Sunil Mundra - Enterprise Agility: Being Agile in a Changing World

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I'm a complex adaptive system. So are you. Every organization we have ever been a part of, including our families, are also complex adaptive systems. I have been talking about the properties of complex adaptive systems for years, and I have been yearning for a reference that would not only bring out the considerable theory of these fascinating systems but would also tie it to agile development. Now, I am happy to be able to point you, dear reader, and everyone else, who wants to know the bigger, broader story of agile, to this book that Sunil Mundra has written. He has done an excellent job of making what could be a difficult subject easy for all of us to understand and apply.

It's so easy to fall into the trap of believing that we can understand both ourselves and the environments in which we function. This is why I'm always suspicious of anyone who tries to explain the history of anything in a neat story. The truth is, we have been sold a bill of goods by teachers and philosophers. The pig in a poke we bought without hesitation is that things are modular, made up of pieces with clean interfaces, easily identified, easily extracted, and easily combined. Understanding these components leads to an understanding of the whole. It seems so obvious. It seems so right. But it was so wrong. It led us to take a simplistic view of changeboth personal and organizational. We thought we could simply apply enough force and voila the result would appear. If we only had enough power, we could literally move mountains. No wonder all our change efforts failed!

Part of the reason for this mechanistic thinking that we now struggle to undo is the work of Frederick Taylor and his "scientific management." His contribution is often denigrated, but I believe we should celebrate his efforts. He was a well-intentioned, intelligent thinker who tried to bring what was at that time a new methodical approach to the workplace. He experimented. He measured. He learned. Sounds agile to me! I have the same reaction to those who disparage "waterfall." First, the current, incorrect, linear interpretation of Royce's original paper has caused the same disparaging of his work. For those careful readers of his article, the true meaning, an iterative solution to the then chaos that surrounded software development, will unfold.

It wasn't that far removed from where we are today and was certainly a very good step in the right direction. A dose of humility, realizing that we all are products of our environments and can only see what we can see, would serve us well. It's too easy to see the problems of the past and too difficult to see our current dilemmas. An ancient text admonishes, "How can you say to your brother or sister, 'Brother, Sister, let me take the splinter out of your eye,' when you don't see the log in your own eye?"

Fortunately for you, dear reader, Sunil doesn't take the high ground but, step by step, leads us forward, building on the great contributions of the past. And so on to what I consider the "heart" of the bookthe discussion of complex adaptive systems. CAS for the rest of us! A CAS is well-named. There is nothing simple about it. The components, their interactions, the resulting, emergent behavior. It may be too much for our limited understanding, but the direction is clear, we have to begin to adopt this model if we are to survive.

As Sunil points out, this notion has been with us, in some form, from the beginning. We may not have applied it consciously, but it has been the key to our survival in a changing world. It is the answer to many of the big questions. How did we get here? How can we face our current reality? How can we get better? The answer is close to miraculous. It's exactly what we need. It's not prescriptive, it's adaptive. It's not stuck in the past, it's always about learning and improving. It's not about reaching a goal and relaxing, it's about always, always, always reaching and moving forward. The label "agile" insists on being applied.

The image of butterflies, so delicate and beautiful, helps us understand this. I'm a musician and occasionally play in a small ensemble for our local hospice organization. In the spring, a very special event honors those who have passed on during the previous year. It's a butterfly release. Families who have lost loved ones are given a small box that contains a butterfly. They stand with heads bowed, shoulders down, holding each other, deep in sad remembering. After a short service (with music from my group), each family opens its box and holds a drowsy butterfly briefly before it opens its wings and soars upward. The metaphor is stunning. What seems to be dead is alive. Regardless of your religious beliefs (and hospice espouses none), we all crave that feeling of hope in a time of despair. The feelings spread throughout the crowd as the butterflies appear overhead. The system has changed. People are now looking up, raising their hands, smiling, chattering to each other. What caused this? The butterflies? Some deep instinct in all of us for survival in difficult times? The beautiful spring morning and our love of being outside with flowers and others close to us? It's a system. It's a complex adaptive system that responds to small changes in the environment.