vesterberg.se

Astrakan

Some weeks ago I attended a 3-day course in process modelling and modelling facilitation. It was at Astrakan in Stockholm. This particular way of modelling is called the Astrakan Method and is used by many in Sweden. It is also used by one of my customers in Umeå. The course was very interesting, but I became aware of how much systems thinking in general and system dynamics in particular can enhance a discussion and a modelling session.

Systemic thinking

The purpose of process modelling is to identify the core processes, concepts and “value objects” of a business. The “value objects” are the products or services that are valuable for the customers. You divide each process into sub processes and note how each sub process adds value to the “value objects”. But as soon as you begin to divide into smaller units you risk losing sight of relations and emergent properties. Also each process lives in a context and is related to other sub contexts, which is important to keep in mind. A modelling method is a way to look at the real world and create abstract concepts and structure out of what you see. The method gives you tools to capture certain perspectives. The systemic thinking has to be part of your approach or you will miss a very important perspective.

Dynamics

When working with change, you model the current situation of the business and the desired future. From these two process maps you design a path of change. The problem is that as you begin to move toward your goal, step by step, by changing parameters, your  current situation also changes. Not only that; what surrounds you, the whole context probably changes. Surprising side effects show up after a while. The world is dynamic and complex with a lot of interdependencies. We need tools to model the dynamic dependencies in order to understand change. We need a way look at the dynamics and create an abstract model that helps us to get a better at navigating. We need the dynamic modelling approach.

My decision

So I decided to go deeper into this subject. The last weeks I have studied Sterman, Business Dynamics and Morecroft, Strategic Modelling and Business Dynamics. Both are great books that complement each other. Sterman’s book is thick (almost 1000 pages), comprehensive and with numerous examples. Morecroft is more pragmatic, he shows how to build  real models with calculations and all from practical cases. The book uses the software iThink and on the accompanying cd there are several real models to learn from and play with.

It seems that people has problems understanding the seriousness of global warming. We look at exponential curves in diagrams, but somehow perceive them as linear. When we have found one cause to a problem, we stop searching and we believe that by resolving that single problem everything is OK. Our common way of thinking is linear, simple cause and effect, while reality is circular dependent and complex.

We have a hard time imagining even the simplest feedback loop system. Why is it so? Because we have not been trained in this way of thinking, systems thinking. The human being is good at conceptualizing, but we have been walking on the wrong path here. I find this challenge of training people in systems thinking so interesting. From pre-schooling to university studies, this way of thinking should penetrate our conceptualization, because this is how the world works.

I came across this very interesting blog called Climate Interactive – vigorous sharing of user-friendly simulations. What a great initiative! Making climate simulators easy to understand and accessible to a larger audience. These fellows arrange workshops with decision-makers, where a key ingredient is role-playing, giving simulated but first-hand experience what will happen. The organisation behind this initiative Sustainability Institute is working on a simulator called Pangaea that will be available on-line soon as it appears.

Simulators and games are a great way to learn in an easy way. I will continue to search for more of this and give you a report. Imagine having first a thought-provoking, engaging and participative simulation/gaming-session and after that a  world cafe conversation sharing thoughts and feelings.

Some time ago I came across this video. I don’t remember where I found it, it might have been at KarmaTube. The language is foreign to me, but the message is clear. This video became very special to me.
It’s title is: Be The Change.

I am going to get personal now. As I watched this video I was very much moved and started to cry. It came from deep within my heart. I was taken aback because of the intensity of my feelings. I decided not to control myself and did not hold back. Something was stirred and awakened in me. When I look back, I can see that this experience brought faith into my heart that we as humans can cooperate and that I could be part of it. For me it was like finding a deeper level within myself or maybe that a deeper level made itself known. It was special event.

We live every day surrounded by information, possibilities and choices. Among this noise there are encounters that can affect us deeply. It is hard to describe how to find them, but they are out there waiting for us. When our hearts are touched deep down we become passionate and compassionate.

