Concepts
Here you can find the basic concepts to undestand the meaning of articles and tools. There’re a lot of information that could be very usefull I tried to sintetizied the most important here for you… take a look and good read.
Complexity:
Globalization, high-speed telecommunications links, regulatory requirements and technology are among the reasons for more complex businesses. Large businesses are inherently more complex because decisions involve more stakeholders. Managers and employees of complex organizations must learn more technologies and processes, adapt at the speed of the Internet, and expect and embrace change every day.
thanks to Chron.com
Definition
According to Jost Hoppermann, analyst with technology and market research company Forrester Research, business complexity is the condition of having several interdependent and interconnected stakeholders, information technology systems and organizational structures. Stakeholders include employees, customers, partners, suppliers, regulators, investors, media and competitors. Organizational structures include divisions, subsidiaries and joint ventures.
Level
The complexity level depends on the number of interconnections and their effects on a business. A small bakery is a simple business, in which the number of interconnected stakeholders may be limited to the owner, a couple of part-time employees, one or two suppliers, and a small customer base. As a business grows, the number of interconnections also grows. A large multinational is a highly complex organization because it may have hundreds of product offerings and thousands of employees, investors, customers and suppliers.
Control
Control is a defining characteristic of business complexity. In a November 2005 Harvard Business School Working Knowledge article, MIT lecturer Jonathan Byrnes suggests that entrepreneurs who cannot let go of the need to control every aspect of their businesses may lose sight of the big picture and hurt operational performance. A small-business owner usually controls every aspect of his business, from ordering supplies to managing staff and setting product prices. However, the chief executive officer of a large Fortune 500 company usually does not control operational decisions at the store level, or even at the division level. Author and consultant Ron Ashkenas recommends that organizations periodically step back and eliminate redundant controls to create efficient organizations.
Management
Managerial complexity increases with business complexity. Decisions in complex organizations take longer because the consequences of mistakes are greater. Ashkenas counsels managers to do more with less. This involves focusing on the big picture, delegating operational responsibilities to capable people and managing resource allocation. Byrnes writes about the importance of risk management in complex businesses, because a fire at one production facility could have an adverse impact on worldwide sales. However, complexity should not preclude flexibility. A complex organization must be just as nimble as a small organization to respond to changes in business or economic conditions.
Agility
Business agility refers to the “ability of a business system to rapidly respond to change[1] by adapting its initial stable configuration”.[2] It can be sustained by maintaining and adapting goods and services in meeting customer demands, adjusting to the changes in a business environment, and taking advantage of available human resources.[3]
In a business context, agility is the ability of an organization to rapidly adapt to market and environmental changes in productive and cost-effective ways. An extension of this concept is the agile enterprise which refers to an organization that uses key principles of complex adaptive systems and complexity science in achieving success.[4] Business agility is the outcome of organizational intelligence.
The agile enterprise strives to make change a routine part of organizational life to reduce or eliminate the organizational trauma that paralyzes many businesses attempting to adapt to new markets and environments.[5] Because change is perpetual, the agile enterprise is able to nimbly adjust to and take advantage of emerging opportunities. The agile enterprise views itself as an integral component of a larger system whose activities produce a ripple effect of change both within the enterprise itself and the broader system.
Enterprise architecture as a discipline supports business agility through a wealth of techniques, including layering, separation of concerns, architecture frameworks, and the separation of dynamic and stable components. The model of hierarchical complexity—a framework for scoring the complexity of behavior developed by Michael Commons and others since the 1980s—has been adapted to describe the stages of complexity in enterprise architecture.
One type of enterprise architecture that supports agility is a non-hierarchical organization without a single point of control.[8] Individuals function autonomously, constantly interacting with each other to define the vision and aims, maintain a common understanding of requirements and monitor the work that needs to be done. Roles and responsibilities are not predetermined but rather emerge from individuals’ self-organizing activities and are constantly in flux. Similarly, projects are generated everywhere in the enterprise, sometimes even from outside affiliates. Key decisions are made collaboratively, on the spot, and on the fly. Because of this, knowledge, power, and intelligence are spread through the enterprise, making it uniquely capable of quickly recovering and adapting to the loss of any key enterprise component.
