Why Amplio Integrates VUCA, systems thinking, inherent simplicity, flow, and human-centered development to be effective.

This is a chapter from The Amplio Consultant Educators Toolkit being written online. You can see that here. The book covers the content aspects of Amplio University - a new type of live, affordable training.

There’s no question that adding value to stakeholders is a complex endeavor.

But there are many ways to take on how to do it.

VUCA, systems, thinking, inherent simplicity,  flow and human-centered development each build off of each other. While I will go through then in sequence, they interact in a continuous manner.

The concept of VUCA, was created in 1987,  to reflect on the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of our world. People, particularly management, relate to these terms, which makes it easy to introduce complexity to them.

Accepting the presence of complexity means we can’t predict exactly where we are headed. This requires the emergence of improved practices. The question is, “how do we do this?”

There are several ways, of course. Amplio starts with systems thinking interweaving the theories of W. Edwards Deming and Russell Ackoff. Deming suggests that we have to look at our systems and suggests that almost all the challenges we incur come from the system. This is codified in Deming’s comment “A bad system beats a good person everytime.”

Russell Ackoff suggests that systems are defined by the relationships between the components in the system. These relationships are defined both by agreements between the people involved and how the work in one part of the value stream interacts with the work in other parts.

Some of these relationships are clear, some complicated and some complex. All have the potential for what’s called non-linearity – a small change making a big difference.

The question is can we see enough of these relationships to make good decisions, can we minimize the risks the complex ones create and how can we move forward in the face of VUCA.

This is where Eli Goldratt’s inherent simplicity comes in.

“What I mean by Inherent Simplicity is that reality, any part of reality, is governed by very few elements, and that any existing conflict can be eliminated. If we take that as a given, as absolutely correct in every situation, we'll find ourselves thinking clearly.” "If we dive deep enough we’ll find that there are very few elements at the base - the root causes - which through cause and effect connections are governing the whole system.”

Goldratt doesn’t claim we see all of these at the start. But that we know a considerable amount and can discover the others as we work. The key here is we know enough to make solid decisions as we go forward.

We do this by using the theories of flow. Most of the time, these can move us forward well. We can protect ourselves from the complexity we don’t see by taking both small steps in changes to our workflows as well as creating our value in small steps so we can get quick feedback.

This quick feedback is not needed just for the complexity present. Even simple relationships can create big problems. When you look at both physical disasters such as the Piper Alpha, and product disasters, we see they often occur because of simple, invisible things, that caused the problems.

In product development quick feedback can often let us know something bad will happen without intervention and with problem workflows we can react quickly enough to avoid disaster.

This combination of VUCA, systems thinking, inherent simplicity, and flow enables us to navigate our work while avoiding a lot of waste.

By providing understanding we can avoid the problems that would otherwise occur. Consider these quotes from Dr. Goldratt:

”The biggest obstacle is that people grasp reality as complex when actually it is surprisingly simple." 

“The first and most profound obstacle is that people believe that reality is complex, and therefore they are looking for sophisticated explanations for complicated solutions. Do you understand how devastating this is?” 

“A comfort zone is less about control and more about understanding.”

This integrated approach enables people to have confidence in the moving forward what is known while we use emergence due to the limitations of what is not clear.

Without this confidence people will resist change.

#Amplio #AmplioUniversity #Complexity