Has a brief chat with Dan yesterday about using complexity in software development. As he pointed out it comes down to commonsense, complexity is just another wrapper for that. But what if complexity is science based can it offer beyond a better way of saying the commsensical? Keeping it simple I would say what science offers is the counter-intuitive, or the counter-commonsensical if you like long words! So what does this mean in practice? It’s hard to recall examples of counter-intuitive uses of complexity though there’s one I recall about luggage handlers at airports doign somethign which seemed to the guy on the ground very counter-intuitive, which was to keep circulatign luggage rather than take it off the plane, which in fact made the process more efficent. And I think its those examples that we are really looking for. Obvious when you think of it (more jokes about the obvious please..).
Category Archives: Complexity
A social approach to using complexity (2)
Of course my approach to complexity didn’t work ’cause my means fitted my ends. I wasn’t trying to provide a top-down solution but working as one of the team, kind of an ‘insider consultant’ model. Which at one level is obviously counter-cultural for the NHS, despite the fact that the MA (Modernisation Agency) had written a report on harnessing social movement theory to making change happen, the reality of what that means is outside most people’s experience. Kind of like what I recall some social psychologist who been brought in by City Hall in deepest California reporting the cry that went up from the employees on his arrival each morning: “Hey, here comes the Chaos guy!”. And equally to the average manager what I talking about sounds a bit counter-intuitive, what bring someone in with a big idea but then get them to blend in with everyone so that it kind of disappears. But that’s the point, you want people to accept it for themselves, to own it and shape it, using social software. And my contention is that you need an unusual low-level attitude (kind of like putting sync into action) to show how it operates amongst staff not managers to actually make it fly and pay on its ROI. (So you don’t need to write weighty reports, but you do need to sell it in many different ways on a day to day level that connects with how staff connect with their work and their world).
Enough. Got to go and get some fresh air and buy a new washing machine. The old one broke down while I was doing my ironing whilst watching the rock documentary ‘Dig’.