I began to reflect on the importance that we have our feelings as well as our thoughts engaged in what we do. We need a holistic perspective in our dealings with the world today and that is possible to achieve when our feelings and thoughts go together. Wholeness. Intellectual solutions is not enough. Compassion is the foundation because we are dealing with the living.

I had a similar experience a little later when I saw this video where Juanita Brown explains the vision of The World Café. It moved me deeply in a way I cannot describe. I had heard about The World Café earlier, so the information was not new. Perhaps you don’t feel anything special when you watch the videos. They are not magical. But it was an opportunity passing by for me at that time. There are other opportunities for you. That second experience strengthened my conviction; yes, we can do it.

I believe opportunities of deep connection like these are given more often than we realize. Sometimes we fail to find them, but when we recognize them and embrace them, the change is profound. Learning by heart and doing things out of your heart, have new meanings for me now.

I don’t write about systems thinking in this blog, because I am an expert. I write because I am very interested and want to learn more. Gerald Weinberg use to say, “When I want to learn something I start to write a book about it”. I haven’t written a book (yet), but I like to write anyway. It helps me to clear up my thinking and this blog is one place to my express thoughts in.

Learning

Systems thinking seem to be a very much needed discipline these days. To get good at it, you can read books and articles. Another way is to discuss with experienced people.

Applying

Yet another important way is to apply systems thinking and learn from doing it yourself. The theme of this blog is “Applied systems thinking” because I do not desire a good intellectual understanding only of these things, but to be able to solve real and tough problems. It is not a goal to intellectualize and analyze systems thinking. Since we have this love for being analytical in our western culture, we are in danger of becoming intellectual only. The thing is to get our hands dirty and apply it to the world around us.

Heart

Getting involved means engaging our whole person, thoughts and feelings, deep down in our hearts. Peter Senge in his book The fifth discipline talks about personal mastery. A whole person can better see the whole perspective. Solving tough problems with people involved requires empathy to be successful.

And you?

I am sure someone is reading this post and you are as interested in this as I am. What do you think? How can we learn and grow in applying systems thinking? I feel like being on a journey learning new things. What about you?

I and my friend Daniel Norman arranged a Green World Café last week at the Red Cross in our town. It was the first in a series of four, with the last one taking place in November at a big sustainable fair in Umeå. We had a great time with every one actively exploring the two questions of the night; they were “what is a sustainable lifestyle?” and “What is our personal responsibility?”. It is all too easy to get paralyzed or passivated concerning environmental issues, believing that it is only experts, politicians and technology that can make a change. No, we can make a change if we are many and if we begin to think together!

What is a World Café, you may ask? It is a way to have conversations in small groups and explore a given theme. It was originally “invented” by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs. They put together a number of proven principles about dialogue, creative thinking, appreciative inquiry and collective intelligence and it has been used successfully, world-wide in different contexts. The conversations in small groups build on each other as people move between groups (tables), ideas are cross-pollinated and people discover new insights into the questions that we choose to discuss. Seeing things from a broader perspective is a key.

We tried to create a relaxed and inviting café-atmosphere. The age-span was wide and we had people from all kinds of backgrounds. It is very exciting to look at diversity as strength. By having these cafés we hope to inspire people and help them to become more active to explore a sustainable lifestyle on their own. I really look forward to the next meeting, Oct 8. We have a swedish site about these meetings. You will find it here.

I have just completed Behind Closed Doors by Johanna Rothman and Esther Derby.  I wanted to read something by these authors, since I will be going to their Problem Solving Leadership training in January in Uppsala, Sweden. Gerald Weinberg will also be part of the teaching team and you can be sure I look forward to it.

The book

I read this book two times and that tells you how much I appreciated it. Behind Closed Doors is about best practise in management. Rothman’s and Derby’s approach is a bit different than in many other books. Here we have a story about fictitious manager, Sam, newly employed at a software development company. You follow him as he deals with different situations and uses sound management principles. The story is accompanied with the author’s comments about the situations. At the end there is a chapter called Techniques for Practising Great Management that discusses some of the principles in greater detail.

