1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:03,000 I was mad at everything often and frustrated and getting 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,640 caught up and just complaining about how product is bad to us 3 00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:09,160 and the leadership is bad to us and everybody's bad to us and 4 00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:13,280 nobody understands us. When I started, I pushed code to 5 00:00:13,280 --> 00:00:16,000 a monolith, worked on multiple teams and we were pushing code 6 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:17,680 together and it was really complex. 7 00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:20,560 And then the world around us started to change and now 8 00:00:20,560 --> 00:00:22,320 software had to talk to other software. 9 00:00:22,560 --> 00:00:25,920 Everything was a relationship was designing relationships and 10 00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:29,320 we are not an industry with great relationship skills if 11 00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:31,200 we're in time and in people within. 12 00:00:31,400 --> 00:00:34,080 The tech teams, you can actually see a lot of things becoming a 13 00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:36,040 problem simply because the system is not right. 14 00:00:36,120 --> 00:00:38,480 The big question first is that what is actually system 15 00:00:38,480 --> 00:00:40,560 thinking? My straightforward answer is 16 00:00:40,560 --> 00:00:43,720 relationships produce effect. We think because we understand 17 00:00:43,720 --> 00:00:46,520 one, we must understand 2 because one in one make 2. 18 00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:50,320 But we forget that we have to understand AM, and to me is the 19 00:00:50,320 --> 00:00:52,720 art and science of systems architecture, right? 20 00:00:52,960 --> 00:00:54,960 We often think we're solving the same problem. 21 00:00:55,200 --> 00:00:57,560 And when we're going around and around and we're bike shedding, 22 00:00:57,760 --> 00:01:00,320 usually it's because we have completely different mental 23 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:02,680 models of what we're doing. We've got biases, we have 24 00:01:02,680 --> 00:01:05,200 logical fallacies. We have so many bugs in our 25 00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:07,440 thinking. System thinking is really hard. 26 00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:10,280 You can't master it just by reading the book or maybe 27 00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:12,320 listening to this episode. Yeah, in your book you mentioned 28 00:01:12,320 --> 00:01:14,880 some practices that we can do in order to improve our system 29 00:01:14,880 --> 00:01:16,440 seeking. So the first thing I'm going to 30 00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:19,360 say doesn't sound like it has anything to do with systems or 31 00:01:19,360 --> 00:01:23,360 anything, but it is the most important thing we can do. 32 00:01:23,440 --> 00:01:44,280 So the first thing is. Hello everyone, welcome back to 33 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:46,640 another new episode of the Tech Lead General Podcast. 34 00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:50,280 Today I'm very, very excited. So we're going to talk about a 35 00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:53,120 topic that always intrigued me every time I learn about it. 36 00:01:53,280 --> 00:01:56,760 So today we have Diana Montalian, the author of 37 00:01:56,760 --> 00:01:59,720 Learning Systems Thinking. So if you have heard about 38 00:01:59,720 --> 00:02:02,040 systems thinking or if you haven't heard about systems 39 00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:05,320 thinking, hopefully today will give you a lot of insights of 40 00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:06,960 what systems thinking is all about. 41 00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:10,000 And hopefully you can use it in your career on your work so that 42 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:12,680 you can produce a better outcome for your work. 43 00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:15,440 Anna, thank you so much for this opportunity. 44 00:02:15,600 --> 00:02:18,240 Really excited to have you. Thank you, Henry. 45 00:02:18,240 --> 00:02:22,840 I'm really glad that you've set this time for us to explore 46 00:02:22,840 --> 00:02:25,680 this. Right, Diana, before we go into 47 00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:28,640 systems thinking, so I'd like to invite you probably to share a 48 00:02:28,640 --> 00:02:31,520 little bit more about yourself, maybe sharing some turning 49 00:02:31,520 --> 00:02:33,960 points in your career that we all can learn from. 50 00:02:34,920 --> 00:02:39,760 I think the biggest turning point in my career is probably 51 00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:45,880 very similar for anyone who's been doing this for a long time, 52 00:02:46,280 --> 00:02:54,680 and that is that when I started, I pushed code to a monolith, 53 00:02:54,680 --> 00:02:59,120 worked on multiple teams, and we were pushing code together. 54 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:01,680 We had merge conflicts regularly. 55 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:05,560 That was very frustrating and it was really complex. 56 00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:10,280 I felt like it was complex and then the world around us started 57 00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:14,800 to change and digital information became ubiquitous 58 00:03:14,800 --> 00:03:18,600 and now software had to talk to other software and 59 00:03:18,600 --> 00:03:22,760 infrastructure is code. Everything was a relationship 60 00:03:23,200 --> 00:03:29,240 was designing relationships and we are not an industry with 61 00:03:29,240 --> 00:03:34,080 great relationship skills like if we're in tag and in people 62 00:03:34,440 --> 00:03:42,240 and and yet I was being asked to deliver features still like 63 00:03:42,600 --> 00:03:48,560 feature driven engineering, but where to put it, how to design 64 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:51,800 the system. So the reason I ended up really 65 00:03:51,800 --> 00:03:57,200 being interested in the subject is that we were still designing 66 00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:02,320 software in a world in which we worked in systems of software. 67 00:04:02,640 --> 00:04:08,080 And it was painful. The outcomes were not great, The 68 00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:10,880 work got harder. And so I really wanted to figure 69 00:04:10,880 --> 00:04:14,280 out what helps like what will help us. 70 00:04:15,400 --> 00:04:17,600 Yeah, something you said, I think it's really intriguing, 71 00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:20,040 right. So we are not good in, you know, 72 00:04:20,040 --> 00:04:23,840 working with relationship, be it with other people, first of all. 73 00:04:23,840 --> 00:04:25,720 Yeah. And multiple systems, multiple 74 00:04:25,720 --> 00:04:27,560 distributed systems especially, right. 75 00:04:27,800 --> 00:04:30,760 So these days it's the era of, you know, micro services, a lot 76 00:04:30,760 --> 00:04:32,600 of SAS applications that we have to talk to. 77 00:04:32,880 --> 00:04:34,720 I think this is really, really important. 78 00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:37,600 Yeah. So let's go to the main topic 79 00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:39,680 today, right? So you wrote this book Learning 80 00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:42,800 Systems Thinking from Me when I see it, right? 81 00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:46,480 There's not many literature written on this, even though I 82 00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:49,040 think the subject is really, really important, right? 83 00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:52,320 So tell us, what is your background, you know, writing 84 00:04:52,320 --> 00:04:54,440 this book? What kind of problems or gaps 85 00:04:54,440 --> 00:04:56,880 that you see maybe in the industry, in the tech 86 00:04:56,920 --> 00:04:59,240 professionals, right? What kind of gaps that you 87 00:04:59,240 --> 00:05:01,200 actually try to solve by writing the book? 88 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:07,600 Yeah, that I love that question because the short answer is I 89 00:05:07,600 --> 00:05:11,960 was mad at everything often and frustrated and getting caught up 90 00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:16,720 in this noisy back channeling of just complaining about how 91 00:05:16,960 --> 00:05:20,680 product is bad to us and the leadership is bad to us and 92 00:05:20,680 --> 00:05:24,280 everybody's bad to us and nobody understands us and isn't this 93 00:05:24,280 --> 00:05:27,480 terrible. And then I had this sort of 94 00:05:27,480 --> 00:05:33,280 radical idea of what if I tried to be part of the solution to 95 00:05:33,280 --> 00:05:38,440 provide more signal than noise, like what helps? 96 00:05:38,880 --> 00:05:46,640 And this really sent me down a rabbit hole of exploring not 97 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:51,040 just Kubernetes like how we do it in a Kafka stream, right? 98 00:05:51,200 --> 00:05:57,160 But also the system science in general, and then specifically 99 00:05:57,160 --> 00:06:00,240 how it applies to the challenges we have. 100 00:06:00,640 --> 00:06:05,000 And the thing that was amazing to me is how much we have in 101 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:08,800 common with say, agriculture, right? 102 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:13,320 Agriculture, especially in the US became monolithic. 103 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:18,120 And then you have all all these independent farmers who are 104 00:06:18,120 --> 00:06:24,400 trying to rebuild these ecosystems where you grow 105 00:06:24,400 --> 00:06:27,880 different things in harmony with each other and you solve 106 00:06:27,880 --> 00:06:33,080 problems in a systemic way. And I read a book, Mark Bittman 107 00:06:33,080 --> 00:06:35,480 wrote a book, Animal, Vegetable Junk. 108 00:06:36,480 --> 00:06:40,200 And I kept highlighting things in the book because they were 109 00:06:40,440 --> 00:06:43,960 the same pain that I had in tech. 110 00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:49,400 And so the challenge when O'Reilly asked me about writing 111 00:06:49,400 --> 00:06:55,000 the book, the challenge was, can we take, like Daniella Meadows, 112 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:58,840 thinking in systems and the other things that we know about 113 00:06:58,840 --> 00:07:02,840 systems and natural systems and mechanical systems and apply 114 00:07:02,840 --> 00:07:09,720 them to our challenges in ways that we can use. 115 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:15,160 And that's really difficult because we don't know what we 116 00:07:15,160 --> 00:07:19,040 don't know. And so I got a lot of pushback 117 00:07:19,040 --> 00:07:24,160 initially for talking about thinking it's too abstract. 118 00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:29,760 Diana, what's in production except what we thought? 119 00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:31,480 Like, aren't we knowledge worker? 120 00:07:31,520 --> 00:07:36,120 Don't we think for a living? And also, code is abstraction. 121 00:07:36,440 --> 00:07:40,320 We're not planting trees. We literally are writing in a 122 00:07:40,320 --> 00:07:44,920 language we made-up on machines. We made-up doing things in the 123 00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:50,040 hardware we built, like everything we do is abstraction. 124 00:07:50,440 --> 00:07:54,840 So adding a little bit more helpful abstraction to me is not 125 00:07:54,840 --> 00:07:58,800 the worst sin ever, anyone's ever committed, but it's a 126 00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:00,840 challenge. It's a challenge to find the 127 00:08:00,840 --> 00:08:03,920 language because we don't really have a language to talk about 128 00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:07,960 this stuff, right? Yeah, especially also in my 129 00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:09,720 experience, you know, working in tech, right? 130 00:08:09,720 --> 00:08:12,040 I've been in the industry for maybe about 20 years. 131 00:08:12,320 --> 00:08:14,280 It's always the same thing that you mentioned in the beginning, 132 00:08:14,280 --> 00:08:16,080 right? We think everyone else is 133 00:08:16,080 --> 00:08:18,680 against us, right? Be it the product, be it the 134 00:08:18,680 --> 00:08:21,600 CEO, the founders, the stakeholders or whoever that is, 135 00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:23,000 right? They just don't understand us. 136 00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:25,600 And especially if you have become a leader, right? 137 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:29,280 Sometimes, you know, working in the tech teams, you can actually 138 00:08:29,280 --> 00:08:32,000 see a lot of things becoming a problem simply because the 139 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:35,039 system is not right. And to me, when I found about 140 00:08:35,039 --> 00:08:38,120 systems thinking, that gave me a lot of revelations as well. 141 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:41,440 Even though every time I read right, it's always a new thing 142 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:44,760 and new insights that I got from doing the book and including 143 00:08:44,760 --> 00:08:47,800 your book as well. So I think I can see the really 144 00:08:47,800 --> 00:08:51,480 important things that we could learn as a tech professionals by 145 00:08:51,480 --> 00:08:53,040 understanding about systems thinking. 146 00:08:53,680 --> 00:08:57,040 So maybe the big question first is that what is actually system 147 00:08:57,040 --> 00:08:59,200 thinking? You know there's the advanced 148 00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:02,240 way of defining it, and hopefully you can also define it 149 00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:04,880 in the simpler term. Yeah. 150 00:09:04,880 --> 00:09:10,080 And it's, I frustrate people. I frustrate people with this 151 00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:13,320 because we want a straightforward thing. 152 00:09:13,320 --> 00:09:17,400 And this my straightforward answer is relationships produce 153 00:09:17,400 --> 00:09:22,640 effect and systems thinking is understanding the effect and 154 00:09:22,640 --> 00:09:29,160 being able to architect for the kinds of effects we want in a 155 00:09:29,160 --> 00:09:31,320 system. That's the straightforward 156 00:09:31,320 --> 00:09:35,080 answer. But Donnella Meadows says that 157 00:09:35,080 --> 00:09:39,440 we think because we understand one, we must that we understand 158 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:42,960 2 because one and one make 2. But we forget that we have to 159 00:09:42,960 --> 00:09:49,520 understand and, and to me is the art and science of systems 160 00:09:49,520 --> 00:09:52,920 architecture, right? That when you have two 161 00:09:53,080 --> 00:09:57,280 microservices and you design interaction between them, then 162 00:09:57,280 --> 00:10:00,360 you get a third thing. Whatever it is that they do 163 00:10:00,360 --> 00:10:03,120 together, they can't do alone, right? 