I’m a process guy, a disciple of Lean, Agile, Six Sigma and Empirical Process Control. But I’m also a contrarian, a critic of those same disciplines because they too often focus on so called best practices, usually in the form of seven-step programs which usually fail (60% or more of the time, depending on who you read).
This description of complex problems comes from Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, from their 1973 article Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. They actually use the term Wicked Problems to describe this class of problem. I use the term Complex as it is generally better understood, though Rittel and Webber may better capture the sentiment of people working on such problems as they are wicked hard to solve.
When I speak of Complex Problems I am referring to a class of problems which are typically hard to define, may have unclear end points, are systemic in nature, and the solution-if one can call it that-is never truly right or wrong. What distinguishes complex problems from complicated problems is the dynamic, changing nature of the problem space.
Those best practices and seven step programs often fail because the change agents are dealing with complex adaptive systems entangled in Complex Problems. Complex problems, it turns out, don’t usually respond well to simplistic solutions.
I refer to myself as a methodology relativist. I have been using what today are labeled as Agile approaches since well before those practices were called Agile or there was an Agile Manifesto, so my contrarian hackles get raised by methodology literalists who want to impose cookbook recipe solutions, often without knowing what problem they are trying to solve.
In my experience, the trick to effective process implementation, regardless of the process, is, to use a metaphor, to be in the balcony observing yourself on the dance floor. To be an effective observer, requires more than knowing the dance steps, it requires that you understand the theory underlying the choreography.
My favorite authors on the theory base underlying the topics in these pages are Donald Reinertson and Jim Highsmith. Reinertson’s focus is on new product development while Highsmith’s focus is on software development. The theory both authors describe however, has broad application across all topics I discuss here.
I frequently use the metaphor of an onion when talking about analysis. To effectively apply tools requires that you analyze how those tools will interact with the culture in which you hope to apply them, and cultures, like onions, have layers.
To be successful in any practice, start by peeling the layers of organizational culture, in order to find what is inside, in order to identify appropriate tools and intervention points which will enable you to achieve your goals.