already. Well, look on a half, and it actually started to be formalized back in roughly 2,001.
20:13:59 I'm just gonna go through something and you may recognize it as we go through it.
20:14:05 We're going to do a little bit of textual analysis. The first word is we we, the collective pronoun.
20:14:15 Hmm this is thinking about groups this is thinking about i'll remember what I said, What's between people's ears?
20:14:21 What's between people we we are that's the present tense.
20:14:26 Now the present is happening all the time so we're talking about something here that is continuous.
20:14:31 Alright, we are uncovering, better, uncovering, uncovering.
20:14:38 So, in other words, there's something there. that's already there that we might not have been aware of, and it could be better than things were before we'd uncovered it.
20:14:52 But better. How? Hmm! That's a measured in what way good question.
20:14:57 We're uncovering better ways. What ways I know we may have to uncover them.
20:15:04 Maybe somebody else has uncovered them elsewhere. already but we're gonna have to uncover whether they apply here or not.
20:15:11 Uncovering better ways of developing software. So the guys who wrote this originally were all in the software game, 17, and of them in a place called Snow Bird and Utah, and they formed what was known as the agile
20:15:25 allowance. but they're noticed within weeks of actually documenting all of this, that really what they were talking about was working and that's what we're gonna say today.
20:15:35 We're uncovering better ways of working by doing it.
20:15:40 This uncovering is best done by the actual practitioners, not theoreticians.
20:15:44 Although theory helps not necessarily by the coaches and trainers and consultants, although they can help and they can help in this way, and helping others do it.
20:15:55 That speaks to the earth for the first word to we.
20:16:00 When you work with others, and help them collectively you're much more likely to do a better job than you would on your own.
20:16:05 There's also nothing like teaching and training other people for learning something yourself.
20:16:12 This is one of the most the when I got this introductory sentence, this is introductory sentence from the agile manifesto or uncovering better ways of developing software, working by doing it helping others do
20:16:24 it. but 9 times out of 10 You're, just taught the values and principles.
20:16:30 And you miss this introductory sentence. it's all in this introductory sentence: We are uncovering better ways of working by doing it and helping others do it.
20:16:41 I walked me out through this, and she was like yeah you know that sounds exactly right back.
20:16:46 How's this gonna help? Well, look let me explain the perspective of some of the more senior people in this organization, and I told her another story about something that had happened to me a few weeks before I came into work early got into the
20:17:02 elevator, and this told gentlemen, as a suit got in behind me.
20:17:05 The press, the button to go upstairs, and the elevator got stuck.
20:17:09 It turned out that I was in the elevator with the chief financial officer of this organization.
20:17:16 This was a man with considerable responsibilities. I introduced myself as an agile coach, and he looked down his nose at me.
20:17:24 And like oh, you know between you and me I actually don't know how much time of the special nonsense I think it's just a flash in the pan.
20:17:30 Sounds like, Well, okay, how you could have that opinion. but we could be stuck here for a minute.
20:17:36 Do you mind if I kind of explain it to you as I all right, feel free.
20:17:38 So I got out the back of an envelope and a pen and this is what I drew.
20:17:43 Let's consider a project a project is a good way to think about this, and typically what you're trying to produce is a set of tested features that need to be tested and you want to produce some a certain point in time and the
20:17:58 tested features typically represent some kind of desirable business value.
20:18:03 So the goal for this project would look something like this. Now, if you take a traditional approach, a waterfall approach a plan driven approach.
20:18:14 It usually looks something like this: You start off by doing a whole bunch of analysis that doesn't produce any tested working features.
20:18:25 Then you do a bunch of design. still no tested working features.
20:18:29 Then you stop building, but that's good but they're not being tested.
20:18:34 And now you test and fix and and and oh no you're late!
20:18:39 Oh, dear, why are you late? Because of what you didn't know that you didn't know, and the problem is that you don't really find out about that until it's too late to do anything about it oops so Why, don't
20:18:54 we just contrast that with what would happen if you took an iterative and incremental approach, I carefully didn't use the word idol.
20:19:03 It's an incremental Well, it looks a little bit like this.
20:19:07 You start off doing a little bit of analyzed design, build test.
20:19:12 You do all of it, and then you do another little bit of analyze design, build, test, and what that allows you to do is pretty quickly.
20:19:20 You can extrapolate out and you can see where you're likely to end up.
20:19:27 Well, what's good about that is the quite early on it allows you to choose?
20:19:32 Well, do you want to settle for a smaller set of tested working features?
20:19:37 Because the date is important. Or do you maybe want to set a different date?
20:19:44 Of course it's. The set of tested working features that's important, or maybe what you'd want to do is employ another team to change the slope.
20:19:54 On this line and hit your target, and incidentally it works best to employ another team, not to introduce new people to existing teams onboarding them and making the lines of communication more complex within the team will actually slow them down so
20:20:08 I try to avoid doing that. So he understood all of that.
20:20:15 The thing is, this guy is the chief financial officer. I needed to show him the money.
20:20:21 So this is what that looks like when you do it in the traditional way.
20:20:25 The waterfall way. It kind of looks a little bit like this.
20:20:29 You spend money, spend money, spend money, you spend money, you spend money, and I put on number on it.
20:20:35 I just 4 million there was a project i'd been working on where that was where they'd got to they'd spent 4 million, and the trouble is that it's not just spending that money.
20:20:45 That's now at risk as reputation risk there's all kinds of risk that's embedded in work that you haven't put out into the marketplace Yes, until you actually put it out there you don't know whether
20:20:59 what you're doing is actually of any worth to anybody else whatsoever.
20:21:04 That all might be lost. But let's say you do release it, and over time you make your money back in fact, on this particular project.
20:21:14 Eventually they made 5 million, so that's good they're a little bit ahead.
20:21:18 That gave us some numbers to work with. But how does that compare?
20:21:22 If you do it the other way, the iterative and incremental way.
20:21:25 Well, typically, what you do is you do a little bit of work and release what you believe to be the highest value bit soonest, highest value soonest.
20:21:36 Now, in reality, that is often figuring out whether this project has legs or not.
20:21:42 Much better to waste $200,000 than to waste 4 million dollars right.
20:21:48 But anyhow, you do a little bit of work finest value.
20:21:52 Then you do it again. Love a little bit of work, and the next highest value.
20:21:56 Another little bit of work, and so on, and so on, until eventually you get to a point.
20:22:01 Well, you've actually got something that you might be able to release and not be ashamed of it.
20:22:06 Right Now the point about doing it like this is that the actual amount of risk created is tiny by comparison, and you're doing it by working on a front-loaded curve.
20:22:20 So you're actually exploiting the law of diminishing returns.
20:22:27 And when you work like that, that gives you an enormous advantage.
20:22:30 I mean, consider the numbers doing it. The first way your return on investment is 25% spent 4 million to make 5.
20:22:39 So you're a 1 million ahead that's 25% return on investment.
20:22:41 Well, if you measure up what we did with the iterative, and incremental approach, it's roughly This you spent about half the money couple of 1 million you didn't make as much. but you still made 3 and a half 1 million what if you
20:22:58 do the math around that. that's a 75% return on investment.