164 00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:08,000 And yet we're very linear when we design these relationships. 165 00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:14,520 So Fred Brooks says that most, most software systems are many 166 00:10:14,520 --> 00:10:19,800 good but uncoordinated ideas. And this is every model I have 167 00:10:19,800 --> 00:10:23,200 ever made of a software system like these might be good, but 168 00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:25,240 they're duct taped together, right? 169 00:10:25,240 --> 00:10:28,360 We just build these rickety bridges. 170 00:10:28,880 --> 00:10:37,040 And so for us, systems thinking is about understanding how all 171 00:10:37,040 --> 00:10:40,920 of these relationships deliver an outcome. 172 00:10:40,920 --> 00:10:47,040 So for example, FedEx, FedEx fast package delivery, that's 173 00:10:47,040 --> 00:10:50,800 what FedEx does. And anything we can do 174 00:10:50,800 --> 00:10:58,320 technologically to create fast package delivery is a priority. 175 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:04,600 And anything that we do that is extraneous to that, less of a 176 00:11:04,600 --> 00:11:09,600 priority. But we aren't very well trained 177 00:11:09,600 --> 00:11:15,800 to think about what we're doing in the context of fast package 178 00:11:15,880 --> 00:11:20,280 delivery. Instead, we think about a fast 179 00:11:20,560 --> 00:11:24,640 response from an API, which is important, right? 180 00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:28,360 But does that fast response actually have an impact on the 181 00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:31,400 system? The challenge, though, is that 182 00:11:31,520 --> 00:11:36,080 systems thinking is defined differently in so academia, for 183 00:11:36,080 --> 00:11:39,560 example, would define it. If you went to a workshop for 184 00:11:39,560 --> 00:11:42,520 marketing people, or you went for a workshop for academics, 185 00:11:42,680 --> 00:11:46,560 you went for a workshop on more biological systems. 186 00:11:46,760 --> 00:11:50,640 They're going to say things differently than I am, and a lot 187 00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:54,800 of people do not like that. They don't like the fact that 188 00:11:54,800 --> 00:11:57,760 there's not one answer, but it's system thinking. 189 00:11:57,760 --> 00:11:59,720 Of course there's not one answer. 190 00:11:59,720 --> 00:12:05,840 It really depends on what kind of system you're looking at, how 191 00:12:05,840 --> 00:12:09,400 that system needs. Systems thinking is going to 192 00:12:09,400 --> 00:12:13,560 govern what you prioritize about systems thinking. 193 00:12:13,880 --> 00:12:18,040 So for me, pattern thinking, which is sort of systems 194 00:12:18,040 --> 00:12:23,640 thinking adjacent is probably even more important to for us 195 00:12:24,040 --> 00:12:29,440 than systems thinking, critical thinking, the ability to create 196 00:12:29,440 --> 00:12:34,960 sound recommendations using reasoning, those are all part of 197 00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:37,880 systems thinking. It's called systemic reasoning. 198 00:12:38,960 --> 00:12:42,120 But if you read about systems thinking, you don't often also 199 00:12:42,120 --> 00:12:45,040 read about systemic reasoning, right? 200 00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:50,480 So that's the challenge, is that in any given situation, there 201 00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:56,360 could be 100 systems thinking practices that you could apply, 202 00:12:56,560 --> 00:12:59,520 but you're only going to apply for five of them. 203 00:13:00,840 --> 00:13:04,320 If I were to define systems thinking, I'd have to talk about 204 00:13:04,320 --> 00:13:08,880 all 100, but in fact, you're not, you don't need all 100. 205 00:13:09,160 --> 00:13:14,160 So it is, I would add, it's the ability to discern which of 206 00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:18,480 those practices or tools will be the most helpful in your 207 00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:21,680 situation. That's not a thing people love 208 00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:22,800 either. They're like, where are the 209 00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:25,640 templates and checklists? I want my templates and 210 00:13:25,640 --> 00:13:28,520 checklists. I mean, I have those, But will 211 00:13:28,520 --> 00:13:32,240 they help you in your situation? I don't know, like that's 212 00:13:32,240 --> 00:13:34,280 something you're discerning. Yeah. 213 00:13:34,880 --> 00:13:36,360 Yeah. So anyway, see, it's a long 214 00:13:36,360 --> 00:13:38,000 answer. And that drives people crazy a 215 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:41,040 little sometimes, Yeah. Yeah, I think one of the main 216 00:13:41,040 --> 00:13:43,800 challenges, especially maybe for us engineers, right, we try to 217 00:13:43,800 --> 00:13:47,760 think logically and also trying to kind of like build the 218 00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:50,720 abstraction, you know, like in a way that it is easier to 219 00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:54,080 understand. But obviously this is like maybe 220 00:13:54,080 --> 00:13:56,200 against the system's thinking way of thinking, right? 221 00:13:56,200 --> 00:14:00,240 Because we try to think linearly, trying to reduce, you 222 00:14:00,240 --> 00:14:03,240 know, an abstraction into something that we can, I don't 223 00:14:03,240 --> 00:14:05,200 know, understand in terms of relationship, right. 224 00:14:05,680 --> 00:14:09,720 So maybe tell us this bias that we have as a maybe as a human in 225 00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:12,240 fact right? Trying to think in linear terms 226 00:14:12,240 --> 00:14:14,880 like what you said in the beginning, 1 + 1 = 2. 227 00:14:15,040 --> 00:14:17,800 We always like facts, logical thinking, right? 228 00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:21,480 So why this bias can become a challenge when understanding 229 00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:25,880 systems thinking? Yeah, and that it's my favorite 230 00:14:25,880 --> 00:14:32,360 subject because we also think in binary, meaning linear thinking 231 00:14:32,360 --> 00:14:35,720 is good and systems thinking is bad, or systems thinking is good 232 00:14:35,720 --> 00:14:37,240 and linear thinking is bad, right? 233 00:14:37,240 --> 00:14:39,000 But in fact, we need both, right? 234 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:42,680 I can't write software. And by linear thinking, I mean 235 00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:45,960 akin to following a recipe, right? 236 00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:50,000 That either you are following a recipe or you could write a 237 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:53,200 recipe to describe what you've done, right? 238 00:14:54,040 --> 00:14:58,120 Even when we're debugging, we're breaking down complexity to get 239 00:14:58,120 --> 00:15:03,200 closer to understanding exactly where something is happening. 240 00:15:04,040 --> 00:15:09,640 So linear thinking is predictable, procedural, top 241 00:15:09,640 --> 00:15:12,720 down. So the way that we decision make 242 00:15:12,880 --> 00:15:19,440 where strategic people hand decisions down to implementers, 243 00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:23,560 that is linear thinking concerned with control. 244 00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:29,000 So we want our software to do what we designed it to do all 245 00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:31,040 the time under every circumstance. 246 00:15:31,040 --> 00:15:33,200 And so we are concerned with control. 247 00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:38,120 Test coverage gives us control. So these things are they're 248 00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:41,840 essential. The challenge is that for many 249 00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:47,840 of us, this is what we mean by thinking this is everything and 250 00:15:47,840 --> 00:15:53,920 it's the most important thing and everything else can just go 251 00:15:53,920 --> 00:16:00,760 away because it doesn't matter. And the problem is we can reduce 252 00:16:00,760 --> 00:16:03,520 complexity. So that's reductionism. 253 00:16:03,520 --> 00:16:08,960 Object oriented programming, for example, encourages us to break 254 00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:13,160 a complex piece of software into its parts. 255 00:16:13,160 --> 00:16:16,400 My first professor used a car as an example. 256 00:16:16,400 --> 00:16:19,560 You don't just have a car code base, right? 257 00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:24,320 You have a brakes code base and a steering code base, and that 258 00:16:24,320 --> 00:16:28,560 these work together, right? The challenge is it doesn't work 259 00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:32,960 the other way because relationships produce effect. 260 00:16:33,920 --> 00:16:37,400 Nowadays when we're experiencing a bug, for example, in 261 00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:40,920 production, I joke, I make this joke all the time, so I'm going 262 00:16:40,920 --> 00:16:44,000 to have to find a better one, but that it's a great day. 263 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:46,480 When the bug is in the code, it's OK. 264 00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:53,160 It's right here on line 492, but it's usually in something that's 265 00:16:53,160 --> 00:16:58,360 impacting eventual consistency, some timing, asynchronous timing 266 00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:07,359 of something is not working. And so when we want to design a 267 00:17:07,359 --> 00:17:12,760 system that supports fast package delivery, we can't just 268 00:17:12,760 --> 00:17:18,760 focus on the placing an order part, the managing the movement 269 00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:23,359 of the package part, the software that handles deploying 270 00:17:23,359 --> 00:17:27,880 the delivery truck every in in the different regions. 271 00:17:28,040 --> 00:17:32,560 We also have to think about how they work together to provide 272 00:17:32,560 --> 00:17:36,400 that capability. And so the challenge is that we 273 00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:39,520 don't have a practice, we don't have language. 274 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:44,560 We work in organizations that are only concerned with control, 275 00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:50,160 that are only concerned with top down thinking, that don't create 276 00:17:50,160 --> 00:17:54,440 environments for knowledge workers to share knowledge and 277 00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:57,120 to learn together and to innovate together. 278 00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:05,840 We still apply an industrialized mindset to the development of 279 00:18:05,840 --> 00:18:08,400 what is functionally a knowledge system. 280 00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:14,520 And so it's more systems thinking for me where why I've 281 00:18:14,520 --> 00:18:19,600 gotten into this is because of that friction, that tension. 282 00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:23,960 It's not that what we're doing doesn't work, it's that as 283 00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:27,720 relational complexity increases in a system, what we're doing 284 00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:32,480 isn't sufficient. So what other skills do we need 285 00:18:32,760 --> 00:18:36,080 in order to be effective in our role? 286 00:18:36,080 --> 00:18:40,280 Be effective, make an impact, have influence, do hard things 287 00:18:40,280 --> 00:18:42,640 together. That's kind of the whole point 288 00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:46,560 for me, right? And I don't work on an assembly 289 00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:50,160 line. I create something that doesn't 290 00:18:50,160 --> 00:18:53,720 exist. And I need broader skills to do 291 00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:54,640 that. Yeah. 292 00:18:55,720 --> 00:18:57,560 Yeah. So I think that even though 293 00:18:57,560 --> 00:19:01,120 maybe some people may have heard about this, you know, knowledge 294 00:19:01,120 --> 00:19:02,720 worker, the term knowledge worker, right? 295 00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:05,600 But I think still many leaders of many organizations still 296 00:19:05,600 --> 00:19:08,600 think, you know, for us these days, right, Even though there 297 00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:10,880 are plenty of knowledge workers, it's not just the coder, right? 298 00:19:11,040 --> 00:19:13,000 So almost everyone now is a knowledge worker. 299 00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:16,320 They think, you know, they can just create a predictability. 300 00:19:16,320 --> 00:19:19,320 So top down control, right, those kind of stuff. 301 00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:23,360 So I think it's first, yes, I think we have to be aware that 302 00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:26,600 actually with knowledge worker, these industrial practices may 303 00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:28,280 not work as it used to be, right? 304 00:19:28,560 --> 00:19:31,160 Predictable, consistent result and things like that. 305 00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:34,680 And I think one thing that I'd like to clarify with you as well 306 00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:36,640 in terms of definition of systems, right? 307 00:19:36,640 --> 00:19:39,880 Because when people hear about system, maybe they have 308 00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:42,760 different interpretations. System could be process, system 309 00:19:42,760 --> 00:19:45,200 could be workflow, system could be something else. 310 00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:48,240 But actually system here refers to many things you mentioned 311 00:19:48,240 --> 00:19:50,800 about relationship, but relationship between what you 312 00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:52,880 know. So maybe clarify a little bit 313 00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:55,640 what do you mean by system and what are the parts in the 314 00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:59,400 system? One of the challenges with this 315 00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:05,480 entire subject is that a single word can mean different things, 316 00:20:05,720 --> 00:20:09,120 for example. Go to a conference and bring up 317 00:20:09,120 --> 00:20:14,600 the word architect and watch everybody lose their mind about 318 00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:17,600 what that means and whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. 