Story-telling

The story-telling ingredient in the authors teaching style is a great idea and it enables them to communicate and paint the picture of good management even better. Though the story does not have novel quality, it carries the message in an acceptable way.

Team building

It is very interesting to see how Sam treats the development department as a system and how he works on jellying the leader group together. Leadership is creating an environment that enables people to work successfully. Sam spends time every week with his group leaders in one-on-one meetings. He helps them to see the big picture and their role in the company. Together they create shared goals as a team and time boxed action plans.  Sam coaches them to formulate personal goals that fit into the company’s goals.

Ego

People often optimize for their own success, at the expense of the team or the entire organization.  I have surely been guilty of this. We are working each one in our own hole, digging and shovelling. There is clearly a need for leaders who can bring people together.

System problems

We are quick to blame each other for problems, but often problems are not caused by individuals. The cause can be  rooted in the system and its processes. People do not see the system problems, because they are part of the system. They are on the inside of it. An experienced manager (systems thinker) can see the system and facilitate the group’s problem solving work. A system problem can only be solved by the involved group of people. This is very interesting. The ability to take a step back and reveal what is going on and see the system processes is extremely valuable.

People

Sam is very interested in each one in his department employees. He coaches them to improve their capabilities and gives them clear feedback. Step by step he builds a successful team in difficult situations, prioritizing (and reprioritizing as circumstances change) the work that supports the goals of the group and the organization.

Simple principles

Rothman’s and Derby’s main tenet is that the principles of good management are not that difficult to understand. They discuss for example one-on-ones, portfolio management, feedback, coaching and delegation. The thing is to consistently and reliably perform these practises week after week.

Wise thoughts

I have started to read good books a bit more careful lately. When good thoughts are brought to us, we can act as they are just interesting; like standing at a distance and observing them. But wise thoughts should be treated in a better way. If you find them, take the time to expose yourself to them. Thoughts are powerful. Let them sink in and affect your mind-world and your feelings. There is plenty of room for some changed worlds today.

Gerald Weinberg posted a comment about musicians and systems thinking recently. Here are my thoughts about this subject:

Music can be played and created in solitude, but an extra dimension is added when musicians meet and play together. You don’t have to improvise; even playing a familiar song is a greater experience when played together with other musicians. Add an audience and you have yet another dimension. An enthusiastic crowd can inspire you and make you play like you never before. There is more to listening than just consuming. Listening can be participation and interaction. That makes such a difference. Of course each musician has to take his responsibility, but the whole is surely greater than the sum of the parts.

Music has much to do with relationships. It is said that international sports promotes understanding and fellowship, but think about it, competition is a main ingredient in sports. Imagine a musical movement where people from different countries meet and play together without competition and create music together. There you have some promotion of fellowship. Especially Jazz music is an universal concept that crosses all cultural boundaries. In fact, I believe all creative Arts promote connectedness.

Some of today’s music is produced like on assembly line, barren and without lasting impact. It is commercialized fast-food.

I had worked in the computer industry for some 15 years when I started playing myself. I had a rather analytical and left-brain approach to my work and life in general. Along this path I eagerly developed the technical and solitude side of playing bass. I soon discovered the other side; the need to play with awareness, to be connected with myself and with others. Music is to be played together with other people, whether they play or just listen. Being the person I am, I began to reflect over this new perspective and started to hunt for more information along this path. I found a way of thinking that felt natural. This is the way the world operates. If you let loose your artistic right-brain side, it will teach you connectedness.

You may live by these principles more or less, but perhaps you are not aware of the system or how things fit together. I have found that the better I understand the system, the better I can direct my steps, and maximize my musical learning and experiences. There are always problems along the way that needs to be solved and if you can see the principles, you have a better chance of finding a solution. Thankfully, often intuition comes to our help.