20:23:03 Well, you could see that the guys eyebrows went up at that.
20:23:07 You'd never thought of it that way. of course the cool thing is that if you can do this well ideally, what you want to do is just stop and do it again. and stop and do it again.
20:23:22 That arrow is what most project managers loof in holy terror of that arrow is what happens?
20:23:30 Oh, what would be a company? Oh, poor old kodak that's what happened to them.
20:23:37 This arrow is what companies like apple Google those guys they do this in this sleep.
20:23:44 To them. it's patently obvious well he took that envelope. The elevator kicked back in again.
20:23:53 He took the envelope back and pended on his office wall, and things changed.
20:23:59 That was one of my proudest moments
20:24:05 But how does this work on the ground back to our friend Mayor?
20:24:09 So look, let me show you how we do this in reality. Here we go.
20:24:16 You wanna prioritize features, not just by effort but also by value. Here's the trap, I mean we've probably all learned about different forms of estimation, story points, relative value estimation.
20:24:28 All of these things. If you don't include value then the temptation is to assume all of your work.
20:24:37 Items are of same value, so that would then make sense for you to put the biggest thing in first.
20:24:45 So you got it out way, and then you do the next biggest, and then you do the next biggest, and then you do the next biggest, and so on, and you'd get a curve that might look something like that.
20:24:58 But what if all of these work items actually had different value Well, you'd probably want to rearrange your work, and it would then look something a little bit like this you'd probably do that one?
20:25:13 First. then you do that one, and then you do the next one, and then you do the next one.
20:25:19 And in this case, actually, it turns out that the one that otherwise you might have done first would be the one that you'd want to do last.
20:25:25 I mean, look at these 2 curves so the first way that is not frontloaded this way.
20:25:33 Oh, yes, it is definitely frontloaded. in fact if you take a slightly closer look. You can see that if you went with the second way by about halfway through your time.
20:25:45 You've done nearly all of the value the other way you've actually got to get to nearly all of your time.
20:25:54 All of your effort has been used up to get to the same amount of value.
20:26:00 That little diagram has changed the life of more product. Over this I can shake a stick at right.
20:26:06 That actually really explains what a good product owner is doing.
20:26:09 Is there actually able to explain to their teams the relative value the relative importance of all of the work that they're doing so.
20:26:19 Then, when the teams do that best job of estimating the effort, then you can prioritize your work wisely.
20:26:26 Now you gotta get the work done quickly. and how into the market to find out if you were right.
20:26:31 We'll take a look at all of that a minute so the thing, is It's all fine and dandy to say oh, prioritize it by value.
20:26:38 But typically what you're up against is it's really hard to know what you're dealing with.
20:26:44 What the mix is in the contracts that you're in so that's what we're going to look at next.
20:26:54 And for my money. This is one of the most important lessons that I've ever learned, and that i've passed on to others.
20:26:59 Let me walk you through it, and i'll do it but ask you some questions.
20:27:03 If you want to throw answers into chat as you go feel free.
20:27:07 What's this by the way, I love doing this live with people? it's always just hysterical when I do it.
20:27:13 What is he what it's a pen good yeah it's kind of obvious.
20:27:18 But how do you know that it's a pen good i'm saying people put things in chat?
20:27:23 How do you know? Well, the chances are you've seen a pen before?
20:27:28 Yeah, fair enough. What do you do with a pen right things with it? Yes, hold on, very good.
20:27:37 Marvelous it's it's pretty clear isn't it that anybody who's actually i've lived in the world that most of us live in would probably have come across pens it will be completely clear to them when I ask
20:27:49 this question, what's this they go it's a pen stupid, good. Alright!
20:27:53 So next question: Do you know how to make a pin? Well, that usually has people go?
20:28:00 Hello! But does somebody know how to make a pen? Well, clearly, yes, of course I do.
20:28:09 But what would it take for them to know? Huh! Well, they'd probably have to be some kind of expert?
20:28:18 They probably want to ask you some questions. about what kind of pen is it that you want?
20:28:24 Is it going to be? Is it going to be an award for superior service for many years?
20:28:28 Is it going to be something that's disposable Is it going to be cheap?
20:28:32 Is it going to be expensive? Is it going to have to work underwater or in space?
20:28:38 The expert will need to actually narrow down the constraints inside which they're operating.
20:28:44 This is a complicated thing. They'll have a whole range of skills and knowledge.
20:28:47 They could apply, and to know which to apply they're gonna have to work their way through a little bit.
20:28:52 This is more complicated. Now, here's the next question What do you think is going to be written with that pen.
20:28:59 What? Well, how could you find out? Well, I don't know you could pier over the shoulder of the personal writing?
20:29:10 You could take a guess what they're gonna write I don't know kind of an old question right and the thing is that you could be wrong about what's going to be written with that Pen.
20:29:24 It has to actually emerge. Now, you could you could take some reasonable guesses that it's probably going to be some form of end writing or diagram.
20:29:36 Handwriting is probably going to be in the language of the person that's writing Hmm.
20:29:41 There's probably they're going to make their writings a letter.
20:29:47 They'll be writing it in lines if they they're probably gonna write left to right unless they come from a culture that writes right to left.
20:29:56 There's gonna be some patterns that you could spot but really It's a it's a much more complex question, right?
20:30:01 What's going to be written will emerge right and last question: What would happen if you left the pen with a toddler?
20:30:13 It's a little darling right also chaos Oh, I do love this picture.
20:30:18 I was so delighted when I found this picture. This is exactly what I need to show right here.
20:30:22 It's chaos right and what would you do you would take the pen away from the toddler.
20:30:29 Right. I mean you got to act straight away right, I mean.
20:30:35 You could leave the with the top of that get.
20:30:39 Really I suppose it depends on your taste in decor but we'll assume we'll assume that you would want to actually take the pen away.
20:30:44 Now actually what I just described. Well, there was 4 questions. They actually fetched into roughly 3 domains of knowledge.
20:30:52 The first one is what we'll call ordered ordered stuff is where it's.
20:30:59 It's predictable it's kind of ordered in time and space.
20:31:07 You kind of know ahead of time, either because things are clear and obvious.
20:31:11 What because an expert can figure it out. Then there are things that are complex.
20:31:16 This. This is where it's going to emerge there are patterns there, but you can't a 100% rely on patterns.
20:31:24 This is the domain of traffic, and crowds and and flocks of birds.
20:31:29 And actually, this is the domain of about 99 point, 9% of the entire known universe.
20:31:36 Yeah, that in mind. And then, lastly, we have the domain of the chaotic.
20:31:42 And this is where there are effectively nois no constraints at all.
20:31:45 It's a nice right Now let's let's just tie you this up and go into a little bit more detail.
20:31:50 If things are ordered, then the part have either very strict relationships with each other.
20:32:00 So constraints or governing constraints that limit what's going on?
20:32:06 Things that are complex. it's a bit looser and there'll be a pattern, but it could be different each time.
20:32:13 When is cotic? No effective constraints over things all over the place, And we can actually draw this in a much more disciplined way.
20:32:22 You can see where all 4 of my different questions set, and we can draw it in a framework that looks like this.