319 00:20:17,760 --> 00:20:21,160 But what we discover is that that word has a whole bunch of 320 00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:26,160 different contextual meanings that what we are asking from 321 00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:29,480 someone with that label. There's no consistency there. 322 00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:33,040 So if there's not really a definition, it varies. 323 00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:39,680 So that's a challenge with system because we've used system 324 00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:43,120 to mean infrastructure. There was, I was giving a talk 325 00:20:43,120 --> 00:20:47,640 in 2019 and a young man sat down next to me and saw my badge and 326 00:20:47,640 --> 00:20:50,800 said, oh, you're an architect. I want to be an architect too, 327 00:20:50,800 --> 00:20:53,160 but I don't know enough about Kubernetes yet. 328 00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:58,520 And I was like, oh, you're oh, I'm sorry that you're not going 329 00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:02,520 to be happy that you sat up at my table because I have so many 330 00:21:02,520 --> 00:21:05,640 thoughts on this. And it's not that an architect 331 00:21:05,640 --> 00:21:09,640 can't be somebody who's really good at infrastructure 332 00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:12,080 implementation and container orchestration. 333 00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:16,840 It's just not what I mean by architect, or at least it's not 334 00:21:16,840 --> 00:21:19,440 what I'm usually exclusively doing. 335 00:21:20,040 --> 00:21:24,520 So I say all those words to say system is kind of the same kind 336 00:21:24,520 --> 00:21:29,440 of word that if in context, when people say system, they mean the 337 00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:34,160 infrastructure or they mean something different than I mean, 338 00:21:34,760 --> 00:21:38,400 cool, because as long as we understand it, right. 339 00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:45,520 But from a more purious point of view, components, parts like 340 00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:51,560 software parts, for example, people, they are elements when 341 00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:54,240 they sort of exist in the same space. 342 00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:58,120 Those are just elements. It becomes a system when they're 343 00:21:58,120 --> 00:22:01,600 in relationship to each other and when that relationship 344 00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:06,840 begins to generate patterns and outcomes and things that the 345 00:22:06,840 --> 00:22:12,520 parts don't do alone. So if I have two micro services 346 00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:16,320 and there's an API between them, is that a system? 347 00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:21,080 I'd say so. Well people could argue with 348 00:22:21,080 --> 00:22:24,880 that to say, well, they're two components and there's a one way 349 00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:27,720 flow of information between them. 350 00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:31,360 I mean, it's a very simple system is there's no real 351 00:22:31,360 --> 00:22:35,720 patterns develop. So I think reasonable people 352 00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:38,920 disagree. But for our purposes, I think 353 00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:44,840 anytime two or more people or software parts or combination of 354 00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:48,760 teams and people and software parts are have to integrate, 355 00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:52,880 have to form relationships, have to communicate back and forth in 356 00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:56,520 order to do the thing they're doing, Then you have a system. 357 00:22:56,520 --> 00:23:00,800 That's when you can apply what everything that we're saying, or 358 00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:03,360 you can stay up till 3:00 in the morning drinking beer and 359 00:23:03,360 --> 00:23:06,480 endlessly arguing about whether or not this is a system and 360 00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:09,240 whether that word means what you think it means. 361 00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:14,840 Because it is an imprecise, It is imprecise, unfortunately, as 362 00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:17,800 much because we love imprecision, we love nuance and 363 00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:21,280 ambiguity and imprecision and like it depends. 364 00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:23,440 Everyone loves when they say it depends. 365 00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:26,920 Makes people so happy. Yeah, and makes you clever as 366 00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:28,400 well when you say it depends, right. 367 00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:31,320 So I think it. Actually does. 368 00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:33,880 It does. I can't fix that. 369 00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:36,640 It does depend, I'm sorry, but it does. 370 00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:40,600 Yeah, so I think it totally makes sense, right? 371 00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:44,760 And especially so many different new knowledge being like this 372 00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:47,840 one these days about, you know, in the software team is a social 373 00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,400 technical problem, right? So you mentioned the elements 374 00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:52,400 like the people, the systems, right? 375 00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:55,520 It's not just about code, it's not just about infrastructure 376 00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:58,400 architecture, it's the people, the relationship with the 377 00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:00,520 system. And actually time is also a 378 00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:02,200 factor, which I found in your book, right? 379 00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:04,880 You mentioned time is also a factor in the system, right? 380 00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:08,120 Even though you have the people and the system, but as the time 381 00:24:08,120 --> 00:24:10,520 goes by, system might change, right? 382 00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:14,360 So I think this is also a very good insight, this whole thing. 383 00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:17,520 I think there's this term called conceptual integrity that you 384 00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:21,160 mentioned in the book, right? Which I find is quite important 385 00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:24,080 to understand so that you can actually understand about system 386 00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:26,560 thinking. Maybe try to explain to us what 387 00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:28,520 is actually conceptual integrity. 388 00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:34,880 May I'm chuckling because this is the third question that has a 389 00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:38,920 non the word concrete. I've come to dislike that word 390 00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:43,160 very much. I have slides with the chemical 391 00:24:43,360 --> 00:24:46,480 makeup of concrete to show that concrete's not concrete. 392 00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:51,520 Concrete also is a system of interrelated things. 393 00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:55,880 But anyway, so the challenge is so Fred Brooks in Mythical Man 394 00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:59,240 Month said that conceptual integrity is the most important 395 00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:03,680 consideration in systems design, but doesn't define conceptual 396 00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:07,320 integrity. And so we're, we, we're kind of, 397 00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:14,560 I'm very challenged by giving a very specific definition because 398 00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:17,800 it's sort of like art. It's that you know it when you 399 00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:22,160 see it kind of thing. But one way that I can describe 400 00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:27,120 it, at least my experience, it resonates with my experience, is 401 00:25:27,120 --> 00:25:30,840 that so you have two parts of an organization that have budget. 402 00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:34,240 One of them wants to spend their budget, we need a car. 403 00:25:34,360 --> 00:25:37,200 And the other one wants to spend their budget, we need a boat. 404 00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:42,280 And so car, boat, they're having these requirements discussions 405 00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:44,880 and, and it ends up that the engineers are asked to build a 406 00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:50,000 car boat and everybody hates it because nobody wanted a car 407 00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:53,960 boat, right? That didn't resolve the 408 00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:58,360 capabilities that the people were trying to design, right? 409 00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:02,280 And so conceptual integrity, Fred Brooks says basically when 410 00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:06,120 you look at a system, you see similar patterns and structures. 411 00:26:06,120 --> 00:26:09,080 It looks like it's designed by one mind. 412 00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:12,280 But he also argued that he thought there should be 1 413 00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:16,000 architect that is sort of designing the system. 414 00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:20,320 So it has conceptual integrity. And I don't agree with that. 415 00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:24,160 I don't agree with it because I wouldn't like to work that way, 416 00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:28,440 but also because there's too much complexity for somebody to 417 00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:32,120 do that. And also then the whole system 418 00:26:32,120 --> 00:26:36,360 is held back by that one person and what that one person knows 419 00:26:36,360 --> 00:26:40,040 and thinks. So I've challenged myself to try 420 00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:45,760 and understand how we generate conceptual integrity. 421 00:26:46,120 --> 00:26:52,240 And by this I just mean that it isn't good but uncoordinated 422 00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:56,000 parts. That when that a software system 423 00:26:56,200 --> 00:27:01,160 has some reliable patterns of communication, it might use 424 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,960 different tools but in different programming languages. 425 00:27:05,120 --> 00:27:08,960 But if you moved from one part of the system, from one team 426 00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:12,440 that was building software over here to another team that's 427 00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:16,880 building software over here. The basic mindset, the way of 428 00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:23,560 working, the way that we think about the fast package delivery, 429 00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:28,240 the way that we make decisions, the way that we collaborate 430 00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:34,280 cross functionally, those things are relatively familiar and 431 00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:39,240 really useful. Like we understand how to work 432 00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:43,240 together, how to form relationships between the system 433 00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:46,200 parts, but we also can be self organizing. 434 00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:48,520 It doesn't. Everything doesn't have to be 435 00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:51,600 the same because we've created good boundaries. 436 00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:56,040 So team topologies, for example, we could say that team 437 00:27:56,040 --> 00:28:01,520 topologies is one way of trying to create conceptual integrity 438 00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:06,560 in a system, meaning we think our concepts, right. 439 00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:10,880 So our concepts are the building blocks of our of knowledge work 440 00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:15,400 of our software. Our concepts are similar enough 441 00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:20,440 that what's in production has some cohesiveness, has some 442 00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:24,120 sanity, has some elegant simplicity. 443 00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:30,400 There's enough integration and yet not so much that we are just 444 00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:36,160 straightjacketed and we can't actually do anything new or do 445 00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,880 write in a language that's right for our team, and the other team 446 00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:43,520 can do something different without disrupting that 447 00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:45,960 integrity. So that's the thing. 