We, as citizens of this earth, should strive for wholeness. Only then can we break the downward spiral of destruction. We cannot afford to live in our own egoistic, disconnected world. I believe musicians and artists have an important role to play for us and for the future.

A week ago I completed “An Introduction to General Systems Thinking” by Gerald Weinberg. What a book!

During Christmas I read the novel “The Aremac Project” by the same author. That book is a sci-fi thriller about two software developers. Since Gerald Weinberg is a consultant in the computer industry, I became curious about it and bought it. It was well written and exciting with all the details interestingly and correctly described. Anyway I sensed he was a good writer with depth and I wanted to read more. I am constantly hunting for books and resources that are food for thought, about software development, project management or life in general. Finding a good book is like finding a treasure. The past year systems thinking and lean thinking have been on my mind. So all this lead me to “An Introduction to General Systems Thinking”.

What is systems thinking? Wikipedia says:
“Systems thinking is a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system will act differently when the systems relationships are removed and it is viewed in isolation. The only way to fully understand why a problem or element occurs and persists is to understand the part in relation to the whole. Standing in contrast to Descartes’, scientific reductionism and philosophical analysis, it proposes to view systems in a holistic manner. Consistent with systems philosophy, systems thinking concerns an understanding of a system by examining the linkages and interactions between the elements that comprise the entirety of the system.”

We have concentrated on and optimized components and forgotten the interaction between them, perhaps because of the complexities involved. We have exaggerated the apparent independence of the parts of a system. Science has been very successful, but the consequences or side effects as seen today are scaring. Look at the effects on nature for example. Systems thinking study the process of defining models and making assumptions to find the optimum necessary ingredients in a systems model for a specific purpose that is possible to handle and solve.

The book was originally published in 1975 and has been reprinted many times. It has become a classic. Weinberg uses clear writing and basic algebraic principles to explore new approaches to projects, products, organizations, and all kinds of system. He unravels the scientific defining of systems and the assumptions and simplifications made. Weinberg discusses the science of mechanics and the science of large populations and how the underlying philosophies and the simplifications made have been used inappropriately for systems that should have been handled in a different way.

The book requires some concentration and energy to read, but is indeed food for thought. To me, systems thinking really improves my thinking as a project manager, application developer, general problems solver and as someone who cares for the environmental issues and for people around me.

Pehr Gyllenhammar, president of Volvo some thirty years ago, tried to find new ways to increase the productivity. He got the idea that he would build the technical environment in the factory with the workers as the starting point and not the other way around, as was the rule.

Assembly lines were the common way to build cars ever since Henry Ford. Volvo had developed the practice meticulously and every part of the work was optimized. Time was measured in seconds. The assembler did his work monotonously all day long and he was really seen as an extension of the hardware, the technical environment. The factory was organized like clockwork, planned in utmost detail. The problem was that productivity did not increase as expected as each part was optimized. The human side was forgotten and this resulted in people getting sick and staff turnover was great.

Pehr started to experiment with a new type of factory. He tried to do a paradigm shift. That was not an easy thing and many around him protested; Cars have been assembled this way for seventy years. In the new factory, the assemblers worked in teams and built sections of the car. They were able to control and plan their work and organize themselves. They were involved in decisions and quality control. The advantages of the small engineering workshop were rediscovered. Even the architecture of the factory was different. This factory in Kalmar eventually had the highest productivity of all factories for Volvo cars and visitors from all over the world came to see what was going on.

Interesting, isn’t it; people working in small teams, given the freedom to organize, to decide and take responsibility. Not an easy task to achieve, but the way to go in these days. The result is commitment and creativity and the gain is greater than if you control every part in detail. You cannot take apart a process and optimize every part in isolation. You have to consider the whole system and most of all you have to consider the human aspect. During the industrial revolution the machines ruled, consuming both man and environment in the long run. We must move on and learn from history. We must have a sustainable view of man.