20:32:32 Now you can see that in each case there's a sequence of your situational awareness, when it's clear, all you have to do is sense something to categorize it.
20:32:48 And then know how to respond. I show you the pen. Your sensing is just looking at it.
20:32:53 I look at the pen I can categorize it it's a pen, and you know how to respond.
20:32:57 What do you do with it? You write with it
20:33:02 The concepts here are fixed. What do I mean by constraints?
20:33:06 Well, if it's not something that ergonomically fits in your hand, and has a bit that makes marks on the end of it.
20:33:14 It's not a pen very straightforward and typically when things are in the domain of the clear.
20:33:23 There's a best practice. This is a term we get very sloppy with right, but here it's very strictly a term of art that means best. practice.
20:33:33 There is usually only a very limited strict number of ways that you could use something that's in this domain right up in the complicated domain.
20:33:46 You can still sense it. Your pen expert would be sensing by asking questions.
20:33:53 So then they had the information that they can analyze to then design a suitable response.
20:33:59 Right. They understand the governing constraints and need to ask questions, to determine which apply, or to see if they need to distinguish any that they hadn't previously understood or taken into account.
20:34:15 Engineering. Almost all of the professions get trained to reside in this domain.
20:34:22 Right. This is the domain of good practice. So you know the range of things that would be would be good.
20:34:29 You probably would also know the range of things that we bad that you wouldn't do right now.
20:34:34 Something I want to point out is that the lines separating those 2 kind of fate, and that's because they're really a bit of a continuum, you know, to an engineer.
20:34:46 Something might be clear that to a non-engineer is complete.
20:34:51 Gobly go, you know, if I get into my card expected to just turn on so I can drive it. they're turning on.
20:34:56 But the key in and turn it that's clear to me But if I turn it, and it makes a funny noise and doesn't start It's now in the domain of the engineer to me.
20:35:05 That's suddenly become complicated or even complex or chaotic Good Lord!
20:35:10 But an engineer, a good mechanic, would be able to Listen to that noise and go.
20:35:14 Oh, that's one of half a dozen different things hang on let me just get my stuff.
20:35:17 I'll check it out for you but there's a much more rigid boundary between complicated and complex.
20:35:26 It's more of a phase change there what do I mean by phase change.
20:35:30 A good example is, is water. Water can be ice, and then you put energy into it, and then pop!
20:35:35 It becomes water, and then you put energy into it and pop, it becomes steam.
20:35:39 Those are phase changes right now things that are complex. you have to actually probe into them.
20:35:50 So my actually a really good example is traffic you might know that there's a pattern where every morning and evening. there's Russia.
20:35:59 You might know that it's gonna be busy when there's a sports event.
20:36:01 But you've actually got a drive in the traffic to understand what it's like.
20:36:07 It'll be slightly different every day. so you have to probe into it before you can do the sensing, and then determine your response.
20:36:16 The constraints here are more enabling constraints.
20:36:21 They're they're the constraints that actually allow things to happen.
20:36:25 But with traffic that would be the type of car you're in the limits of its speed. a kind of road You're on the other traffic. that's there.
20:36:33 The road markings all of that stuff and practice. All this is a lovely word, executive practice.
20:36:42 Exaptation is at turn that comes from evolutionary biology.
20:36:46 Exaptation means using something for some purpose other than the one it originally evolved.
20:36:53 For the example we always give is feathers. We think that feathers evolved in dinosaurs as either insulation or some form of communication and signaling not quite short somewhere in there but over time, little dinosaurs that
20:37:09 fell out of trees did a better job if they had feathers on them.
20:37:12 The ones that hadn't got feathers and it turned into how birds fly.
20:37:18 So executive practice typically means as i'm in this complex situation.
20:37:25 I'm actually using what I know to use in different ways There's more to it than that.
20:37:29 But we'll go into that a little more detail in a minute.
20:37:31 Then down here in the chaotic. As I said, you act.
20:37:35 You act first to regain some control of the situation, to put some constraints around it, because only then can you sense and respond.
20:37:42 My favorite example. I usually leave the house through the front door, but if I woke up in the night, smell smoke, and the bedroom door was hot.
20:37:52 I would throw a chair through the window, help myself and my wife out through the window.
20:37:58 My wife would have no patience for me if I do that if it wasn't a fire in the house, but a fire is a pretty good example of when things have become chaotic. no effective constraints.
20:38:09 All bets are off, you have to act right. No effective constraints.
20:38:14 And this is where you apply novel practice like I say It would be novel if I threw a chair through the windows to leave the house right.
20:38:22 Don't usually do that. So this is known as the canvin sense making framework.
20:38:31 It's not pronounced signifin or sniffing. it's pronounced canvin, and that's because the guy who came up with it a a and academic and practitioner with complexity science
20:38:43 and business practice fellow called Dave Snowden very very clever man he's Welsh, and he got sick of trying to introduce people to concepts and using language where they thought they already knew what he was talking about and they
20:39:00 didn't. so we named it convenient so people would go what?
20:39:05 And he would actually have the opportunity. of explaining it's roughly a Welsh word that means kind of the place that you're in your half.
20:39:13 If you're a sheep it means the field that you're in. but it's way subtleler than that, and there is no translation into English.
20:39:20 That's exact for the word convenient but it's a very good word for a situational assessment tool that would then allow you to take a appropriate decisions rather than just rely on thinking that you already knew what
20:39:33 you're supposed to do alright. so let's take a quick look at what you can do. How you can start to apply this.
20:39:41 I'll go through this pretty quick. We could actually spend a couple of days On all of this Hmm.
20:39:47 Some more questions. Which domain do you think this thing lives in, and and throw an answer into chat?
20:39:53 If you will. Where, where do you think this lies? Is it clear, complicated, complex, or chaotic?
20:40:00 Anybody going into chat? What do you think it is? Yeah, yes, well done.
20:40:04 Very good harris. who lives right if it doesn't have 2 blades with a sharp bit, and a handle and a rivet through the middle.
20:40:10 It's not a Parasis right what domain do you think this thing is in anybody.
20:40:20 Well, it's tempting to say complex but I I would say it's actually complicated.
20:40:24 Yes, that it's a lot of playoffs connected together.
20:40:30 It's actually the gearbox for an electric car and both of those.
20:40:35 These are within that ordered area where the constraints are fixed, if clear, or the constraints are governing, if complicated. How about this?
20:40:44 Which one's this? What do you Reckon Chaos absolutely Boom!
20:40:51 How about this one? What are your reckon i'll tell you I I think this is chaotic as well.
20:40:59 But here's an interesting point. sometimes chaos gives you access to things that otherwise you would never have imagined.
20:41:08 Some people find this kind of environment. This is the environment in which they thrive.
20:41:14 Alexander Fleming would not have discovered penicillin if his office hadn't been a filthy mess, and he noticed that on an Eagar plate or was one particular mold that was fighting off others right this is no
20:41:28 effect constraints, and you may choose to go there for the so of innovation.
20:41:34 How about this one? How about this one which domain do you think this one is? No, it's not chaotic i'm attempting to say it.
