Yes, that's very much at the heart of Klein's work - that there is a hard limit on how far things like the "Checklist Manifesto" can take you, and that for a big class of important problems you *are* going to have to rely on subjective, gestalt-like assessments, so the question ought to be "how do we make intuitions better?" rather than "how do we replace intuition?"
Excellent article. I immediately see it's application in all areas of human endeavor, including political. I agree with you Emanuel, I think that sponginess is the basis of intuition, but like the fire fighters who keep fighting when it is past time to abandon the scene, we do the same thing, we stay at the helm at the oars though the ship is sinking.
There were 5 million Jews in Europe that felt sponginess in the floors, but ignored the warning thinking, it can't really be that bad.
I see similar behavior in the U.S.A. today, half a nation thinking (wishing) that it really can't be that bad.
Vaguely related to this, a couple of years ago there was a flurry of news about various wearable items that would vibrate in ways to translate other input (vision, pattern matching by computers, etc.) via the skin. I don't have any links handy, but thought folks might be interested.
I think part of what ‘Agile’ was meant to do was to inculcate in teams an ability to estimate jobs much like ‘spongy floors’. You might not be able to articulate precisely why some unit of work (of whatever type, all the way up to entire project) feels ‘off’ but you know it when you see it.
I think this is true and for me a good indicator of where various adoptions of Agile have lost their way in some organisations is that this is not happening.
This has made me reflect on a lot of conversations I've had recently about how you 'do transformation' better. How business cases and KPIs to measure success are built around 'hard' data, but there is a lot of softer information that staff in organisations would recognise and indicators something should be done, or something was/wasnt going to be successful. It probably shows in the KPIs at some point, but the challenge is how you build confidence in acknowledging these vibes might be more important early on.
As a Brit you aught to have read about the blind boy who was taught to echolocate. It was in the BBC or Guardian. A dim memory says he died in an accident.
I read this as an argument for more respect for intuition and heuristics and not just articulated logic
Yes, that's very much at the heart of Klein's work - that there is a hard limit on how far things like the "Checklist Manifesto" can take you, and that for a big class of important problems you *are* going to have to rely on subjective, gestalt-like assessments, so the question ought to be "how do we make intuitions better?" rather than "how do we replace intuition?"
Bruce Schneier has also written about that from a security perspective: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/04/recognizing_hin_1.html
Excellent article. I immediately see it's application in all areas of human endeavor, including political. I agree with you Emanuel, I think that sponginess is the basis of intuition, but like the fire fighters who keep fighting when it is past time to abandon the scene, we do the same thing, we stay at the helm at the oars though the ship is sinking.
There were 5 million Jews in Europe that felt sponginess in the floors, but ignored the warning thinking, it can't really be that bad.
I see similar behavior in the U.S.A. today, half a nation thinking (wishing) that it really can't be that bad.
Vaguely related to this, a couple of years ago there was a flurry of news about various wearable items that would vibrate in ways to translate other input (vision, pattern matching by computers, etc.) via the skin. I don't have any links handy, but thought folks might be interested.
I think part of what ‘Agile’ was meant to do was to inculcate in teams an ability to estimate jobs much like ‘spongy floors’. You might not be able to articulate precisely why some unit of work (of whatever type, all the way up to entire project) feels ‘off’ but you know it when you see it.
I think this is true and for me a good indicator of where various adoptions of Agile have lost their way in some organisations is that this is not happening.
This has made me reflect on a lot of conversations I've had recently about how you 'do transformation' better. How business cases and KPIs to measure success are built around 'hard' data, but there is a lot of softer information that staff in organisations would recognise and indicators something should be done, or something was/wasnt going to be successful. It probably shows in the KPIs at some point, but the challenge is how you build confidence in acknowledging these vibes might be more important early on.
Echolocate!!!
As a Brit you aught to have read about the blind boy who was taught to echolocate. It was in the BBC or Guardian. A dim memory says he died in an accident.