In business, projects can be complex with uncertain outcomes and goals that can change over time. Traditionally these issues were dealt with by planning experts that would attempt to pre-determine every possible detail prior to implementation; however, in many situations, even the most carefully thought out projects will be impossibly difficult to manage. Agile techniques, originating from the software development community, represent an alternative approach to the classic prescriptive planning approaches to management. The main focus of agile methods is to address the issues of complexity, uncertainty, and dynamic goals, by making planning and execution work in parallel rather than in sequence to eliminate unnecessary planning activity, and the resulting unnecessary work.
Pragmatic methods for achieving organizational agility should start from organization’s competitive bases and organization’s mission, vision, and values.[9][10] Agile methods integrate planning with execution allowing an organization to “search” for an optimal ordering of work tasks and to adjust to changing requirements. The major causes of chaos on a project include incomplete understanding of project components, incomplete understanding of component interactions and changing requirements. Sometimes requirements change as a greater understanding of the project components unfolds over time. Requirements also change due to changing needs and wants of the stakeholders. The agile approach allows a team or organization of collective trust, competence and motivation to implement successful projects quickly by only focusing on a small set of details in any change iteration. This is in contrast to non-agile in which all the details necessary for completion are generally taken to be foreseeable and have equal priority inside of one large iteration.
History
A concept of “agility” as an attribute of business organizations arose in response to the requirements of the modern business to operate in predictable ways even in the face of extreme complexity. In particular, software development organizations have developed a specific set of techniques known as agile methods to address the problems of changing requirements, uncertain outcomes due to technological complexity, and uncertain system dynamics due to overall system complexity. Some of the ideas that have shaped thinking in the agile community arose from the studies of complexity science and the notion of complex adaptive systems (CAS).
As with complex adaptive systems, the outcomes or products of agile organizations such as software teams are inherently unpredictable yet will eventually form an identifiable pattern. Despite their unpredictability, agile enterprises are thought to be best positioned to take advantage of hypercompetitive external environments.
thanks to : Wikipedia
Kunefin framework
The Cynefin framework (/kəˈnɛvɪn/ kuh-NEV-in) is a conceptual framework used to aid decision-making. Created in 1999 by Dave Snowden when he worked for IBM Global Services, it has been described as a “sense-making device”. Cynefin is a Welsh word for habitat.
Cynefin offers five decision-making contexts or “domains”—obvious (known until 2014 as simple), complicated, complex, chaotic, and disorder—that help managers to identify how they perceive situations and make sense of their own and other people’s behaviour.[a] The framework draws on research into systems theory, complexity theory, network theory and learning theories.
Terminology
The idea of the Cynefin framework is that it offers decision-makers a “sense of place” from which to view their perceptions. Cynefin is a Welsh word meaning habitat, haunt, acquainted, familiar. Snowden uses the term to refer to the idea that we all have connections, such as tribal, religious and geographical, of which we may not be aware. It has been compared to the Maori word turangawaewae, meaning a place to stand.
History
Snowden, then of IBM Global Services, began work on a Cynefin model in 1999 to help manage intellectual capital within the company. He continued developing it as European director of IBM’s Institute of Knowledge Management, and later as founder and director of the IBM Cynefin Centre for Organizational Complexity, established in 2002. Snowden and Cynthia Kurtz, an IBM researcher, described the framework in detail the following year in a paper, “The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world”, published in IBM Systems Journal.
The Cynefin Centre—a network of members and partners from industry, government and academia—began operating independently of IBM in 2004. In 2007 Snowden and Mary E. Boone described the Cynefin framework in the Harvard Business Review.Their paper, “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making”, won them an “Outstanding Practitioner-Oriented Publication in OB” award from the Academy of Management’s Organizational Behavior division.
Domains
See also: Problem structuring methods § Types of situations that call for PSMs
Sketch of the Cynefin framework, by Edwin Stoop
Cynefin offers four decision-making contexts or “domains”: simple, complicated, complex, chaotic, and a centre of disorder. The domain names have changed over the years. Kurtz and Snowden (2003) called them known, knowable, complex, and chaotic. Snowden and Boone (2007) changed known and knowable to simple and complicated. Since 2014 Snowden has used obvious in place of simple.