20:41:42 But i'd say this is complex and I actually think that there are potentially 10 complex adaptive systems.
20:41:53 We call them complex adaptive systems, because the the thing about complex systems, all of these kinds of systems, right complex systems, are where the parts affect the system and the system affects the parts right and the tens systems.
20:42:07 I can see here well, there's 5 people that's 5 There's the team that's 6 each of the laptops.
20:42:17 That's 8. Then the code that they're looking at that's 9.
20:42:22 I think the post it notes. I think that's 10 I mean I've I've done this when I had more time with people, and people start arguing.
20:42:30 We got up to 15 before now. People get pretty inventive in spotting complex adaptive systems. right?
20:42:37 Organize chaos just like it. very good, so complex.
20:42:38 And enabling constraints, and the parts modify the system.
20:42:44 So here we are is a little summary of that ordered, clear and complicated.
20:42:49 The system constrains the parts complex. a system lightly constrains the parts, but as parts interact within the system, they modify the system.
20:42:59 Chaotic system has no effective constraints.
20:43:01 Useful slide for you, to come back to by the way i'll make a copy of this deck available to you.
20:43:07 I'll send it to David and Sarah and they can pass it on.
20:43:11 Now, how do you approach this? Well, now, you understand that almost everything is complex.
20:43:18 You your team, your workplace your business. the market that they're operating in the entire world is complex and typically what we're trying to do with work is determined.
20:43:31 If what we think will be valuable is something that we can get out there and prove its value.
20:43:37 And typically you do this by shifting from complex over the complicated Then when you're satisfied, the complicated is solved problems, you can maybe move down to clear.
20:43:47 But the first move is to move things across from complex to complicated, and you do it with parallel safe to fail.
20:43:55 Experiments, so that first one, the green one that seemed to end in a bit of a foggy mess so that one will call a fail.
20:44:02 We'll roll that one back the next one the ready brown monument bang!
20:44:07 Oh, that's a fail. we'll roll that one back Aha! the other one.
20:44:12 It's alive that looks like that's the one that will go with excellent good experiment.
20:44:16 Now let's just distinguish a little bit more about what I mean by safe to fail experiments.
20:44:22 People's biggest fear of work is failure they've they've got their degrees and their certifications, and they're employed to think they were supposed to know what they were doing where you pay you a good money to know what you're
20:44:37 doing. Don't give me failure Well, sorry that's just not the way how the world works.
20:44:43 You may, when you're dealing with complexity put more effort into finding out what doesn't work, then you do into finding out what does.
20:44:51 And this is how you do it. The first question that you ask, What can we change?
20:44:58 Change may be that you write some code, right? The second question is of the things we can change.
20:45:06 Where can we monitor the impact of the change because if you make a change? And you can't monitor the impact that is just wildly irresponsible.
20:45:16 Right. Anybody that's ever worked for a boss that just walks in and goes by the way, I want you to do this new thing.
20:45:22 Okay, bye, what requesting a change with no sense at all of how you would be monitoring that?
20:45:31 Oh, dear God! Third question where we can monitor the impact?
20:45:35 Can we wrapily amplify success or recover from failure?
20:45:41 Those 3 questions really important. Now, hey, bake another question let me show you what I mean.
20:45:48 Imagine if your car had a 2 s delay on its windscreen hopesie boxing that wouldn't go so well, would it?
20:45:55 So what you really need is really rapid feedback, because the alternative of slow feedback looks like this.
20:46:03 So anybody ever worked on a watermelon project, one of those ones where senior management go.
20:46:09 Where are we green yellow or red Oh, it's green It's definitely on track, and it stays green, and it stays green that stays green and you get to the deadline.
20:46:16 It's Red, Why? Because you didn't know what you didn't know but it was red inside all along.
20:46:23 That's a watermelon project so most essential is real-time feedback loops or as close to them as you can get.
20:46:34 We are uncovering better ways I Yes, it's the feedback.
20:46:39 That is the uncovering right. There are tools you can use to do this, For example, the planning onion.
20:46:46 I would hope that you'd seen this this is a way of actually distinguishing the the the scale of the different aspects of your work.
20:46:55 Who's doing it. What the focus of it is is it detail or direction.
20:47:00 This allows you to create a work breakdown structure which if you're in the kind of environment that requires.
20:47:06 It would allow you to use tools track to create visibility.
20:47:10 For example, you can consider this to be granularity and cadence if you're not being responsible for the granularity and patents of your work.
20:47:22 Oh, this is that's what's happening when somebody goes we gotta build it all before we can find out if it works or not.
20:47:27 No, don't do that. what's the highest value smallest bit you can do first.
20:47:32 The next consideration is this: I don't know without any of you remember the original mission.
20:47:38 Impossible It wasn't just one guy wasn't just Tom Cruise.
20:47:43 It was these 5, and yes, that is Leonard, namely, the guy that plates box.
20:47:45 But the point was, they were a team, and they all had their own specializations, and those specializations contributed to the team being able to take on the impossible.
20:47:56 The concept. Behind this is distributed cognition that's a fancy word of having many brains being applied to your problem.
20:48:07 Now imagine if You're dog a piece on happy and you don't know why, but you take it to the vet, and the vet X-rays your dog!
20:48:18 Oh, oh! I think I can see what the problem is here.
20:48:22 This is another concept. it's called disintermediation This is the problem.
20:48:28 When you work in an organization where there's many layers between the people doing the work and getting the feedback and those setting direction for the work.
20:48:36 This is why visibility is so important, this intermediation.
20:48:43 So here we have these 3: granularity and cadence distributed cognition and dis intermediation.
20:48:51 There are things that you need to be cautious about.
20:48:56 I used to live in Australia, and I see things like this.
20:48:58 The whole time. Your first solution may not be your best solution.
20:49:07 This phenomena is known as premature convergence right, and it kind of works in 2 directions, because it can be that you jump to the first conclusion.
20:49:19 But it can also be that you jump to a conclusion based on thinking that your hindsight is wise.
20:49:27 Sadly. I'm sure that all of us can remember this moment in history, and sadly, after the event there was a lot of fuss, because apparently the FBI had spotted in Florida and let's train you to take
20:49:40 off, but not to land. and so, after the event lots of people were jumping up and down, saying, Why didn't we do something about that?
20:49:48 Totally unaware that that was one tiny signal, a much, an enormous barrage of signal and noise impossible to distinguish ahead of time.
20:50:00 This is called retroactive coherence, where you think that you should have understood before what you can only understand afterwards.
20:50:09 It is incredibly dangerous. Those Snowden, the guy who taught me all of this, was actually flying back to the Uk.
20:50:16 When 9, over 11 happened, he'd been consulting with Darpa. they called him back to help with the analysis of what happened.
20:50:22 In 9 11 he met with the most senior general in charge of the Us.
20:50:27 Air Force, and he asked him if you had known what was going on, Would you have given the order to actually send out the F.
20:50:36 111 to shoot down those jets and to his credit.
20:50:41 The general said, I don't know this is one of the best answers.
20:50:45 You can possibly give in complex systems, because the trouble is that if you pretend that you know you can get disasters like this.
