Systems thinking is crucial to building the right thing, or determining what the right thing to do is.
Systems Thinking
Systems thinking is a holistic approach to analysis that focuses on the way that a system’s constituent parts interrelate and how systems work over time and within the context of larger systems. (source: searchcio.techtarget.com)
The case
I was working with a team today and an item on the backlog grabbed our attention. There was a request to create a story and address an issue which users were experiencing, but upon further inspection it appeared that writing, estimating and implementing this story would be the wrong approach.
Why?
The story would address the issue in question, but was attempting to fix it without systems thinking - without thinking about the system as a whole and rather trying to isolate it to the application, and a specific step, action and requirement for the application in question.
If the system is not considered in entirety, then implementing this user story would have addressed the users issue within the application.
However as an agile and lean approach you must work through the value delivered in the context of the system. Doing so made us realise that fixing the issue here would just cause the issue to bubble up in another area, likely downstream or in other systems. The correct approach in this instance is to look at the system through the lean approach of asking the 5 Why’s, getting to the root cause and then determining that, in fact, the best approach is to fix this upstream. This means work for others but maximizes the amount of work NOT done, another principle from the Agile Manifesto.
Employ systems thinking in your requirements gathering and analysis. The value there-in is an over-arching view of the system as a whole, rather than trying to optimize in one area and not necessarily realizing the benefit to the whole.
Originally published at methodolagile.com on 5 November, 2019.
22+ years experience in solving business problems and maximising opportunities through technology in a variety of industries, public and private sector internationally. I founded architectFWD™ to provide knowledge and trusted advice in the areas of strategy, technology, cloud and digital to enable organisations to become Digital Leaders.