448 00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:50,360 There's a lot of words to describe it because it isn't a 449 00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:54,080 measurable thing. I can't write a test and give it 450 00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:57,280 to you and you run it against production and says, oh, Diana, 451 00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:01,160 we scored 8 out of 10 on the conceptual integrity list. 452 00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:08,480 Because what can be the same and what can be different will be 453 00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:12,840 different in every system. Sometimes it would be 454 00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:17,440 disintegrating if everybody just went off and started writing 455 00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:22,480 microservices in any language doing any using any event system 456 00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,760 any of like some using cues and some are using Kafka and some 457 00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:29,880 like that would be bad and in other systems that can do that. 458 00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:34,960 So it depends. Yeah. 459 00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:37,440 So one thing for sure, the illustration that you gave 460 00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:40,520 right, the car boat thing, I think that gives a very good 461 00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:43,080 insights, right, about this conceptual integrity. 462 00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:46,200 The way I think of it, just like whenever you try to build a 463 00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,600 system, right, there is a purpose that you try to achieve, 464 00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:51,440 right? Be it the business outcomes, be 465 00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:54,600 it, I don't know, architecture, alignment, whatever that is, as 466 00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,360 long as you serve that purpose, right? 467 00:29:56,640 --> 00:29:59,920 There's a conceptual integrity that maybe is well defined in 468 00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:01,680 the systems, right? So if you can serve that 469 00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:05,080 purpose, So system thinking, I think it's really hard. 470 00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:08,120 You can't master it just by reading the book or maybe 471 00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:09,240 listening to this episode. Yeah. 472 00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:12,680 So in your book, you mentioned some practices that we can do in 473 00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:15,440 order to improve our system thinking, maybe elaborate some 474 00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:18,040 for us. If we want to improve our system 475 00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:22,520 thinking, what should we do? So the first thing I'm gonna say 476 00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,160 doesn't sound like it has anything to do with systems 477 00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:32,520 thinking or anything, but it is the most important thing we can 478 00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:34,120 do. It's very simple. 479 00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:36,960 It's much harder, though, than it's going to sound. 480 00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:42,120 But I'm going to say what it is and then I'll describe why it's 481 00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:44,000 a really important practice, right? 482 00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:47,760 So we started this conversation with, we're all mad because 483 00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:54,360 everyone's against us, right? So part of either what we would 484 00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:59,280 have done anyway or is a reaction to these, to the way we 485 00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:03,080 work or both, is that we're a very no culture. 486 00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:06,360 We're a very change my mind culture. 487 00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:11,400 We're a very. I can't tell you how often I 488 00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:17,800 share an idea, I give a talk, I write a book, I model something 489 00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,320 and the feedback I get is that's wrong, that's wrong, that's 490 00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:23,960 wrong, that's wrong, and that's it. 491 00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,440 That is the whole, that's the whole thing. 492 00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:31,400 Now, often it is wrong in those spots, and that's really helpful 493 00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:34,680 because I want to improve my own thinking. 494 00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:39,560 The challenge with systems thinking is systems thinking 495 00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,200 because it's about how relationships produce effect, 496 00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:48,720 because it's about looking at a problem from multiple points of 497 00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:52,960 view so that you can really understand it, not just from 498 00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:56,720 your own, but from other people's experience. 499 00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:03,520 Our no culture, our change My mind is antithetical to systems 500 00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:07,600 thinking. You stay in the silo of your own 501 00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:11,800 head and you force people to their ideas. 502 00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:15,120 They're sieging. They have to siege like you're a 503 00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:19,160 castle and they have to climb your walls to get in to make you 504 00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:21,560 too. As long as that's what's 505 00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:24,120 happening, systems thinking cannot happen. 506 00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:30,320 It can happen. So the first thing is yes and or 507 00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,200 even no. And but improv teams learn this. 508 00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:37,640 So improvisational comedy teams, they get out on stage, they have 509 00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:41,960 no script, so they have to make things up and figure things out 510 00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:44,600 using their skill set. That's what we do. 511 00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:48,760 We get together and we make things up and we figure things 512 00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:53,360 out using our skill set. They practice yes. 513 00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:56,520 And before they go out, that's a warm up. 514 00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:00,560 And if you've ever seen an improv team where somebody said 515 00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:06,240 no, or somebody said that's a bad idea, or, you know, oh, that 516 00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:08,040 looks like a graph and graphs don't scale. 517 00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:10,880 Like the whole scene falls apart. 518 00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:15,640 Nothing good comes of it. And the audience feels it when 519 00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:20,800 it happens because it stops the flow of knowledge. 520 00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:24,840 It stops the relationship, the informational relationship. 521 00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:31,640 So the one practice is trying to acknowledge what you're hearing, 522 00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:35,080 acknowledge other people's ideas, acknowledge you don't 523 00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:37,880 have to agree. You're just acknowledging you're 524 00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:43,320 just the OK, this is what's happening and offer something 525 00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:47,840 that helps improve the idea, that helps improve the thinking, 526 00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,360 right, that helps steer it in a different direction. 527 00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:54,840 Again, it's someone might say something I disagree with and I 528 00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:59,400 can first repeat, So what I understand you to be saying is 529 00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:04,200 this because oftentimes I think they're wrong because I didn't 530 00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:08,400 understand them. That happens at least 50% of the 531 00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:10,639 time. If I open my mouth and start 532 00:34:10,639 --> 00:34:15,719 saying that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard, 50% of the time 533 00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:18,920 I didn't understand them. Either they didn't express it 534 00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:23,760 well or I just didn't bother to try, or I have my own biases. 535 00:34:24,639 --> 00:34:29,400 And when you have understood them, then can you help improve 536 00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:31,360 it? Maybe you have an experience 537 00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:35,480 that is counter to their experience that that will help 538 00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:38,320 them understand the problem more holistically. 539 00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:40,800 Maybe you have a fact that you can share. 540 00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:44,000 Maybe you have a question that will help them think more about 541 00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:47,400 it. If we just started there, if we 542 00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:50,800 just decided this was going to be a year of communicating that 543 00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:56,560 way, we'd be 30% down the road. The challenge is people will say 544 00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:58,120 that has nothing to do with tech. 545 00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:00,000 That has nothing to do with system science. 546 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:05,760 Where are my templates? And all I can say is try it and 547 00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:09,360 see if I'm wrong. Like if you try it and you're 548 00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:13,000 like, that was ridiculous. That had nothing to do with it. 549 00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:15,760 I'm going back to Kubernetes. Cool. 550 00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:20,080 But it's often the people that push against that idea the most 551 00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:24,760 that are the ones causing the most block towards being able to 552 00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,320 work well together and designing a system. 553 00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:33,360 So yeah, that's my hard pitch for the first practice, right? 554 00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:37,080 Yeah, I love that you mentioned about that because I think there 555 00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:39,600 are so many things, especially in the tech world, right? 556 00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:42,000 So nobody actually knows everything, right? 557 00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,040 It's just so difficult. And plus these days, you know, 558 00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:48,560 humans, culture, we all get exposed to different things, 559 00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:50,240 right? You know, Internet, books, 560 00:35:50,240 --> 00:35:52,200 resources, culture, whatever that is, right? 561 00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:54,440 And different people will have different thoughts, right? 562 00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,040 So I think I like the way that you mentioned that maybe first 563 00:35:57,040 --> 00:35:59,280 is we should have open mind, right? 564 00:35:59,720 --> 00:36:04,120 Accept what others have in terms of opinion, be curious why maybe 565 00:36:04,240 --> 00:36:06,200 they're coming from that perspective, right? 566 00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:08,880 Maybe the third aspect is about psychological safety, right? 567 00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:12,280 Because you want to acknowledge others and you accept their idea 568 00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:15,400 and you improve on each other rather than against each other, 569 00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:17,440 right? So I think I love this fact that 570 00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,920 actually it improves system thinking by, you know, doing all 571 00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:22,840 that, right? And I think one challenge, 572 00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,120 again, like you mentioned, right, sometimes we are not 573 00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:28,840 aware of ourselves thinking in this, you know, kind of like 574 00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:32,080 closed box or you know, we have a lot of bias. 575 00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:35,080 And in your book, actually the first thing that you think can 576 00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:38,080 improve system thinking is actually by being self aware, 577 00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:41,600 improving yourself. So tell us the importance of 578 00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:43,560 this. How can we improve ourselves? 579 00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:45,960 Because most of the time, we don't know what we don't know, 580 00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:49,320 right? Exactly and metacognition and 581 00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:54,280 this so the Conway's Law says that organizations that design 582 00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:58,280 systems will produce designs that are mirrors of their 583 00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:01,360 communication structure. And this just makes sense in 584 00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:04,440 that what's in production except what we thought and talked 585 00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:08,080 about, right? Like the way we think together 586 00:37:08,240 --> 00:37:12,480 structures piercing says that the real system is the 587 00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:16,280 construction of rationality itself, that we create concepts 588 00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:18,080 and then we act on those concepts. 