20:50:55 This is particularly poignant right now. This was Malaysia Airlines flight 1,998 people killed by a Russian missile shot down over the Ukraine. Oh, whatever it was 15 years ago that was
20:51:08 somebody who, we believe, thought that the passenger chat was not a passenger chat.
20:51:16 Oops, and there's this I I tried to get a picture of what's called a saw pit.
20:51:23 This is as close to a small pitch as you can get it's a very, very rough way.
20:51:28 It's a hard way to cut up big Timber.
20:51:31 But actually, when you can go to Walmart and pick up one of these and Walmart for a couple of 1,000 bucks, this is called pattern entrment.
20:51:39 When you get stuck in doing things because that's always been done that way. I mean, we've known that for a long time.
20:51:47 Dear old Grace Hopper pointed this out years ago.
20:51:49 The most damaging phrase in the language is we've always done it this way.
20:51:53 Oh, God I wish I had a buck for every time I'd heard that at work I could have retired years ago, and if you don't know who Grace Hopper is have a word with David he can always arrange a also
20:52:04 session on history of computing. So here we go, premature convergence, retroactive coherence and pattern and trainment.
20:52:14 They are the dangerous things whenever there this last one is really interesting play, paying attention.
20:52:23 Can anybody see a packet in these numbers? Well, if I rearrange them from threes and to fours?
20:52:33 Oh, that's interesting! And if I stack them suddenly it goes from what looks like a bunch of random numbers, too, it looks like a series of years separated by the 4 years apart.
20:52:45 Oh, wait a minute. Oh, yeah, Any soccer fans out there.
20:52:49 These are all of the dates of the soccer world cup That's one's coming up in November in Katar.
20:52:55 But you wouldn't necessarily know that when you just looked at the raw data, and there's an awful trap in this.
20:53:02 The challenger disaster could have been averted.
20:53:05 The engineers had data that they knew that that launch was potentially disastrous.
20:53:10 But when they presented it to their administration, the Administration looked at the dash room.
20:53:14 I don't know what the problem is and they had other pressures.
20:53:16 They were dealing with the launch went ahead I won't read this to you.
20:53:21 I'll just go straight to the graphic follicle dead with Tuft, whose genius in data visualization was one of the people who analyzed what happened in the Challenger disaster.
20:53:31 And he produced this chart that showed clearly. Oh, rings on the challenge would fail when it was cold, and they did.
20:53:41 That launch was the coldest day they'd seen in Florida for donkey's years.
20:53:47 What Hadn't happened was this: the hard part first you have to see the data.
20:53:52 Then you have to attend to the data pay attention to it and That's where all of this situational awareness comes in, because only then can you act on the data as 3 separate deliberate processes does not remind you of something
20:54:10 see the data transparency, A attend to the Data Inspection Act on the data adaptation.
20:54:22 It was when I got taught all of this lot that suddenly agile made sense.
20:54:28 You'll get a copy of this deck this diagram should help you right?
20:54:37 Because what it'll help you to do is to pick from the dozens and dozens and dozens of techniques, frameworks, practices, all of that.
20:54:49 There are so many that in situ are helpful but the temptation for an awful lot of professionals is to just think that they should know what they're doing.
20:55:00 But they're presented with a problem that they've never seen before.
20:55:04 They don't know what they're doing and they're terrified of failure.
20:55:09 It's horrible it's horrible so maybe you're feeding a little bit like this right Now you may feel that you've got some questions so Oh, there's a couple of minutes left Let me just cut
20:55:22 across do we have any questions Let me just There we go that's good?
20:55:28 Do we have any questions You want to come off Mute and just ask me any questions right now, and if if not, then I can just wrap up and hand up both back to Sarah and David, how are we looking so far we
20:55:39 don't have anything Andrew in the chat so yeah i'm.
20:55:48 Still asking, I guess people are digesting what you just explained.
20:55:50 And and I know it's a lot I know We go through this very quickly indeed.
20:55:56 This is also. Why, i'm going to hang around half an hour afterwards, if you have time, then by all means and that in the case that you have you have a yeah, if we let these application Oh, that's good that's very
20:56:10 good. Well, listen in that case cause we're getting close to the top of the I'm just gonna jump back into my deck.
20:56:17 I'm just gonna make my my closing points where are we? Let's do that.
20:56:21 No, I know. let's set that up and back to that and here we go.
20:56:28 There are laurel and hardy good lesson right we've dealt with questions.
20:56:33 So i'm just gonna sum up this check is going to be kind of helpful to you.
20:56:36 I hope if things are ordered here's what you want to think about, you can create and use plans if it's an ordered domain.
20:56:44 Waterfall works perfectly well right, you can use people's expertise.
20:56:50 If you have done L. 6 sigma if you've got a green belt, whatever, then use that that works very well as a way of iterative and incremental improvement, you can standardize standard operating procedures are
20:57:01 legitimate. You must monitor the context, because if you think that things are ordered.
20:57:10 But the context in which you're operating changes you could run yourself right off a cliff code act did that Kodak came up with the original designs for digital imaging.
20:57:21 They thought it was a gadget, a gizmo.
20:57:23 It was nothing. They actually sold the patents and the next thing you know they're out of business.
20:57:30 They thought that film was always going to be it they didn't monitor.
20:57:32 The context. there's hundreds of examples of that because if you don't mind complacent complacency is the problem.
20:57:41 Complacency is how you fall from clear into chaos.
20:57:44 By the way, this is also the deliberate move of tyrants.
20:57:51 Right tyrants will cause chaos so that they can enforce control.
20:57:56 Remember January the sixth. If things are chaotic, biz. January the sixth, you want to be prepared.
20:58:05 You want to have response teams ready? Snowden consulted to the Eu at the beginning of the pandemic and produced an excellent little document.
20:58:14 European unions rapid response Document I can't remember exactly what it's called. I could always send a link to it as well, but part of that was going.
20:58:23 Look have people ready. most organizations when they're back in the office have fire marshals on each floor wouldn't somebody who, if the fire alarm goes off or put on a yellow jacket and get everybody out
20:58:35 that's the simplest possible preparation as soon as it drops into chaos.
20:58:42 Tough constraints act again. This can be the move of tyrants. but if it's a more benign situation, you just want to act to getting time to think right.
20:58:52 Having attitude as a leader in a chaotic situation.
20:58:58 You need to then become a hub of communication you want to map out what you're understanding.
20:59:04 You want to make sense from narratives, use observation and base it on reality as it emerges.
20:59:11 You want to repurpose your existing resources I mean how you've prepared them, and while you're going through it, learn and document everything that's going on you can't rely on what you learn as being exactly applicable
20:59:25 next time, but the might be something there and you don't want to lose it.
20:59:29 Lastly, if it's complex run safe to fail experiments what can you change, or what you can change?
20:59:35 What can you monitor, or what you can monitor? What could you amplify or mitigate?
20:59:40 You want real-time feedback. draw within the distance you can see in your headlights right.
20:59:48 You want to manage granularity and cadence, small, detailed and quick, large, ambiguous, and slow not to be where traps premature convergence, retroactive coherence pattern and trainland, they use your data see it
20:59:59 pay attention to it and act on it. Emergence is good.
