How to use inherent simplicity to remove the four major impediments to a successful of adoption of Scrum.
A talk on this blog was given on the Amplio Community of Practice (click to join for free). You can see it here .
The four biggest impediments to the successful adoption of Scrum are:
Let’s go through each of these to understand their cause.
Then, I’ll introduce Eli Goldratt’s concept of inherent simplicity.
After that, I’ll show how inherent simplicity can overcome these impediments.
Not being fit for purpose occurs when fully cross-functional teams cannot be created or are inappropriate, given the types of problems being solved and the available talent distribution.?It also happens when teams can't plan ahead at least a week or when they are faced with heavy maintenance issues.
Being purposefully incomplete means that people must reinvent known practices that fit their situation. They, of course, often don’t, which means they are working much harder and with great waste.
Resistance by team members. This often shows up in a lack of motivation and disengagement. People resist what they don’t understand. Even practices that have been demonstrated to be valuable are often resisted without understanding. See Why Theory is So Important.
Slow learning. Learning is delayed without an integration of theory and practice.
Introducing Inherent Simplicity
All of the above impediments can be resolved with the concept of inherent simplicity, described in Eli Goldratt’s and Efrat Goldratt-Ashlag’s The Choice
Eli Goldratt presents a breakthrough, self-verifiable theory called inherent simplicity.
”The biggest obstacle is that people grasp reality as complex when actually it is surprisingly simple.”
“What I mean by Inherent Simplicity is that reality, any part of reality, is governed by very few elements, and that any existing conflict can be eliminated. If we take that as a given, as absolutely correct in every situation, we'll find ourselves thinking clearly.” "If we dive deep enough we’ll find that there are very few elements at the base - the root causes - which through cause and effect connections are governing the whole system.”
“When I left physics and started to deal with organizations, I was astonished to see that the attitude of most people is that the more sophisticated something is, the more respectable it is. This ridiculous fascination with sophistication also causes people to altogether avoid using their brain power. You see, since complicated solutions never work, people tell themselves that they don’t know enough. That a lot of detailed knowledge is needed before one can even attempt to understand an environment.”
“The key for thinking like a true scientist is the acceptance that any real life situation, no matter how complex it initially looks, once understood, is actually embarrassingly simple. Moreover, if the situation is based on human interactions, you probably already have enough knowledge to begin with.”
“he doesn’t claim that reality is not overwhelmingly complex; he acknowledges it in full. But what he says is that there is a way to realize that from another more important aspect, it is exceedingly simple.”
“The first and most profound obstacle is that people believe that reality is complex, and therefore they are looking for sophisticated explanations for complicated solutions. Do you understand how devastating this is?”
“The hardest thing to do is to struggle to find an answer to a problem when we believe that there is a high chance that it doesn't have an answer; it is so easy to give up. That is why Father recommends starting with the conviction that a better solution exists for sure.”
"The difficulty is that if I'm not sure, really sure that a second effect does exist, I might stay inside the box; it is always safer to stay within the comfortable boundaries of a box than to jump out into the unknown. Since the other effect is not within that box, I will not find it. I'll give up searching and remain stuck with a tautology (circular logic)."
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Using Inherent Simplicity in Knowledge Work
For the last 2 decades,, I have been distilling the essence of inherent simplicity in knowledge work. I accomplished this over a span of 15 years where I had over 10,000 conversations with people having varying degrees of success and failure in adopting a variety of Agile approaches. I integrated the insights from these conversations with the theories of Flow, Lean, and the Theory of Constraints. I also used what I learned from several books including Don Reinertsen’s seminal book Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development and Christopher Alexander’s Timeless Way of Building .
From these, I have identified 10 first principles and the corresponding factors for effective value streams. See picture below. Because these are the distillations of observations, they can be verified by anyone who has experience in knowledge work.?
The first principles enable people to see if they are acting consistent with the physics of flow.? The factors for effective value streams provide us insights on how we can improve our workflows.
These enable people to see what is causing their impediments and how to adjust their workflows without relying on experiments. It enables them to create fit-for-purpose solutions to their workflow.
It also means that they can see other people's solutions and apply them in their context with modifications as appropriate.
Understanding these first principles eliminates much of the resistance people would otherwise have. “A comfort zone has less to do with control and more to do with knowledge, " says Eli Goldratt.
Note that first principles of knowledge work are not the same as first principles of Scrum Theory as Jeff Sutherland espouses. See The Different between first principles and Scrum Theory.
And, of course, it accelerates learning.
Combining Inherent Simplicity with Alexandrian Patterns
Amplio includes about 30 capabilities which are needed to be effective at the team level. These include what Scrum suggests as well as a few others.
Each capability has a pattern associated with it.
An Alexandrian-style pattern is "a solution to a problem in a context." The pattern describes the problem and how to create a solution for your context by discussing the forces present. These "forces" relate to Goldratt's inherent simplicity.
By combining inherent simplicity with patterns it's possible to provide many solutions for different contexts without overloading people.
For more see How Amplio Uses Patterns a la Alexander and Scrum Patterns Are Not Patterns a la Alexander .
Conclusion
We must shift from following other people’s thinking to trusting our own.
Oh, yes, I know what you end up with isn't Scrum. It's why I call it Amplio Scrum.
Want to learn more? Check out Amplio Foundations on the Amplio University Curriculum page .
Also, take a look at Introducing Amplio Scrum and the Amplio Scrum Coach
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