589 00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:20,880 And if we want something different in production, we need 590 00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:22,520 to think and communicate differently. 591 00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:27,640 So different things will end up. And then I hijacked Conway's law 592 00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:33,760 because I'm not very creative and said Diana's law is that the 593 00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:36,480 way what you think and communicate is what you'll push 594 00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:39,680 to production. Like that's our own minds, 595 00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:44,560 right? And so systemic reasoning when 596 00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:49,480 you're making a recommendation for a change that you want a new 597 00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:54,160 tool, for example, systemic reasoning is not just giving 598 00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:58,280 your opinion, right. Oh, React is terrible and view 599 00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:01,880 is good like we should do view. How did you reach that 600 00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:04,000 conclusion? What are the reasons that 601 00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:08,040 convinced you? And why does this matter right 602 00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:13,400 now to whatever our version of fast package delivery is, right. 603 00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:18,880 So every time we make a recommendation, the next step 604 00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:24,400 after we learn yes and more is also not just to share our 605 00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:27,440 opinion, but make the map. How did you reach this 606 00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:31,320 conclusion? Because often that's where the 607 00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:35,640 parts we can work together on are instead of yes it is, no it 608 00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:39,080 isn't, yes it is, no, it isn't. We can figure out how we've come 609 00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:44,120 to different conclusions and then examine Maybe my reason is 610 00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:47,920 it's faster and your reason is it's more reliable. 611 00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:51,880 And then we realize, oh, we have to figure out which is more 612 00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:56,520 important, reliable or fast, or maybe there's a third solution 613 00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:59,480 that gives us both, right? So then we're talking about the 614 00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:02,320 right things, then we're we're solving the same problem. 615 00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:07,560 So when we're practicing systemic reasoning and when 616 00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:12,440 we're giving the reasons that the reasons that convinced us, 617 00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:18,800 we're having to work with our own minds first. 618 00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:25,000 I challenge anyone listening, anyone who listens to this, to 619 00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,960 do it three times to have an idea. 620 00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:32,200 So maybe there's an action you want people to take. 621 00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:36,560 Maybe you have a theory about why something isn't working and 622 00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:40,640 you want to share that theory. Maybe you have a solution that 623 00:39:40,640 --> 00:39:44,520 hasn't been considered before. Before you say anything, sit 624 00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:49,840 down, write it out and then write 3 to 5 reasons that 625 00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:54,640 convinced you as and include why it matters, why this is 626 00:39:54,640 --> 00:40:00,360 important to talk about right now and not why it matters to 627 00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:03,800 just the tech. But why does it matter to fast 628 00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:08,960 package delivery right? Why will this improve if you're 629 00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:13,080 like most people? You'll discover you suck at this 630 00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:18,560 really like the we don't know. We don't know how we've come to 631 00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:22,320 the our conclusions and if we have to show our work, we 632 00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:26,360 discover that we've got biases, we have logical fallacies. 633 00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,640 We have so many bugs in our thinking and we don't know that 634 00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:34,440 because we kind of just go around sharing our opinions 635 00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:39,920 because they convince us. So the metacognition, the 636 00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:45,760 self-awareness is recognizing that we need to create 637 00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:50,120 conceptual integrity in our own minds before we can share it, 638 00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:55,800 and that as smart as we are, we're not generally great at 639 00:40:55,800 --> 00:41:00,120 that. Also, we often are reacting. 640 00:41:00,720 --> 00:41:03,920 So I go into a meeting, someone says something and like I want 641 00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:06,680 to bite this person. I just want to bite this person 642 00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:10,560 so much like I'm just so this is awful what I'm hearing. 643 00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:14,920 And then we respond from we start reacting, we start 644 00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:19,520 communicating our frustration, our aggravation, our everybody 645 00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:21,600 hates us product to suck though these. 646 00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:25,960 We start doing that and OK, but it will almost never get us what 647 00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:29,720 we need. Pretty much all it does is add 648 00:41:29,720 --> 00:41:34,920 fuel to a fire to notice your reaction so you recognize, hey, 649 00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:38,000 there's something wrong here, this doesn't have conceptual 650 00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:41,560 integrity. Then take a step back, put on 651 00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:46,440 some headphones, set a timer for 30 minutes and try and write a 652 00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:50,120 recommendation. How would you improve this 653 00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:53,000 situation? What would you do differently 654 00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:56,800 than what you're hearing? And then you discover you love 655 00:41:56,800 --> 00:42:00,800 to complain way more than you like to come up with your 656 00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:02,760 engine. We all do. 657 00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,480 It's fun, it's addictive, it's awesome, right? 658 00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:09,080 And it's not a bad thing like linear thinking's not a bad 659 00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:11,400 thing, but it doesn't get us what we need. 660 00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:16,480 So those two practices of metacognition. 661 00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:19,400 The other thing is when you do it, you realize the patterns 662 00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:23,000 happening in your brain are happening at scale around you. 663 00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:27,840 And it starts to teach you how you can help other people also 664 00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:31,760 come to better conclusions because you're doing the work in 665 00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:36,080 your own mind. And you begin to see things that 666 00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:38,880 help. What helps, what question to ask 667 00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:43,920 what and for example, for architectural decision records 668 00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:47,760 for ADR's, a thing that stands out to me often is that people 669 00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:50,560 don't describe other options they considered. 670 00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:53,880 They're just recording the decision. 671 00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:58,280 So just the question of hey, what other options did you 672 00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:01,080 consider? And can you show me why the you 673 00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:04,880 came to this? Like this seems solid, but when 674 00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:08,160 things change I won't actually know what else was considered 675 00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:13,160 and why it was not chosen. So can you add that just that 676 00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:16,400 brings systems thinking to an architectural decision record. 677 00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:20,720 Because there was no run right answer, they came to the best 678 00:43:20,720 --> 00:43:23,760 possible conclusion. That's systemic reasoning. 679 00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:27,960 Systemic reasoning is coming to a conclusion and taking an 680 00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:32,800 action even though there's not one right thing to do That's it. 681 00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:36,440 That's systems thinking. And you can do that in one 682 00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:41,320 artifact. And for many of us, that would 683 00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:45,880 be sufficient to improve our impact and influence and our 684 00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:49,040 career significantly. Just those because it's 685 00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:52,560 unfortunately pretty rare. Wow, I like that you mentioned 686 00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:55,280 so many different things, right? I'll try to summarize as best as 687 00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:55,920 I could. Right? 688 00:43:56,160 --> 00:44:00,760 I think the first thing is about trying to explain what you think 689 00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:04,240 it is right to other people by, I don't know, elaborating in 690 00:44:04,240 --> 00:44:07,280 three reasons, three bullet points, and maybe we can even 691 00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:09,320 use writing as a thinking tool, right? 692 00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:13,720 And it reminds me also with, I don't know, I think it's Richard 693 00:44:13,720 --> 00:44:17,480 Feynman who said that if you can't explain to others what you 694 00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:19,200 think, you actually don't understand it, right? 695 00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:21,160 So I think it's a very good reminder. 696 00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:25,080 And I like the mentioning about, you know, instead of reacting, 697 00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:27,320 you should, you know, maybe take a pause. 698 00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:30,360 I think like creating a gap in the mindfulness practice, right? 699 00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:32,880 Instead of reacting straight away, create a gap and then 700 00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:34,720 respond, right? So I think I like that practice 701 00:44:34,720 --> 00:44:37,320 as well because sometimes engineers, we are passionate 702 00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:39,760 about something, right? We always try to argue with each 703 00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:41,320 other. So I think that's a very good 704 00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:45,200 practice as well. So I know that if we improve our 705 00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:48,040 self-awareness, it's not enough to improve the system thinking. 706 00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:50,400 It's a collective thing. The relationship with others 707 00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,280 need to improve as well. And in your book you also cover 708 00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:56,200 another thing. Another aspect is that we has to 709 00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:58,080 improve in terms of system thinking as well. 710 00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:00,360 Maybe it's a team, organisations, whatever that is. 711 00:45:00,720 --> 00:45:03,280 So tell us maybe some practices that we can do in order to 712 00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:05,400 improve the collective. You know, I don't know 713 00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:06,960 understanding about systems thinking. 