Large IT Projects are Complex Adaptive Systems — You need to Manage More & Control Less
Complexity is why agile is so easy to understand but challenging to implement. A better appreciation of how complex systems work learning to manage them instead of forcing control helps.
In Appreciating the Complexity, we discussed how large IT projects qualify as complex adaptive systems. Appreciating our systems and acknowledging and understanding that these are systems in the complex problem domain is the first big step in coming up with the right solutions. The second is to understand what works and what doesn’t in such a context.
Forcing control does not work
The insights and research tell us one thing loud and clear — trying to force control on a complex system is challenging. We need to manage the system, and to be able to do that, first, we must know the difference between managing and control.
A quick google search throws up these definitions:
Control:
- the power to influence or direct people’s behaviour or the course of events,
- a person or thing used as a standard of comparison for checking the results of a survey or experiment.
Manage:
- be in charge of (a business, organization, or undertaking); run.
- succeed in surviving or achieving something despite difficult circumstances; cope.
A larger degree of control essentially entails adding new structures, processes and systems for greater control that adds further complexity to our complex problem. In the context of a complex system, it’s not a surprise to decipher why control could be difficult. We are working with a larger set of stakeholders, and the ability to influence directly is often pretty limited. Adding new structures and processes is also not trivial — given the complex nature of interactions between the sub-systems.
Things are pretty dynamic and fast-changing in a complex system, so past results may not indicate the future. Not just the results, the methods of comparison and measurements may become irrelevant pretty fast, too, or at least they need to adapt really quickly.
Characteristics of Manage and Control
A bit deeper thought on both these meanings also suggests that:
- You could have some level of control without any management.
- Having control by itself does not necessarily mean better management.
- It takes more knowledge and skill to manage something than control something.
- Manage is more outcome-oriented with an inherent assumption that things change, whereas control fundamentally expects things to be more or less static, linear, ordered and behaving to set expectations.
The following quote from Days of Thunder perfectly illustrates what control is — in a complex system. A bit exaggerated probably, but not far from the reality.
Control is an illusion, you infantile egomaniac. Nobody knows what’s gonna happen next: not on a freeway, not in an airplane, not inside our own bodies and certainly not on a racetrack with 40 other infantile egomaniacs.
Listen to Nicole Kidman say this much nicely and with so much passion and conviction.
Simple Rules
Yves Morieux and Peter Tollman, in their book: Six Simple Rules: How to Manage Complexity without Getting Complicated, outline six simple rules to manage better in a complex environment.
The rules Morieux and Tollman outline are based on the idea that the key to managing complexity is a combination of autonomy and organisational cooperation. People need autonomy to rely on and exercise judgement in a complex system. The problems they face on the ground need fast solutions, and no procedures or rules can predict what will happen out there.
Beyond autonomy, the ecosystem must also have a conducive environment for organisational cooperation. Sub-systems are interconnected. The success of the interconnected other sub-system has a direct bearing often on my sub-system’s success as well as the success of the overall system.
Creating this culture of autonomy and organisational cooperation is not a trivial exercise; there are no quick solutions or 1–2–3 steps. However, autonomy and organisational cooperation are critical to succeed in such an environment. The leaders of the Agile Manifesto also captured this fundamental trait beautifully when they said “Individuals and interactions” over “Processes and Tools.”
Leaders of complex systems need to always bear in mind these two fundamental traits, constantly observe where their system stands with respect to these, and steer the sub-systems towards more autonomy and organisational cooperation.
At the same time (and as the agile manifesto also points out), this does not necessarily mean systems have no control mechanisms (or we should not have procedures and tools). It’s not the wild wild west out there. Control mechanisms should exist in a reasonable measure with the fundamental assumption that they must constantly be adapting and evolving.
The Wrap
Manage a complex system more we must — with just enough control, focusing more on responding to things as they evolve — being forever dynamic, forever adaptive.
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