21:00:04 You only know what works when it works emergence. Bad! beware!
21:00:08 The law of unintended consequences. Alright, So remember this: We are uncovering better ways of working by doing it and helping others. do it.
21:00:18 Remember me the person I was coaching. She wrote this up and pinned it up in front of her.
21:00:25 Bc. Are we done? Well, We're probably not done done will probably never be done. done.
21:00:31 Listen! I don't usually show for myself, in these things I think that that's vulgar.
21:00:36 It, Crass. but i'm. going to be retiring in the next few months by my next birthday next April, I expect to no longer be in this business, and so I asked David if it would be all right to let you know that
21:00:46 If you're interested in learning more about this approach him I have a whole bunch of potential workshops, I would love to run for you.
21:00:54 Guys situational awareness. This is basically going deeper into convenient bang for the buck value for effort estimation.
21:01:02 There's a two-step estimation process that I designed and used in multiple situations which is allowed people to produce plans that their management can rely on.
21:01:15 Every time i've run this, people are like Oh, good this really helps conversations for action is a very simple framework for communication commitments, and how to say no making what visible is actually about what's How do you
21:01:28 use metrics properly without them being weaponized.
21:01:30 Productivity skills just helpful ways to work facilitation.
21:01:36 If you have to lead meetings, primates, projects, and Prussians is my favorite.
21:01:40 This is the history of work, and how can we do it the way we do?
21:01:45 If you need to really approach agile, cause you you've never have, or you've got a bit cynical about it, or do the actual appetizer for you.
21:01:54 Then, lastly, the 7 wastes. How you do more by doing less, if you like.
21:01:58 The idea of any of those. This is me my name is Andrew Webster. I'm.
21:02:04 The chief cooking bottle watcher for the little thing I run called wisdom at work.
21:02:07 That's my contact details and I have limited availability for coaching, speaking, training barmets was weddings and funerals and store openings feel free to approach me for any of those and with that folks I think
21:02:18 i'm done! How are we doing for time Oh, good that'll do Excellent!
21:02:29 Thank you. now, like I say i'm more than happy just to look. This is now the time when you guys can come off mute.
21:02:38 If anybody wants to look from a little one, have a bit of chat about any of this.
21:02:46 We will, as you have seen. Apollo has posted that the the slide deck and the video keep up.
21:02:57 Our presentation will be available up to everybody. Yes, yes, thank you very much.
21:03:06 And we'll link everything to Andrew thank you so much ado, as you see from Chat from provisionalization.
21:03:16 Everybody at the Shades. What you've done to us for for us today, and we have shared Bill Top knowledge.
21:03:26 Keep that with Jake, Go ahead. thank you thank you yeah i'll send links to a dropbox folder where i'll put everything in that my I might put a couple of other little bonus things as a handout as
21:03:37 a link to the yeah. Those things good? No. Does anybody have the hand up?
21:03:45 Yes, thank you, Andrew I don't even know how to start, because that was also when you started, you asked if there was an alien in the room, and that was you.
21:04:06 Oh, busting! Oh, keep up with that I mean that was I was in home 6 months seminar in, and now I mean, there's a lot to digest, so don't be mad at us if we give you a delay of questions because that
21:04:24 was just too much, very good, I mean, thank you. and every concept there was just something to just take and tear into several stories, and, you know, think a week, and that was just a lot.
21:04:38 And thank you so much for this and i'm so looking forward to more of your seminars, and I mean this is free.
21:04:46 I can even believe that this is free of charge. So thank you so much.
21:04:53 Very good, very good, I mean. Thank you. it is drinking from the fire hose when I only have under an hour to just go.
21:05:00 There you go. but i'm very clear that part of what my mission is is to adjust is to introduce people to things, even if i'm not, then the person that takes them deeper into it, and I love it when I can
21:05:13 be. Oh, you're right, I mean so actually I to understand can Evan to its greatest depth.
21:05:21 Oh, gosh! I had a 2 day training in that i've attended innumerable other online trainings.
21:05:29 I've been to residences to do it and it's one of those things where even the simplest way of understanding it, if you just go ordered complex coding.
21:05:39 That's helpful, but it's as the saying goes it is turtles all the way down.
21:05:45 So I could always get teach you more about that and a lot of the other concepts.
21:05:51 You're right i'm in this you will never stop learning about this stuff.
21:05:55 I'm an accidentally us humans have created a world that is way more complex.
21:06:03 Then we really evolved to handle I mean, we evolved to hundreds of thousands of generations as hunter gatherers.
21:06:12 Well, we were good daily cycles, seasonal cycles, annual cycles, and lifetime cycles.
21:06:18 We typically lived in the company of the same relatively small number of people.
21:06:23 We typically learned from parents and grandparents who'd learnt from their parents and grandparents contextual knowledge.
21:06:31 Our cultural knowledge was reliable. By the time you are a say 1213, 1415 in.
21:06:40 Knew everything you needed to know to get through life. and then and then agriculture, civilization, industry, technology, medicine, nitrate, fertilizers.
21:06:55 All of these things happened. That meant that instead of growing very slowly to maybe a 1 billion people on the planet 200 years ago in my lifetime, with more than doubled, where a bit over twice the carrying capacity of the planet at the
21:07:13 moment, Oops right but we're smart and we can figure this stuff out right, and once you recognize that we come with the equipment that goes on supposed to know what i'm doing you know i'm older than 15 but
21:07:31 wasn't I supposed to know how life works by the time I actually finished school.
21:07:35 Well, yeah, but we don't live in that world anymore.
21:07:38 Right right. but we're smart we are complex, at that too, systems ourselves, And when you deliberately learn how to actually deal with a changing context, and you're willing to go. Oh, God I could learn something else, again all right.
21:07:57 I'll learn something else. You can still have a great life even in this crazy world of climate crisis.
21:08:02 And mayhem. So it's Not just this isn't just about doing well in your career.
21:08:08 This stuff is deeply important. Oh, sorry I had a bit of lecture There didn't.
21:08:13 I got i'm in my soap box oh well i'll climb back down again.
21:08:16 Oh, I see, you've got your hand up? as well do you Do you want to come off me?
21:08:23 And so we are. Thank you, thank you so much i'm just wondering about how it seems like we've got to a point in our civilization where we're pretty good at dealing with things that are complicated Okay.
21:08:36 and that seems like very analytical yeah a highly rational where we're able to think through this.
21:08:45 So i'm wondering about complex whether it's because the world is changing faster than it used to.
21:08:56 Yeah, I mean because sorry. Go ahead may I think we've always had to deal with complexity like to me.
21:09:03 The natural world is very complex. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And I think we evolved so that we had the sort of meta skills for dealing with that kind of complexity.
21:09:14 I put it this way. One of the things that i've seen growing massively over the last few years, is how the psychology of trauma and attachment has shifted into the world of coaching as more and more
21:09:29 coaches as well as psychologists and psychotherapists get to appreciate.
21:09:34 The people are struggling with basically being terrified and potentially having been traumatized.
21:09:44 Either Flow up! bang, trauma! You see your parents killed in a car.