The domains offer a “sense of place” from which to analyse behaviour and make decisions.[8] The domains on the right, simple/obvious and complicated, are “ordered”: cause and effect are known or can be discovered. The domains on the left, complex and chaotic, are “unordered”: cause and effect can be deduced only with hindsight or not at all.
Simple / Obvious
Since 2014 Snowden has called the simple domain obvious.
The simple/obvious domain represents the “known knowns”. This means that there are rules in place (or best practice), the situation is stable, and the relationship between cause and effect is clear: if you do X, expect Y. The advice in such a situation is to “sense–categorize–respond”: establish the facts (“sense”), categorize, then respond by following the rule or applying best practice. Snowden and Boone (2007) offer the example of loan-payment processing. An employee identifies the problem (for example, a borrower has paid less than required), categorizes it (reviews the loan documents), and responds (follows the terms of the loan). According to Thomas A. Stewart,
This is the domain of legal structures, standard operating procedures, practices that are proven to work. Never draw to an inside straight. Never lend to a client whose monthly payments exceed 35 percent of gross income. Never end the meeting without asking for the sale. Here, decision-making lies squarely in the realm of reason: Find the proper rule and apply it.
Snowden and Boone write that managers should beware of forcing situations into this domain by over-simplifying, by “entrained thinking” (being blind to new ways of thinking), or by becoming complacent. When success breeds complacency (“best practice is, by definition, past practice”), there can be a catastrophic clockwise shift into the chaotic domain. They recommend that leaders provide a communication channel, if necessary an anonymous one, so that dissenters (for example, within a workforce) can warn about complacency.
Complicated
The complicated domain consists of the “known unknowns”. The relationship between cause and effect requires analysis or expertise; there are a range of right answers. The framework recommends “sense–analyze–respond”: assess the facts, analyze, and apply the appropriate good operating practice.[2] According to Stewart: “Here it is possible to work rationally toward a decision, but doing so requires refined judgment and expertise. … This is the province of engineers, surgeons, intelligence analysts, lawyers, and other experts. Artificial intelligence copes well here: Deep Blue plays chess as if it were a complicated problem, looking at every possible sequence of moves.”
Complex
The complex domain represents the “unknown unknowns”. Cause and effect can only be deduced in retrospect, and there are no right answers. “Instructive patterns … can emerge,” write Snowden and Boone, “if the leader conducts experiments that are safe to fail.” Cynefin calls this process “probe–sense–respond”.[2] Hard insurance cases are one example. “Hard cases … need human underwriters,” Stewart writes, “and the best all do the same thing: Dump the file and spread out the contents.” Stewart identifies battlefields, markets, ecosystems and corporate cultures as complex systems that are “impervious to a reductionist, take-it-apart-and-see-how-it-works approach, because your very actions change the situation in unpredictable ways.”
Chaotic
In the chaotic domain, cause and effect are unclear.[e] Events in this domain are “too confusing to wait for a knowledge-based response”, writes Patrick Lambe. “Action—any action—is the first and only way to respond appropriately.”[23] In this context, managers “act–sense–respond”: act to establish order; sense where stability lies; respond to turn the chaotic into the complex.[2] Snowden and Boone write:
In the chaotic domain, a leader’s immediate job is not to discover patterns but to staunch the bleeding. A leader must first act to establish order, then sense where stability is present and from where it is absent, and then respond by working to transform the situation from chaos to complexity, where the identification of emerging patterns can both help prevent future crises and discern new opportunities. Communication of the most direct top-down or broadcast kind is imperative; there’s simply no time to ask for input.
The September 11 attacks were an example of the chaotic category. Stewart offers others: “the firefighter whose gut makes him turn left or the trader who instinctively sells when the news about the stock seems too good to be true.” One crisis executive said of the collapse of Enron: “People were afraid. … Decision-making was paralyzed. … You’ve got to be quick and decisive—make little steps you know will succeed, so you can begin to tell a story that makes sense.”