714 00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:13,680 Yeah, so the first one is the we come right back to the war 715 00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:16,320 between product and tech and everybody hates us. 716 00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:21,360 But here's what I discovered. My leadership responsibilities 717 00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:25,800 increased, but also my primary responsibility is to the code. 718 00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:29,160 Always, right? It's always to, if we don't have 719 00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:35,720 quality in the software, then it doesn't matter what else. 720 00:45:35,720 --> 00:45:38,760 Like well, and that's not entirely true because sometimes 721 00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:42,160 really crappy software actually does the job just fine. 722 00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:45,000 So that's not always true. But generally speaking, right, 723 00:45:45,240 --> 00:45:50,080 my responsibility is to the system, which means to good 724 00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:54,080 tech, right? And whatever good tech means in 725 00:45:54,080 --> 00:46:00,480 that situation. So I think that I speak business 726 00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:03,560 well. So I'm in a situation where we 727 00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:07,320 need millions of dollars. We need a bunch of money to do 728 00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:10,840 the thing that we need to do. The system, the software is 729 00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:14,560 becoming obsolete. The organization has whatever 730 00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:17,520 its fast package delivery goals are. 731 00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:22,360 But the legacy system wasn't designed for the modern world 732 00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:26,040 where there's so much relationship between 733 00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:29,120 information, right, that they could just put everything in a 734 00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:31,080 database. So, you know, just stuff it in 735 00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:33,960 Oracle and it'll all work. And now that doesn't work for 736 00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:36,360 them anymore, right? So what do we do? 737 00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:40,640 How do we figure out what to do? In order to figure out what to 738 00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:45,440 do, we have to understand other points of view. 739 00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:50,360 We have to understand, OK, we want to make this change and we 740 00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:53,720 need money to do it. Now I have to talk to people 741 00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:58,480 that won't understand my tech language to get the money. 742 00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:02,320 But if we don't get the money, it doesn't matter what tech 743 00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:05,840 language I'm using 'cause we can't build it, 'cause we have 744 00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:06,840 to. I have a mortgage. 745 00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:10,000 I do not work for free. So like, I, I mean, I wouldn't 746 00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:12,280 mind working for free, but I have a mortgage. 747 00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:15,760 I need to work for free. So this is something that we 748 00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:19,960 haven't really been thinking about as engineers and tech 749 00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:23,640 leaders is that we don't realize that we have to get the money. 750 00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:29,800 Like that's just part of it. But also we are the group of 751 00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:34,480 people to predict what users will experience because we are 752 00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:38,400 not users of software. And I know this because I've 753 00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:43,960 been dragged kicking and screaming to watch user testing 754 00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:47,640 to. Once I was architecting a 755 00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:53,520 systems change and the head of graphics made me go watch 12 756 00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:58,200 people use the legacy system for what it was designed for. 757 00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:01,160 And I'm rolling my eyes. I know what the system does. 758 00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:06,440 I built a bunch of this software and Oh my God, they used it 12 759 00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:09,360 different ways. They had all these hacks and 760 00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:13,440 workflows that I would have built everything wrong for that 761 00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:15,240 because I thought I knew what they did. 762 00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:19,800 But I know what the software wants them to do that is not 763 00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:25,120 what they actually do, right? So my point to all of this is 764 00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:28,960 that I am not very impactful alone. 765 00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:33,880 I need to partner with people who have expertise I don't have. 766 00:48:34,240 --> 00:48:37,360 I think I speak great to business and I can be very 767 00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:42,840 persuasive about why we need $1,000,000 until I try it. 768 00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:46,160 And then they're like, geek, geek, what the hell? 769 00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:49,760 What the hell are you saying? The point is like 3 pages down. 770 00:48:49,760 --> 00:48:54,320 An accountant once said to me, you sent me 26 pages, Diana, I 771 00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:57,080 can't read 26. And I'm like, but this is a 772 00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:00,400 complex thing we're doing. And no. 773 00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:07,280 So I have discovered that in order to build hard things and 774 00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:12,640 to work on teams where we build hard things, I need more skills 775 00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:16,760 than I have and so I need product. 776 00:49:17,240 --> 00:49:22,400 I'm giving a talk with Kat Morris at Qcon next week and Kat 777 00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,880 is on the product side, always has been, and I've been on the 778 00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:30,520 tech and architecture side. We started to the planning the 779 00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:35,560 talk by modeling our stories and discovering we had the same 780 00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:40,320 pain. But when we started, I said all 781 00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:42,720 of my stories, our product ruined everything. 782 00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:45,960 And she said all my stories are the architect is the complete 783 00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:48,440 pain in my butt and I can never get anything done. 784 00:49:48,720 --> 00:49:54,560 And what we realize is that in our own tribes, we're fighting 785 00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:58,160 about how to think about things and then cross functionally we 786 00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:01,760 are and realize if she and I could work together from the 787 00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:05,880 beginning and she could do bring in the knowledge she has and I 788 00:50:05,880 --> 00:50:09,320 can bring in the knowledge I have, we'd get an outcome that 789 00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:12,480 was so much better than this linear. 790 00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:15,560 First I do a thing, then she does a thing, then we hate each 791 00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:21,200 other in between and like. And so partnering that within a 792 00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:26,520 team, the ability for my current team, five of us can get in a 793 00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:29,040 room. We understand what we're trying 794 00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:31,800 to do and then we figure out how we're going to do it. 795 00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:36,280 And sometimes we experiment or prototype, sometimes somebody 796 00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:39,560 recommend something and we just go in that direction. 797 00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:44,640 So can you sort self organize to decide what to do? 798 00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:49,080 But then also can you get the partners and the information 799 00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:53,600 that you need in order to build something that really matters? 800 00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:58,960 And for me, that comes from recognizing that your skills are 801 00:50:58,960 --> 00:51:01,400 insufficient in the modern world. 802 00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:06,280 You can know everything about JavaScript there is to know, but 803 00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:08,800 if you don't know how to make people's lives better with 804 00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:13,680 JavaScript, how much value are you really bringing, right? 805 00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:17,000 Like, so it's both. It's being really good at 806 00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:20,520 JavaScript and being really good at making people's lives better. 807 00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:23,840 And they don't even have to know what JavaScript is to benefit 808 00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:25,440 from it. Wow. 809 00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:29,560 So I really love that because it reminds me of the past, right 810 00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:31,640 when I used to work in a bigger organization. 811 00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:35,200 It's always, you know, full of blame or maybe not just blame, 812 00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:36,360 right? It's misunderstanding. 813 00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:39,760 You know, we think other people are trying to make trouble for 814 00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:41,800 us, right? And the same thing I believe the 815 00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:45,080 other team will will also think we are making trouble for them, 816 00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:46,880 right? So I think like partnering, 817 00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:50,160 leveraging each other's skills and maybe perspectives, right 818 00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:52,560 bring into the table and come up with a better solution. 819 00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:55,320 I think it's a really good way of, you know, improving the 820 00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:57,600 collective systems thinking in the team. 821 00:51:58,000 --> 00:52:00,800 And I think you mentioned when you prepare the presentation 822 00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:02,200 that you mentioned about modelling. 823 00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:05,360 I think this is also a very useful practice. 824 00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:08,520 In fact, you mentioned it. Arguably, it might be the most 825 00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:12,480 important activity or skill set that one can do in order to 826 00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:16,200 improve the system syncing. So maybe tell us why modelling 827 00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:20,560 is so important and should we practice more modelling inside 828 00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:22,920 our, you know, day-to-day work in the tech industry? 829 00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:28,200 OK, so I have, I want to say one more follow up for the last one, 830 00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:31,400 then I'll answer your question. But at the moment I'm distracted 831 00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:36,360 by, so I'm just starting my next book and I'm like, Henry, will 832 00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:39,400 you please be a reviewer in the book to give feedback? 833 00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:45,680 Because your questions are exactly structured to really 834 00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:50,120 help people understand how to build the skill set. 835 00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:53,000 So I'm like, yeah, I love these questions. 836 00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:56,000 These questions I want now I'm going when I watch, I'm going to 837 00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:58,880 write them down being I'm going to make a talk that answers them 838 00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:02,360 in this order because this is the best order of questions. 839 00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:06,400 So thank you for that. The one follow up I want to 840 00:53:06,560 --> 00:53:08,560 have, because this is really important. 841 00:53:09,240 --> 00:53:12,240 I say partnering, I say collaboration. 842 00:53:12,240 --> 00:53:16,240 I say these things. I don't mean them in a Kumbaya 843 00:53:16,240 --> 00:53:18,680 summer camp. We all live in peace. 844 00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:24,040 Oftentimes the other team, the other person, they are trying to 845 00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:26,200 make trouble for you. They are. 846 00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:32,960 And we often work with people who are being mean and bullying 847 00:53:32,960 --> 00:53:34,800 and awful. That is true. 848 00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:39,920 In that situation, you can't do systems thinking like that's a 849 00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:42,560 political problem. That's a behavioral problem. 850 00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:47,360 So one of the things, especially being an outlier in tech, there 851 00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:50,320 aren't very many people. There are very few people who do 852 00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:54,240 what I do, who look like me. What that means is that people 853 00:53:54,240 --> 00:53:59,000 presume that I want to be the glue role, that everyone gets a 854 00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:03,840 long role. I do not want to be that, and 855 00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:06,280 I'm not particularly good at that. 856 00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:13,560 But also, I think that people feel I suspect I'd get more of 857 00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:17,320 the bad behavior than other people might, and I suspect that 858 00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:20,520 I sometimes have to work harder to convince people to pay 859 00:54:20,520 --> 00:54:22,800 attention to me. That's not great. 