21:09:46 Crash. Heaven forbid or through what's known as complex trauma, which is more expensive of a slow accumulation of events, all of that would indicate that the systems that we evolved to use to deal with emergent
21:10:04 things in our environment, things that come from complexity a kind of back firing on us, that something happens and we we experience it as something where we are not equal to it.
21:10:21 It's a real perceived or imagined shortcoming. and at extremes that can really mess with people. And one of the patterns of of human behavior is that typically some point in early childhood. you have your first experience of
21:10:40 the something wrong, you know everything was fine as a baby, and then suddenly you have a moment where you recognize that something's wrong, and you may.
21:10:49 How you react to that will be, how you will tend to react to how things are wrong, because you gotta get that.
21:10:56 Your your dear old brain the thinking bit of it evolved very late.
21:11:02 The near cortex evolved quite late in human history because it evolved late.
21:11:07 It's not very sophisticated it needs a lot of energy to do its job.
21:11:11 The sooner that you can put something back into the subconscious sooner you can be like Oh, I know how that works.
21:11:19 The fewer calories you actually need to be able to deal with it.
21:11:22 So We're actually built to go Oh, that's how that works Okay, Good.
21:11:27 So something happens. the next time something happens That kind of looks like it.
21:11:31 You may consciously or not be like Oh, i'll kind of know how this works.
21:11:36 It's what will give us a lens through which we see the world later on in childhood you may have the first moment of going.
21:11:45 I'm not enough. i'm not enough this is too much for me, and then you survive it somehow.
21:11:51 Now you're going on How that works at some point you may have that first experience of being i'm all alone, and humans are social creatures, or we are weak, squishy, and delicious when we're little right.
21:12:03 We have to be so. I i'm sorry it comes as an image doesn't it.
21:12:08 But we have to be social. We are really, I mean babies.
21:12:11 Just make you go. Oh, dogs have evolved to have facial expressions that appeal to that mechanism.
21:12:19 Oh, doggie! we must be social except with accidentally created social and cultural constructs, inside which we experience social threat.
21:12:32 When your manager yells at you or you think that you're going to fail at something, and let your grandmother down and prove her right.
21:12:42 I knew you'd never come to anything you experience that a social threat By the time that filters down into the alarm system, the amygdala that sets off your threat response. it doesn't know whether you've got
21:12:54 a threat, because there's a bear chasing you or whether it's because your manager just looked at you. funny.
21:12:59 It's still a threat and that's where almost all of the dysfunction in the workplace comes from is people actually experiencing some kind of threat. but they went through an education system that would never have taught them that
21:13:15 as our education system is designed to make us a obedient and productive, or manage those who are being obedient and productive.
21:13:24 So, and that's how come the world of psychology and coaching and all of that has gone.
21:13:28 Oh, wait a minute. There's some stuff that was missing few generations back.
21:13:32 You'd have learnt this your granny's knee.
21:13:36 But now we actually have to deliberately distinguish it and relearn it.
21:13:39 This is why things like personal development have a therapist any of that stuff.
21:13:45 It's actually really good. This is all stuff it would be fantastic if we'd like at school. But school Isn't designed to help you with that school is designed to keep the economy going.
21:13:55 Remember Bill Clinton saying it's the economy stupid Hmm.
21:13:59 Well lower of unintended consequences were knife. And now, finding out that with that degree of acceleration like you say, the world is changing faster than we can handle, were seen the long tail of unintended consequences that
21:14:14 economists of traditionally dismissed as negative externalities.
21:14:20 Somebody else's problem right we're making a fortune out of making toilet paper.
21:14:26 But we don't care that it pollutes the river and is killing all of those fish, and is destroying an entire fishing industry.
21:14:31 That's not hard problem. The climate crisis is a negative externality par excellence. and it's because I think of systems thinking systems.
21:14:41 Thinking goes all right. If you make a change you then want to monitor whether it's a feedback in the direction that you want.
21:14:48 But what if you make multiple changes before you get that feedback when you get the feedback?
21:14:54 You don't know what it was that caused it oops That is how come economists can get away with dismissing everything as a negative externality, because it just it's too complex.
21:15:07 To model right. This is why rapid feedback is so important, and most businesses do not include testing for negative externalities.
21:15:16 There are exceptions. they're more businesses now that at the very least will go. If we sell you a gadget, we will recycle it when your gadget finally breaks.
21:15:29 Right. You know this is one of the things that i'm seeing more and more people coming to be aware of the when agile first came about.
21:15:35 We all thought that it was like this was the new hope.
21:15:39 But this is how you can actually have a good experience in the workplace.
21:15:43 Some of it got a little bit commoditized and weaponized and turned into a factory for churning out more and more certifications, and some of the big consulting companies are just awful at that But
21:15:56 There's always been a core of agileists who are like wait.
21:16:00 There's much more to it than just doing a bit better at work.
21:16:02 This is a way of actually understanding the world. it's it's every senior agileist i've ever worked with has ultimately gone out Personal development program isn't.
21:16:11 It. Huh! What do you know? So yes, when you say the world is is changing more rapidly than we have evolved to handle it.
21:16:18 That's one of the reasons why agile for me became a very big deal, and I hope it does for everybody here, right?
21:16:26 It's really important. So thank you for throwing that question in that gave me another soap box to climb onto.
21:16:33 Very good. I appreciate it all. who else? I got you put your hand up.
21:16:38 Hello! Hello! I mean this is a fascinating discussion.
21:16:45 And when you were talking about negative externality and I was just thinking I had 2 questions, but i'll start with the first one.
21:16:52 Kind of what do you think about the advances in artificial intelligence?
21:16:58 It is very rapidly developing into something that can overpower us.
21:17:05 It's and what kind of feedback I mean using what we know what we don't know.
21:17:13 What can we? You know what feedback do we look out for, or what can we do to kind of be more aware where it's going?
21:17:22 Because right now it feels like it's out control and the reason why i'm saying it is i'm looking for a job, and I was
21:17:29 I signed up with this company that has that automates resume a writing, and they send a mail, saying, You know our code is already bored.
21:17:40 Finding points bullet point for your resumes it's doing something more, and it's exciting for us.
21:17:47 But for me it was scary because i'm like Oh, my God, this sounds scary to me.
21:17:54 So that's where I i've been thinking about it in in your discussion came up at the right time. so I thought i'll ask that's really great. Thank you i'm gonna give you one of my absolute favorite
21:18:06 answers. I don't know
21:18:11 One of my heroes is richard feynman and one of the things that he said was, i'd much rather have a question I can't answer, Then answer, I can't question what a Gen.
21:18:25 But I think that that you are asking the question is the important thing.
21:18:29 I think if I have no idea how ai is going to go through I'm.
21:18:33 Not an expert in ai i'm not an expert in machine learning I'm.
21:18:37 Not an expert in any of those things, but I think that it is wildly, wildly irresponsible to go charging into it.
21:18:46 I seem to remember I Can't Remember who it was that was on the Manhattan project.
21:18:49 The the guys that that designed the original atom bomb.
21:18:52 But I know that one of them once said, Damn your scruples!
21:18:56 This is great science. How how how well, I think we need the same thing!