Snowden and Boone give the example of the 1993 Brown’s Chicken massacre in Palatine, Illinois—when robbers murdered seven employees in Brown’s Chicken and Pasta restaurant—as a situation in which local police faced all the domains. Deputy Police Chief Walt Gasior had to act immediately to stem the early panic (chaotic), while keeping the department running (simple), calling in experts (complicated), and maintaining community confidence in the following weeks (complex).
Disorder / Confusion
The dark disorder domain in the centre represents situations where there is no clarity about which of the other domains apply. By definition it is hard to see when this domain applies. “Here, multiple perspectives jostle for prominence, factional leaders argue with one another, and cacophony rules”, write Snowden and Boone. “The way out of this realm is to break down the situation into constituent parts and assign each to one of the other four realms. Leaders can then make decisions and intervene in contextually appropriate ways.”
Moving through domains
As knowledge increases, there is a “clockwise drift” from chaotic through complex and complicated to simple. Similarly, a “buildup of biases”, complacency or lack of maintenance can cause a “catastrophic failure”: a clockwise movement from simple to chaotic, represented by the “fold” between those domains. There can be counter-clockwise movement as people die and knowledge is forgotten, or as new generations question the rules; and a counter-clockwise push from chaotic to simple can occur when a lack of order causes rules to be imposed suddenly.
Thanks to Wikipedia
Scrum
Scrum is a framework for project management that emphasizes teamwork, accountability and iterative progress toward a well-defined goal. The framework begins with a simple premise: Start with what can be seen or known. After that, track the progress and tweak as necessary. The three pillars of Scrum are transparency, inspection and adaptation.
The framework, which is often part of Agile software development, is named for a rugby formation. Everyone plays a role. When it comes to product development, Scrum roles include product owner, Scrum master and Scrum development team.
Product owner: This team member serves as the liaison between the development team and its customers. The product owner is responsible for ensuring expectations for the completed product have been communicated and agreed upon.
Scrum master: This team member serves as a facilitator. The Scrum master is responsible for ensuring that Scrum best practices are carried out and the project is able to move forward.
Scrum development team: This is a group that works together for creating and testing incremental releases of the final product.
The Scrum process
The Scrum process encourages practitioners to work with what they have and continually evaluate what is working and what is not working. Communication, which is an important part of the process, is carried out through meetings, called Events. Scrum Events include:
Daily Scrum . The Daily Scrum is a short stand-up meeting that happens at the same place and time each day. At each meeting, the team reviews work that was completed the previous day and plans what work will be done in the next 24 hours. This is the time for team members to speak up about any problems that might prevent project completion.
Sprint Planning Meeting. A Sprint refers to the time frame in which work must be completed, and it’s often 30 days. Everyone participates in setting the goals, and at the end, at least one increment — a usable piece of software — should be produced.
Sprint Review. This is the time to show off the increment.
Sprint Retrospective. A Sprint Retrospective is a meeting that’s held after a Sprint ends. During this meeting, everyone reflects on the Sprint process. A team-building exercise may also be offered. An important goal of a Sprint Retrospective is continuous improvement.
The Scrum framework shows how the elements of Scrum revolve around the Scrum teamSCRUM.ORG
The Scrum framework shows how the elements of Scrum revolve around the Scrum team.
Scrum artifacts
An artifact is something of historical interest that deserves to be looked at again. In Scrum product development, artifacts are used to see what’s been done and what is still in the queue. Scrum artifacts, which include product backlog, Sprint backlog, product increment and burn-down, are useful to look at in Sprint Planning Meetings.
Product backlog. This refers to what remains on the “to be done” list. During a product backlog grooming session, the development team works with the business owner to prioritize work that has been backlogged. The product backlog may be fine-tuned during a process called backlog refinement.
Sprint backlog. This is a list of tasks that must be completed before selected product backlog items can be delivered. These are divided in to time-based user stories.
Product increment. This refers to what’s been accomplished during a Sprint — all the product backlog items — as well as what’s been created during all previous Sprints. The product increment reflects how much progress has been made.
Burn-down. The burn-down is a visual representation of the amount of work that still needs to be completed. A burn-down chart has a Y axis (work) and an X axis (time). Ideally, the chart illustrates a downward trend, as the amount of work still left to do over time burns down to zero.
Thanks to: SearchSoftwareQuality
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