860 00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:27,800 My point being, though, I don't want to suggest if we just 861 00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:30,720 collaborate, yay, everything will work. 862 00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:37,480 We also have to fire the people who refuse to create social 863 00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:42,000 learning and we we have to move away from the 10X developer can 864 00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:44,960 be the worst person in the world, but as long as they're 865 00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:49,200 delivering code, they're productive because that ignores 866 00:54:49,200 --> 00:54:52,720 all the emotional labor everybody has to do every single 867 00:54:52,720 --> 00:54:55,640 time they have to have a meeting with that person, right? 868 00:54:55,920 --> 00:54:59,960 So I mentioned the partnering, but I left out the fact that 869 00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:03,720 both hearts have to be consenting to do that. 870 00:55:03,720 --> 00:55:07,600 I don't mean try and get people being hateful to work with you. 871 00:55:08,760 --> 00:55:11,840 No, the people being hateful need to stop being hateful. 872 00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:16,400 We talk about cat herding roles. Nobody gets to be a cat. 873 00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:18,800 That's not what systems thinking is. 874 00:55:18,920 --> 00:55:20,960 It's not changing hearts and minds. 875 00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:23,360 Change your own mind. That's your job. 876 00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:26,800 That's not my job. So this willingness at the heart 877 00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:31,960 it, it really, it matters. And so I said that and now I 878 00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:33,480 forgot. Oh, modeling question. 879 00:55:33,480 --> 00:55:39,120 The modeling question. OK, so the again, we're going, 880 00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:41,720 there's a war of what modeling is, right? 881 00:55:41,720 --> 00:55:45,120 Is it C4 diagrams? Oh, it's not UML anymore. 882 00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:47,280 I've learned I'm supposed to hate UML. 883 00:55:47,440 --> 00:55:49,600 I actually like UML. It's useful. 884 00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:51,960 I mean, not for everything, but there's some things. 885 00:55:52,520 --> 00:55:59,160 So I don't necessarily mean a specific model, boxes and lines, 886 00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:05,000 although I do a lot of it. I mean open a mirror board, or 887 00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:08,520 even better if you're in person, an actual whiteboard and when 888 00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:11,920 you're trying to solve a problem, try and model the 889 00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:15,640 problem. I also mean use things like 890 00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:19,520 event storming to understand systemic issues, which is 891 00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:21,600 something absolutely worth Googling. 892 00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:27,360 I mean, if you're trying to figure out what is our fast 893 00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:31,160 package delivery, do it in a in a model. 894 00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:37,760 Because we get so entrenched in language and our communication 895 00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:42,240 styles and often we think we understand each other. 896 00:56:42,240 --> 00:56:45,400 We think we're saying the same thing, but we're not. 897 00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:51,040 If I go into a room of 6 people and say we're going to be agile, 898 00:56:52,280 --> 00:56:56,720 there are 6 reactions to what I'd said and they are completely 899 00:56:56,720 --> 00:56:59,640 different universes. The one person's like yay and 900 00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:01,560 one person's like I will murder you. 901 00:57:01,560 --> 00:57:03,680 And then there's like all the things in between. 902 00:57:03,880 --> 00:57:05,960 And then three people say you mean Jira. 903 00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:08,160 Like no, I don't mean Jira, right? 904 00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:12,440 So like we often think we're solving the same problem and 905 00:57:12,440 --> 00:57:15,320 when we're going around and around and we're bike shedding, 906 00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,840 usually it's because we have completely different mental 907 00:57:18,840 --> 00:57:21,880 models of what we're doing. We're just not looking at the 908 00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:26,560 same thing. So just having a conversation, 909 00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:31,480 but including the visual element, moving things around, 910 00:57:31,920 --> 00:57:35,000 making relationships. If you or if you're having a 911 00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:37,360 conversation, we're having discourse. 912 00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:40,560 We don't really understand the relationship between the ideas 913 00:57:40,560 --> 00:57:44,800 we're sharing. But if you have 3 stickies and I 914 00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:49,440 have 3 stickies, we're seeing if there's a relationship, the mind 915 00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:53,600 just automatically thinks about the relationship between those 916 00:57:53,600 --> 00:57:56,360 six stickies. So you've taken a step into 917 00:57:56,360 --> 00:58:00,560 systems thinking as soon as you have two stickies and then you 918 00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:03,040 think, well, are they the same? Are they different? 919 00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:07,280 Are they? And so modeling is really, it's 920 00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:12,320 a conversation. Modeling isn't reality because 921 00:58:12,320 --> 00:58:15,000 you can only ever Model 1 point of view. 922 00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:20,280 Modeling is defeasible, meaning I can only draw what I 923 00:58:20,280 --> 00:58:23,880 understand right now, but next week it will look different. 924 00:58:25,040 --> 00:58:29,280 I don't mean North Star model like I'm going to show the 925 00:58:29,280 --> 00:58:31,880 engineers what you're building. Here's a model, go build that 926 00:58:31,880 --> 00:58:35,400 because that's dumb. That doesn't work. 927 00:58:35,680 --> 00:58:41,160 But I do mean that instead of just writing bullet points and 928 00:58:41,160 --> 00:58:44,480 lists of requirements and when you're making these kinds of 929 00:58:44,480 --> 00:58:47,520 decisions or you're understanding a systems problem, 930 00:58:47,840 --> 00:58:52,800 use visual language, use shapes, use lines, relationships, when 931 00:58:52,800 --> 00:58:57,560 you're trying to work together. This is how the product person 932 00:58:57,560 --> 00:59:00,640 and I discovered that we have the same pain. 933 00:59:01,240 --> 00:59:06,520 But when we talked about it, we talked about how much I suffer 934 00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:10,880 because of her point of view, and she suffers because of my 935 00:59:10,880 --> 00:59:13,840 point of view. And what, when we modelled it, 936 00:59:13,840 --> 00:59:15,560 we saw a completely different reality. 937 00:59:16,920 --> 00:59:20,080 Yeah. Yeah, this is like the funny 938 00:59:20,080 --> 00:59:22,640 maybe cartoon, right? Where people draw different 939 00:59:22,640 --> 00:59:24,640 shapes of, you know, the requirements, right? 940 00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:27,720 Some draw triangle, some draw maybe circle, some draw squares 941 00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:31,280 or also the other analogies like you are touching elephant in 942 00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:34,240 different sides, right? People describe elephant in the 943 00:59:34,240 --> 00:59:36,840 different ways, right. So I think modeling is an 944 00:59:36,840 --> 00:59:39,640 exercise for you to actually align kind of like the same 945 00:59:39,640 --> 00:59:42,600 perspective, same understanding. I think it's always great to 946 00:59:42,600 --> 00:59:45,640 have this exercise. In fact, every time I have, you 947 00:59:45,640 --> 00:59:48,080 know, requirement issue, it's always about different 948 00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:50,520 perspective, right? It's about different, you think 949 00:59:50,520 --> 00:59:54,200 different and I think different. And if we can come up with a 950 00:59:54,200 --> 00:59:57,000 model that we agree and align together, I think that will 951 00:59:57,000 --> 00:59:59,320 improve our understanding about the problem. 952 01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:03,680 No, you're just the so model can be text too. 953 01:00:03,720 --> 01:00:06,440 I was just thinking because I was having this conversation 954 01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:11,520 yesterday, how a JIRA ticket, a ticket, however we do work, 955 01:00:11,520 --> 01:00:13,720 right? That's actually a model. 956 01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:17,600 Even if we don't use shapes, every artifact we create, 957 01:00:17,600 --> 01:00:21,600 anytime we're sharing the concept, we are making a model. 958 01:00:21,920 --> 01:00:24,840 And one of the things that I really learned. 959 01:00:25,600 --> 01:00:30,200 My most recent team I built got to build it and so I brought in 960 01:00:30,200 --> 01:00:34,200 people that I know we can do something really hard together, 961 01:00:34,360 --> 01:00:36,720 new complex because it was a big challenge. 962 01:00:37,480 --> 01:00:42,160 What I discovered is if there are six of us, if I write a 963 01:00:42,160 --> 01:00:47,360 ticket to describe what it is that we need to build, I would 964 01:00:47,360 --> 01:00:53,040 write 6 completely different tickets depending on who was 965 01:00:53,040 --> 01:00:57,840 going to pick up the story. Like Claire loves, loves lots of 966 01:00:57,840 --> 01:00:59,800 detail, right? Loves lots of detail. 967 01:00:59,960 --> 01:01:03,400 But for another engineer, I don't even need to say much 968 01:01:03,600 --> 01:01:08,040 because he works best if he can then have the discussions and 969 01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:10,600 think about the problem and write his own ticket. 970 01:01:10,760 --> 01:01:13,800 And that's true for a lot of us. I think a lot of us would do 971 01:01:13,800 --> 01:01:19,120 better if we could write our own ticket, if we could say, here's 972 01:01:19,120 --> 01:01:24,480 the information I need to think well and then take that and have 973 01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:29,080 any follow-ups, ask any questions and decide how to 974 01:01:29,080 --> 01:01:33,040 approach the work. So I wanted just to interject 975 01:01:33,040 --> 01:01:38,080 that a model, I mean shapes and such, but that even the way that 976 01:01:38,080 --> 01:01:40,840 we describe a piece of work is a model. 977 01:01:41,120 --> 01:01:46,760 And that being flexible with how you have these discussions to 978 01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:50,640 fit the brains of people who are going to be making these micro 979 01:01:50,640 --> 01:01:56,520 decisions benefits the outcome. Because you get better outcomes 980 01:01:56,520 --> 01:02:00,600 when people get information the way that their brains process 981 01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:04,200 that information. So that sorry that was my add 982 01:02:04,200 --> 01:02:06,400 on. Yeah, very good addition in 983 01:02:06,400 --> 01:02:09,000 fact, right. So I think that's a very, I 984 01:02:09,000 --> 01:02:11,440 would say it's a good insight, right, because people interpret 985 01:02:11,440 --> 01:02:14,160 things differently. People like details on some like 986 01:02:14,400 --> 01:02:16,920 maybe more abstract, more visuals, right, I think. 987 01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:19,040 Yeah. Thanks for adding that into your 988 01:02:19,040 --> 01:02:21,840 explanation. So I was about to ask one thing 989 01:02:21,840 --> 01:02:25,120 that is probably can be a big disruption these days in the 990 01:02:25,120 --> 01:02:29,080 systems thinking, maybe the introduction of AI with all this 991 01:02:29,400 --> 01:02:31,240 kind of systemic problem that could happen. 992 01:02:31,560 --> 01:02:34,760 So maybe in your view, right, as a system thinker, what do you 993 01:02:34,760 --> 01:02:37,880 think would happen if let's say people start to use more AI or 994 01:02:37,880 --> 01:02:40,920 AI become more entrenched in many of the things that we are 995 01:02:40,920 --> 01:02:44,800 doing these days? Yeah, So that's a big question, 996 01:02:45,000 --> 01:02:48,240 a common question. I will say, Speaking of 997 01:02:48,240 --> 01:02:53,400 metacognition and knowing one's own mind, I'm a relatively late 998 01:02:53,400 --> 01:02:56,560 adopter. People would say AI and I'd say 999 01:02:56,560 --> 01:02:59,480 you mean fancy search. There you go. 1000 01:02:59,600 --> 01:03:01,600 AI can do that. Do you mean fancy search? 1001 01:03:02,120 --> 01:03:04,880 And because it's not intelligence, right. 1002 01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:10,680 So also, I've been in tech long enough to see we are so trendy, 1003 01:03:11,080 --> 01:03:14,280 were so trendy. We're like, this is the best 1004 01:03:14,280 --> 01:03:18,120 thing ever. And then this is the worst thing 1005 01:03:18,120 --> 01:03:20,200 ever. Like my joke now is that 1006 01:03:20,280 --> 01:03:24,200 apparently agile is causing climate change based on how much 1007 01:03:24,200 --> 01:03:27,440 people hate it. But I remember when it was the 1008 01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:30,000 silver bullet that everybody wanted, right? 1009 01:03:30,720 --> 01:03:35,640 So with AI, I've had a little bit of like, I think we all have 1010 01:03:36,320 --> 01:03:41,480 the perception of what AI can do and what it actually can do are 1011 01:03:41,480 --> 01:03:46,800 far enough apart that I get frustrated with all the 1012 01:03:47,160 --> 01:03:51,720 organizational adoption of AI that is not actually going to 1013 01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:56,480 solve their problems. And so I'm like, so just a 1014 01:03:56,480 --> 01:04:01,360 caveat with I'm in it now and I'm developing my skill, but 1015 01:04:01,360 --> 01:04:04,920 there are other people out there that actually have more 1016 01:04:04,920 --> 01:04:09,360 expertise and answer this question I think with more 1017 01:04:09,440 --> 01:04:13,840 knowledge than I do. What I can say though is that 1018 01:04:13,840 --> 01:04:16,320 systems thinking is about inference. 