21:19:03 I'm not saying that ai is a bad thing but I do think that we need to think long and hard about.
21:19:10 How could you monitor it? What can we change, or what we can change?
21:19:15 What can we monitor or what we can monitor what can we amplify if it if it's good mitigated, it's bad.
21:19:22 And the problem is some of the bad takes a time to show up, and by the time it does, people have moved on it's not their problem.
21:19:31 That's scary. I I saw a fascinating article in the Atlantic.
21:19:36 The other day it was priceless. It was hoping at the Billionaires.
21:19:42 We know who they are right who are now going Well, we've prepared our sort of safety capsules for where we can hide from the Apocalypse when the event happens.
21:19:56 We're a bit worried, though, because we work and I get some security guards, and we're not quite sure whether we can pay them in Bitcoin, because the thing is that after the Apocalypse may be bitcoin
21:20:08 went work. I wonder if we could put exploding collars on them oblivious to the fact that it's those billionaires who are the sociopaths who created the very world that they're now trying to hide
21:20:21 from great muscle. Heavens! give me a break! So thank you.
21:20:24 Thank you. Thank you for asking the question. If more of them had asked those questions rather than thinking, Damn your scruples!
21:20:31 This is great science. The addiction to innovation is dangerous.
21:20:40 But if right, if we write, if we use the smarts that we put into innovation to also put into being responsible, we've got a We got a chance.
21:20:53 I strongly recommend. By the way, I didn't include it in this, because I couldn't there's a wonderful book called Donut Economics Spot.
21:21:03 The British way do Ug. H. N. U. T. which offers an alternative to the standard free market capitalist, endless growth model.
21:21:12 And if you pair it with another book called The Good Ancestor, that book lays out a whole bunch of ways that you can start to think responsibly.
21:21:21 Many generations ahead. So there are people out there smarter than me already who are doing this work.
21:21:30 Those are the 2 books that i've Come across that I adore and promote a rising tide lifts all ships.
21:21:37 There are many other people thinking this way i'm going to sound like a rampaging anarchist for a minute.
21:21:45 I blame d reaganulated free market capitalism.
21:21:49 The lower of unintended consequences, meant that we handed the controls of society. to those who believe that it is the right thing to do to extract wealth from that society, and keep it for, themselves, and their children they think it's the
21:22:08 right thing to do. Well, how's that gonna end oops what we're saying how it's how it could potentially end.
21:22:16 So again, I think that we can still use the wonderful genius that has come from civilization, industry, technology.
21:22:25 What are the people here but you've gotta redirect it? into going?
21:22:29 Wait a cotton pick in moment let's stop with this growth stuff and start to think about regeneration and sustainability, you know.
21:22:39 Ask the yeast and a bottle of beer how it feels about growth, because at some point it will stop growing because it's consumed all of the sugar there, and it's dead.
21:22:50 I like humans, and seeing serious, intelligent people so that they think that we're heading for a mass extinction event will include us.
21:23:00 Oh, i'm sorry about that. I think we can avoid that anybody else here interested in the avoiding that I think it's a good idea personally right, and you are the smart ones.
21:23:11 Your the ones who actually sought out David and you're listening to this stuff.
21:23:15 Right. This is where Hope lives. right? So okay, thank you for asking that question, and i'll climb down from my third soap box.
21:23:25 You guys are just giving it to me. I promise I never asked any of you to ask these questions ahead of time. It's just that process.
21:23:34 Very good, like, I say when it comes to your particular question I don't know But I think we all need to ask those questions as a wave at the very least monitoring and being ready to amplify what's good okay, what
21:23:50 isn't right regeneration and sustainability is what we need now, I mean, as well said, we we are now operating faster than we can manage.
21:24:02 Our ancestors, who evolved very slowly with the natural world.
21:24:08 New. All of this stuff they did regeneration and sustainability was a matter of course.
21:24:15 Right. if you're a hunter gatherer you Move on before you've exhausted all of those local resources right in 1,900 sixtys something there for 7 generations ahead at least right i'm i'm
21:24:32 okay working on writing my first novel and it's a historical novel set in the Stone Age.
21:24:43 And it's actually setting the stage for telling a whole series of stories based initially on going cool those hunter gatherers knew what they were doing.
21:24:50 Didn't they and look at us. now, oops so there you go. That's what i'm heading into as I retire, and as David pointed out, if you're in this game you never retire, right so there, you
21:25:05 go. yeah whoops, as Joe, he said in chat whoops.
21:25:11 I love it. Okay, Anybody else got anything We got a couple more minutes.
21:25:15 I'm gonna have to jump off and make lunch and 5 min, so you know anybody else
21:25:28 Oh, looks like i've absolutely filled you guys up Oh, my goodness!
21:25:35 Well, what did I have back to to David and Sarah and maybe we can actually get to a point of going if there's nothing that anybody needs to do Say or here that we can actually get to?
21:25:45 That point where we can declare this session complete, except I just saw Jodie.
21:25:49 No need.
21:25:53 Oh, I
21:26:03 Sorry David is asking me to admit everyone, but I cannot.
21:26:07 So got it. Yeah, kept saying, the host will not let you unmute.
21:26:13 I was like, Wait, I just wanted to say thank you and to ask Asv pm.
21:26:19 Like, How soon can I get the video in the slides?
21:26:21 Because I need to re listen to this a lot of it struck home, and i'd like to share it actually they're just phenomenal concepts.
21:26:36 Andrew what i'm gonna do is compile the deck into a powerpoint. show.
21:26:51 This will allow you to run it without editing it alright, so you can actually look through all of that.
21:26:57 It's up to Sarah and David how long it'll be before they can actually put the video together.
21:27:02 Editor put on credits. put on the soundtrack, you know.
21:27:07 Do the post? are we going to tour with this? What do you think?
21:27:12 No soundtrack can what you were saying and what we have.
21:27:19 And you know that we know that thank you so much grand. Well, it'll probably be sooner rather than license.
21:27:24 But charity. Thank you for asking, and by all means share.
21:27:27 This stuff. If all of this is stuff that's in the public domain
21:27:31 I am a aware that some of the images in my deck may have been commercial, and I didn't necessarily credit them.
21:27:39 Hi may add something at the end of the deck saying so.
21:27:43 So if somebody gets upset they can get in touch with me and i'll give to you credit greatly after what you have shared with us, and we'll be in touch 5 to see how all those you know
21:28:00 and we you and I will get together we'll initiate something that for for everybody as a coach as well as as speaker.
21:28:18 We have shared tremendous values without community and community that large needers.
21:28:25 We saw a lot of people joined us and yeah I don't know how better I think.
21:28:30 Thank you, except personally. You will meet all from there. Thank you in behalf. Pop.
21:28:39 Sdk: Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Mcdonalds.
21:28:41 That is and everyone else here. L. I know anyone else, and thank you.
21:28:47 Thank very good, very good, and thank you and for everybody who's still on.
21:28:54 I want to thank you, not just on my behalf, but on the behalf of everybody who will now benefit.
21:29:00 As a result of what you've learned and what you're learning. You may never know who they are.
21:29:07 There will be a trail of thousands after you and on their behalf.