In order to successful scale any method or practice, it has to have some basis in theory. This presentation will use insights from complex adaptive systems theory and the cognitive sciences to lay a foundation for that theory. Seeing software development as a problem of knowledge management, the theory will elaborate a understanding of applications as the emergent property of a co-evolutionary interactions between technology capability and unarticulated user requirements. Having established a basic theory a range of methods and tools will be elaborated. These include: - Narrative based approaches to requirements capture (not to be confused with Story telling or story boarding) which gather thousands of fragmented self-signified anecdotes relating to real and imagined needs within a user community and allow interpretation and integration into project planning. - Approaches to project planning and implementation that focus on the creation of self-organising teams of specialists and users to create novel approaches, supported by evidence to previously intractable problems. This is particularly relevant to the 5-10% of any major project which creates 95-90% of the grief. - The integration of tools such as blogs, wiki's etc into the development environment. Too often corporate environments over-constrain those tools into over rigid structures which destroy their utility.

1. Copyright©2013CognitiveEdge.AllRightsReserved. USPat.8,031,201
27 Mar 2015
Making sense through action
Agile India 2015
Wifipassword.#AgileIndia2015

2. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201 27 Mar 2015
Cynefin
a sense-making framework
There are three basic types of
system: ordered, complex and
chaotic
Complex systems have
propensities and dispositions but
no linear material cause & effect
In Cynefin order is divided into
‘obvious’ & complicated and the
fifth domain) disorder
In a complex world we focus on
direction & multiple parallel safe-
to-fail experiments; not one fail-
safe design
Management by vector .....
Complicated
Governing constraints
sense-analyse-respond
Good Practice
Obvious
Rigid constraints
sense-categorise-respond
Best Practice
Chaotic
Absence of constraints
act-sense-respond
Novel Practice
Complex
Enabling constraints
probe-sense-respond
Emergent Practice
Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
... whereas strong dynamic links among
components (characterized as nodes)
result in a “strong cluster”, weak links
between strong clusters give rise to a
community or a world. Since any node
can simultaneously belong both to a
strong cluster and to a larger
networked community, society, or
world, boundaries become diffuse, but
also dynamic and creative. Complex
dynamical systems thus begin to look
more like bramble bushes in a thicket
than like stones. And it is extremely
difficult, as any outdoorsman will tell
you, to determine precisely where a
particular bramble bush ends and the
rest of the thicket begins
Juarrero, A (2002) “Complex Dynamic Systems and the
Problem of Identity” in Emergence 4(1/2) 94-104

3. Copyright©2013CognitiveEdge.AllRightsReserved. USPat.8,031,201
01.04.1954
Rethinking project flow
One size does not fit all
Chaos
Complex
Complicated
Obvious
Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201 27 Mar 2015
Whataboutexpertsearcherswhohave
spentyearshoningtheirabilitytodetect
smallabnormalitiesinspecifictypesof
image?Weasked24radiologiststo
performafamiliarlungnoduledetection
task.Agorilla,48timeslargerthanthe
averagenodule,wasinsertedinthelast
case.83%ofradiologistsdidnotseethe
gorilla.Eye-trackingtthatthemajorityof
thethosewhomissedthegorillalooked
directlyatthelocationofthegorilla.Even
expertsearchers,operatingintheirdomain
ofexpertise,arevulnerabletoinattentional
blindness
“The invisible gorilla strikes again”
Drew, Vo & Wolfe
Psychol Sci. Sep 2013; 24(9): 1848–1853

4. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201 27 Mar 2015
Scalable ethnography using human metadata
Micro narratives or
observations are the basic
units of sense-making
Meaning does not reside in
text it is provided by human
actors in context
Abstraction is key to
interpretation & reuse
Description opens up more
possibilities than evaluation
More like these, fewer like those
We navigate landscapes
Acting
intuitively,
instantly
The situation was
analysed logically
People made decisions
based on principles
Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201 27 Mar 2015
Navigating landscapes
0 20 40 60 80 100
020406080100
Doing it Right
Anintensedrivetoachieve
Present
Past Future
Peers
Management Self-imposed
Lacking and
needed
Over the top
stressful
Situation relevant to… Pressure coming from… Sense of urgency is…
Creating new
process
Allocating
responsibility
All about
sharing failure
Fairness is about
0 20 40 60 80 100
020406080100
Doing it Right
Welldefinedprocessesandprocedures

5. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201 27 Mar 2015
Understanding nuanced differences
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Doing it Right
Anintensedrivetoachieve
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020406080
Doing it Right
Anintensedrivetoachieve
0 20 40 60 80
020406080100
Doing it Right
Welldefinedprocessesandprocedures
0 20 40 60 80 100
020406080100
Doing it Right
Welldefinedprocessesandprocedures
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
0.20.40.60.8
Freedom too far
Deadlinestoofar
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
0.00.20.40.60.81.0
Freedom too far
Deadlinestoofar
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
20406080100
Over the top stressful
Pressurefrommanagement
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
020406080100
Over the top stressful
Pressurefrommanagement
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
020406080
Over the top stressful
Pressurefromself
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
020406080100
Over the top stressful
Pressurefromself
0 20 40 60 80
020406080100
Self Imposed
Anintensedrivetoachieve
0 20 40 60 80 100
020406080100
Self Imposed
Anintensedrivetoachieve
Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved.
Exaptation in practice
1
2
3
4
Question
investment
Question
understanding

6. Copyright©2013CognitiveEdge.AllRightsReserved. USPat.8,031,201
01.04.1954
Scaling as granular engagement
Complexity does not
scale by aggregation
Reduce granularity,
distribute cognition;
radical recombination
Engage the real C level
& ecosystem
Learn early, fail less
Continuous real time
feed back systems