1019 01:04:16,920 --> 01:04:22,600 If I have an idea and I tell you my 3 reasons for doing it, the 1020 01:04:22,600 --> 01:04:28,400 thing that makes that idea strong is the relationship 1021 01:04:28,400 --> 01:04:33,840 between the reasons. How you can say if this and this 1022 01:04:34,040 --> 01:04:39,600 and this, then of course that, that's inference that and that 1023 01:04:39,600 --> 01:04:42,040 relationship. So if we think of a graph 1024 01:04:42,040 --> 01:04:46,440 database, we think in nodes, we think in objects and data 1025 01:04:46,440 --> 01:04:52,320 objects. But decisions, tech, software, 1026 01:04:52,320 --> 01:04:54,680 thinking, all of that is about the nodes. 1027 01:04:54,680 --> 01:04:59,080 It's about the relationships between them and what those 1028 01:04:59,080 --> 01:05:05,440 relationships signify, and AI can't do that unless it's told 1029 01:05:05,440 --> 01:05:09,840 to do that or unless we've juxtaposed. 1030 01:05:10,720 --> 01:05:14,960 We juxtaposed Taylor Swift and singing in all the information. 1031 01:05:14,960 --> 01:05:20,120 So AI knows that Taylor Swift is a singer, but that's not really 1032 01:05:20,120 --> 01:05:23,880 inference as much as it's those things are next to each other 1033 01:05:23,880 --> 01:05:27,880 all the time. So I have a colleague, Abraham, 1034 01:05:27,880 --> 01:05:31,520 who gives a wonderful talk on AI for architecture. 1035 01:05:31,840 --> 01:05:34,440 I'll send it to you. Maybe we can include it in the 1036 01:05:34,600 --> 01:05:37,080 comment piece. But he does a great job of 1037 01:05:37,080 --> 01:05:41,880 showing how AI can really help us and also what its limitations 1038 01:05:41,880 --> 01:05:44,600 are for architecture and problem solving. 1039 01:05:44,840 --> 01:05:49,920 And a lot of it is inference. And in the talk, he makes a 1040 01:05:49,920 --> 01:05:54,880 think tank with Mel Conway and Matthew Skelton, someone else 1041 01:05:54,880 --> 01:05:57,480 and me. And so I'm sitting in the top 1042 01:05:57,480 --> 01:06:01,640 the first time I saw it, and I'm watching what AI thinks. 1043 01:06:01,640 --> 01:06:05,600 I'll say when it's answered a question about what would Diana 1044 01:06:05,600 --> 01:06:09,240 recommend? And I'm like, am I that lame? 1045 01:06:09,600 --> 01:06:15,040 Am I that lame in life? Like it made me so lame and it 1046 01:06:15,040 --> 01:06:18,080 made me lame because it doesn't understand. 1047 01:06:18,160 --> 01:06:22,160 It depends, right? It doesn't understand that what 1048 01:06:22,160 --> 01:06:28,680 I would say would be based on exploring a particular situation 1049 01:06:29,400 --> 01:06:32,840 and not just saying sociotechnical. 1050 01:06:33,040 --> 01:06:35,600 It's sociotechnical. That's the thing, right? 1051 01:06:36,280 --> 01:06:42,840 So in terms of what we're talking about, I think that I'm 1052 01:06:42,840 --> 01:06:48,680 rightly not a fan of AI to help us much in that way because it's 1053 01:06:48,680 --> 01:06:56,640 actually what it doesn't do. That said, Oh my goodness, AI is 1054 01:06:56,640 --> 01:07:01,560 so much better at summarizing me than I am at summarizing me. 1055 01:07:01,800 --> 01:07:07,640 And AI is so fast connecting complex ideas. 1056 01:07:07,640 --> 01:07:14,880 So for example, if I were to say who out there is thinking about 1057 01:07:14,880 --> 01:07:17,760 systems and teaching about systems and what's their point 1058 01:07:17,760 --> 01:07:21,800 of view and how does it relate to these 4 chapters in my book, 1059 01:07:22,880 --> 01:07:25,520 it would take me months to do that research. 1060 01:07:25,680 --> 01:07:29,840 Now some of it is wrong and it's missing people that should be 1061 01:07:29,840 --> 01:07:33,800 there. So I still have to, I still need 1062 01:07:33,800 --> 01:07:37,560 knowledge to know that AI is wrong and limited and bias. 1063 01:07:37,880 --> 01:07:39,960 But that's true. Whenever we talk to other 1064 01:07:39,960 --> 01:07:43,200 people, we have our own. So AI is just a very smart 1065 01:07:43,200 --> 01:07:46,760 person that has more knowledge than most. 1066 01:07:46,760 --> 01:07:48,840 But is it knowledge or is it information? 1067 01:07:49,440 --> 01:07:52,760 And that's, I think the really big thing is that we say 1068 01:07:52,760 --> 01:07:56,640 intelligence and we say knowledge and I'm not sure it's 1069 01:07:56,640 --> 01:08:00,480 knowledge or intelligence. I think it's just very well 1070 01:08:00,480 --> 01:08:05,080 crafted information. So I do think that it's broke. 1071 01:08:05,080 --> 01:08:08,360 I've asked code questions and it's broke my code as often as 1072 01:08:08,360 --> 01:08:12,000 it's fixed it. But also it's very quick to 1073 01:08:12,000 --> 01:08:16,200 point out things I don't know. It's very quick to show me how 1074 01:08:16,200 --> 01:08:20,279 things are related. I had to write a bio for my and 1075 01:08:20,279 --> 01:08:24,120 I hate writing a bio for myself. I asked it to give me 4 BIOS of 1076 01:08:24,120 --> 01:08:26,800 me and I'm like, I'm really cool. 1077 01:08:27,200 --> 01:08:29,640 That's really good. Like I like right? 1078 01:08:29,640 --> 01:08:34,600 Because it knows best practices for language, for structuring 1079 01:08:34,600 --> 01:08:38,760 language and things like that. So I was a writer before I went 1080 01:08:38,760 --> 01:08:42,560 into tech and I quit writing. I was tired of being poor. 1081 01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:47,120 And I also wanted to do, I wanted to use my university 1082 01:08:47,120 --> 01:08:50,720 learning. So I moved to Austin, TX, where 1083 01:08:50,720 --> 01:08:53,680 all the cool tech was happening so that I could really just 1084 01:08:54,000 --> 01:08:58,240 focus on my career. And then, ha, ha, ha, as a 1085 01:08:58,240 --> 01:09:03,200 systems architect, I write a lot because language is what how we 1086 01:09:03,200 --> 01:09:06,200 communicate, right? And then I wrote a book and then 1087 01:09:06,720 --> 01:09:10,720 I didn't quit anything. But the structure, the way we 1088 01:09:10,720 --> 01:09:13,520 structure code, the way we structure language, these are 1089 01:09:13,520 --> 01:09:17,960 all very similar. We're doing an informal logic 1090 01:09:17,960 --> 01:09:21,880 where there's not one right way. We figure out sort of the best 1091 01:09:21,880 --> 01:09:26,600 way. And so AI where a lot of us 1092 01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:32,279 struggle with using spoken language or informal language to 1093 01:09:32,279 --> 01:09:35,880 describe our ideas. I'm sad to say 'cause I wanted 1094 01:09:35,880 --> 01:09:38,920 to hate it, but I think AI can really help us with that. 1095 01:09:39,080 --> 01:09:41,359 Not wholesale, not cut and paste. 1096 01:09:41,600 --> 01:09:45,120 And sometimes, like I have a friend who she writes a talk 1097 01:09:45,120 --> 01:09:48,240 abstract and then she asks AI for the titles and then she 1098 01:09:48,240 --> 01:09:52,120 makes sure she doesn't use those titles because those will be 1099 01:09:52,120 --> 01:09:54,840 like marketing speak like because it comes from the 1100 01:09:54,840 --> 01:09:59,400 Internet, Like they'll be awful. So you can even use it as an 1101 01:09:59,400 --> 01:10:03,800 example of what too many emojis and exclamation points in your 1102 01:10:03,800 --> 01:10:06,680 writing look like. But I think it can help us 1103 01:10:06,680 --> 01:10:13,080 communicate our ideas better and it can help us to bring in other 1104 01:10:13,080 --> 01:10:16,080 perspectives we don't know exist, and then we can go 1105 01:10:16,080 --> 01:10:18,760 explore them. So in that way, I think it's a 1106 01:10:18,760 --> 01:10:21,560 good partner and it's still fancy search. 1107 01:10:23,440 --> 01:10:26,800 Right, thank you for giving like such a balanced view about AI, 1108 01:10:26,800 --> 01:10:29,200 right. I I really think like this is AI 1109 01:10:29,200 --> 01:10:32,360 is going to be like one elements that we need to understand in 1110 01:10:32,360 --> 01:10:35,800 order to really understand the systems, how the systems work, 1111 01:10:35,800 --> 01:10:38,360 right, Because so many people leverage AI these days, right? 1112 01:10:38,360 --> 01:10:41,320 And sometimes they don't Fact Check, they just copy and paste, 1113 01:10:41,320 --> 01:10:43,120 right? And it creates, I don't know, 1114 01:10:43,120 --> 01:10:46,480 like impact into the downstream or maybe to the other things 1115 01:10:46,480 --> 01:10:49,040 that generates, right, The result that AI produce, it gets 1116 01:10:49,560 --> 01:10:52,360 used by other things, other systems or other person, right? 1117 01:10:52,680 --> 01:10:56,840 And I think the systemic impact is gonna be a bit difficult to 1118 01:10:56,840 --> 01:10:59,680 reason about because you don't know where it comes from, right? 1119 01:10:59,680 --> 01:11:01,560 The inference is missing like what you said. 1120 01:11:01,960 --> 01:11:03,680 So I think thanks for giving that perspective. 1121 01:11:04,520 --> 01:11:08,280 So Diana, unfortunately due to the time we have to finish our 1122 01:11:08,280 --> 01:11:11,040 conversation, but before I let you go, I have one last question 1123 01:11:11,040 --> 01:11:13,760 that I would like to ask you, which I call the Tree Technical 1124 01:11:13,760 --> 01:11:16,120 Edition wisdom. Think of it just like advice 1125 01:11:16,120 --> 01:11:18,800 that you want to give to us. So maybe if you can share your 1126 01:11:18,800 --> 01:11:21,000 version to us? Yeah. 1127 01:11:21,200 --> 01:11:27,440 So repeating the theme, you get more bees with honey, that kind 1128 01:11:27,440 --> 01:11:31,120 of thing that like maybe we just be like a little bit more 1129 01:11:31,120 --> 01:11:35,960 patient and kind with each other because we're all doing hard 1130 01:11:35,960 --> 01:11:40,520 things and especially there's a lot going on in the world. 1131 01:11:40,520 --> 01:11:45,160 There's I'm in the US, there's a lot going on here and that maybe 1132 01:11:45,160 --> 01:11:47,920 we just make a little more space for each other. 1133 01:11:48,440 --> 01:11:54,080 That one partnering with skills you don't have gives you more 1134 01:11:54,080 --> 01:11:57,280 impact and influence. It's a good thing for you. 1135 01:11:57,280 --> 01:12:00,680 Like it makes you better and it makes you more trustworthy. 1136 01:12:00,920 --> 01:12:06,920 So definitely worth doing and the value of deep work, of 1137 01:12:06,920 --> 01:12:10,240 knowledge work. Like I go back to the perennial 1138 01:12:10,240 --> 01:12:15,160 question, how many of us are trying to fight for three or 1139 01:12:15,160 --> 01:12:18,040 four hours a day where we've just put on our headphones and 1140 01:12:18,040 --> 01:12:22,880 focus and do hard things, challenging things, creative 1141 01:12:22,880 --> 01:12:26,640 things, not just fulfill tickets, but really try and 1142 01:12:26,640 --> 01:12:33,240 solve problems and really use our minds to generate new 1143 01:12:33,240 --> 01:12:35,840 thinking. I wouldn't go all the way to say 1144 01:12:35,840 --> 01:12:38,640 because I've also had people who have that all day and then they 1145 01:12:38,640 --> 01:12:41,160 have 15 minutes stand up and they complain because they don't 1146 01:12:41,160 --> 01:12:43,600 want to be there for 15 minutes. It's because they don't want to 1147 01:12:43,840 --> 01:12:48,400 socialize at all. So not to that extent, but yeah, 1148 01:12:48,760 --> 01:12:54,120 be a little kinder, do deep work and improve your skills by 1149 01:12:54,120 --> 01:12:57,680 partnering and leveraging skills, other people's skills, 1150 01:12:57,680 --> 01:13:01,600 because that's the magic that helps you. 1151 01:13:02,920 --> 01:13:06,080 Last thought, the number one question I get asked when I 1152 01:13:06,080 --> 01:13:11,520 teach is what do I do about the fact that nobody listens to me? 1153 01:13:12,120 --> 01:13:15,960 This is our number one pain. What do I do about the fact that 1154 01:13:15,960 --> 01:13:20,400 no one listens to me and I feel that pain? 1155 01:13:21,120 --> 01:13:25,520 Oh my gosh, so much. And so those three things 1156 01:13:25,520 --> 01:13:28,480 together are at least towards that answer. 1157 01:13:28,600 --> 01:13:30,160 It will help people listen to you. 1158 01:13:30,400 --> 01:13:34,360 And we really do want to be able to share our ideas and have a 1159 01:13:34,360 --> 01:13:38,280 positive impact in the world. Lovely piece of wisdom. 1160 01:13:38,280 --> 01:13:40,440 Thank you for sharing that. It's a lovely message. 1161 01:13:41,040 --> 01:13:44,200 So Diana, if people want to connect with you, ask you more 1162 01:13:44,200 --> 01:13:48,200 questions, maybe find out resources about systems 1163 01:13:48,200 --> 01:13:50,600 thinking, is there a place where they can find you online? 1164 01:13:51,720 --> 01:13:57,640 Yeah, so I'm Diana Montelian, my name on LinkedIn and just the 1165 01:13:57,640 --> 01:14:00,480 Fetaverse, so Mastodon and Blue Sky. 1166 01:14:01,040 --> 01:14:05,160 And there's a site, Learning Systems Thinking that tells 1167 01:14:05,160 --> 01:14:08,920 about the book. My company is mentrixgroup.com 1168 01:14:09,200 --> 01:14:12,520 and that will show also I have a blog. 1169 01:14:13,280 --> 01:14:16,880 The best way, my favorite way is I do a fair amount of speaking 1170 01:14:16,880 --> 01:14:20,120 and workshops and I have a community System Crafters 1171 01:14:20,120 --> 01:14:24,440 Collective that we're building were for people all of us out 1172 01:14:24,440 --> 01:14:27,760 there that say no one listens to us to get together and talk 1173 01:14:27,760 --> 01:14:31,480 about how to do those. So joining System Crafters 1174 01:14:31,480 --> 01:14:35,280 Collective, following and asking, especially on LinkedIn 1175 01:14:35,640 --> 01:14:40,480 and ideally in person. If you are somewhere that I am 1176 01:14:40,520 --> 01:14:44,840 and you've listened to this, I'd love to come up and introduce 1177 01:14:44,840 --> 01:14:47,360 yourself. And I love hallway chats. 1178 01:14:47,360 --> 01:14:50,520 We can talk more about some of these ideas. 1179 01:14:50,840 --> 01:14:52,920 Reading the book too. Reading the book is a good 1180 01:14:52,920 --> 01:14:55,720 thing. I forget to mention that or 1181 01:14:55,720 --> 01:14:57,640 people in the comments would be like, oh, she wrote a book, 1182 01:14:57,640 --> 01:14:58,840 She's just pitching the book now. 1183 01:14:58,840 --> 01:15:00,960 I wrote a book because I'm in pain and so are you. 1184 01:15:01,280 --> 01:15:04,240 So let's figure out together how to solve that. 1185 01:15:04,680 --> 01:15:06,920 Yeah, so I can highly recommend the book as well. 1186 01:15:06,920 --> 01:15:10,000 So I think it's rare to find systems thinking book, right. 1187 01:15:10,000 --> 01:15:12,680 Donnella middles book is one that always get referenced, but 1188 01:15:12,680 --> 01:15:15,480 something that is new with perspective of tech. 1189 01:15:15,680 --> 01:15:18,320 I think learning systems thinking is one book that I can 1190 01:15:18,320 --> 01:15:20,160 recommend. So thank you for your time Diana 1191 01:15:20,160 --> 01:15:21,520 today. It's been a pleasant talk. 1192 01:15:21,520 --> 01:15:23,240 So thanks for all the insights today. 1193 01:15:23,640 --> 01:15:25,440 Thank you, Henry. Thank you so much. 1194 01:15:25,440 --> 01:15:27,600 Thank you for the questions. They were terrific.