Emergence

Most software development these days is a design and discovery process. We have a notion of what we want or need, but we’re learning about the actual solution as we go along. And here’s the really difficult bit – the thing we build in an attempt to figure out what the thing should be changes the thing itself. In other words, the actions we take in an attempt to figure out the solution change the solution. Software products are necessarily emergent – we not only don’t know what we precisely need to build, but the need shifts as we attempt to figure it out.

Emergent contexts are complex and complexity is best managed by diverse groups of experienced individuals working together. They need to work together to interpret the outcomes of their efforts and decide what to try next. They need to leverage their collective knowledge - the amalgamation of all their perspectives - in order to make well-informed decisions. 

A bad environment will beat a good team every time.

Putting people on a team or in a room, providing them some tools, and telling them to experiment together is not enough. Experiment canvases, collaboration contracts, parallel thinking, and liberating structures are all helpful, but they are insufficient. Just as a bad system will beat a good person every time, a bad environment will beat a good team every time. The environment needs to genuinely cultivate creativity.

Cultivating a creative environment

Creativity flourishes in the right kind of environment. This isn’t about motivational posters or slogans. This isn’t about being nice or giving people perks. A creative environment has specific attributes that allow teams to perform at their best when working together on complex problems.

To cultivate creativity, you must create an environment of autonomy, connection, excellence, and diversity.

Autonomy

As pertains to the individual, autonomy is about having a voice in the decisions that impact one’s life and the freedom to choose a different course. As pertains to the collective, autonomy is the right to self-organize and self-govern. In a corporate environment, autonomy means leaving the decisions about how work is done to those who actually do the work.

Some ideas for fostering autonomy as a leader

• Facilitate team decision-making over making the decision yourself

• Give teams problems to solve over solutions to implement

• Favor guidelines over procedures

  • Embrace different ways of working as opportunities to learn

  • Encourage teams to experiment with the way they work

• Focus on responsibilities over roles

• Use intent-based leadership (see Related Materials)

• Observe success at the teams and share broadly to converge on standards

  • Avoid establishing standards and pushing them onto the teams

• Use Collaboration Contracts to allow people to opt-in/out

• Flatten hierarchies

• Establish vibrant Communities of Practice

  • Conversation over Presentation

• Make internal transfers easy

Connection

Connection is internal and external. Connection is what makes a community. Internally, organizations need cohesion within and between all teams; one collective, united toward a common cause. External connection is engagement with a community through sincere dialogue and contribution, where bolstering your brand is a side effect, not a primary objective.

Some ideas for fostering connection as a leader

• Establish a compelling why

  • Purposeful, clear, and possible

• Establish vibrant Communities of Practice

  • Conversation over Presentation

  • Ensure these are run by the community, for the community

• Reward teams over individuals

• Make collaboration the norm

• Make it easy to appreciate one another

Excellence

Excellence is about both personal mastery and the quality of the product we produce. To achieve excellence, teams and individuals must be adequately challenged and be able to see true progress toward a goal they aspire to.

Some ideas for fostering excellence as a leader

• Establish a compelling what

  • Impactful and aspirational

• Make sure work is challenging

  • Difficult but possible

• Measure and share progress often

• Encourage teams to measure for themselves to inform their experiments

• Do not set targets for metrics or admonish teams for measurements

• Acknowledge behaviors and impact over praising characteristics

  • “I see you inviting dissent. This helps the team feel safe in speaking up and makes sure we have thought deeply about the problem.”

  • OVER

  • “You’re being a good leader when you invite dissent.”

• Focus on outcomes over outputs

• Excellence in execution over everything else

  • Crufty code kills progress

  • Planning and design are important

    • But they should be secondary to technical excellence, not the other way around

• Teams own their solution from concept through sunset, including support

• If you reward fire-fighting, you breed arsonists

  • Celebrate excellence in the day-to-day - reliable is sexy

Diversity

Diversity is about creating a team capable of solving complex problems. The diversity we need, the diversity that makes a significant difference in the creation and interpretation of experiments in a complex environment, is diversity of thought. A small group of individuals from varying backgrounds with differing perspectives and specialties working together are capable of generating more options and considering more alternatives than a team of experts with similar backgrounds and expertise.

Some ideas for fostering diversity as a leader

• Hire for culture add, not fit

  • What are you missing over what is similar

• Use interview loops comprised of diverse members

• Remove gendered/ableist phrases from job postings

• Invite dissent

  • “What am I missing?” over “Does that make sense?”

• Use Parallel Thinking

• Use Divergence and Convergence

  • Think about it alone, then work it through together

• Do not tolerate assholes, no matter how brilliant

Related Materials

Contextual Leadership - https://onbelay.co/articles/2017/11/18/contextual-leadership - Blog on Cynefin (sense-making) and leadership styles

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbJv2mxxqEs - A walk-through of Cynefin

Interview - https://innoroo.com/blog/2017/10/17/interview-with-doc-norton/ - Discussion on Collaboration and Leadership

Turn the Ship Around - https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Turning-Followers/dp/B08V4TFFCK/ - Story of Intent-Based leadership