4. 5 minutes
• Yay! Groups of 4!
• Create sticky notes with commonalities
between barbarians and people practicing
agile software development
• Create sticky notes with commonalities
between civilizations and large organisations
15. The difference
Exploration
• Barbarian
• Finding a business model
• Complex domain
• Value discovery
• Creativity and collaboration
• Bottom-up intelligence
Exploitation
• Bureaucracy/Civilization
• Running a business model
• Complicated domain
• Value extraction
• Rules and Procedures
• Top-down control
16. “You never change things by
fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new
model that makes the existing
model obsolete.”
― R. Buckminster Fuller
25. 5 minutes
• Yay! Groups of 4!
• What are the implications of this for me doing
Agile Software Development?
26. For me personally
• Don’t try to change organisations that have an
exploitation purpose (most do)
• Don’t fight bureacracy, it serves a purpose
• Find your barbarians of the exploring variety, not
the rent-seeking kind
• Stay in areas where the cycle can speed up
• Conquest is always from within
Barbarians have been here forever (the huns, the mongols, the scottish clan)
Responsible for a lot of inventions
Rome, the ultimate civilizational archetype
Barbarian/agile:
Conquest
Low ceremony
Leadership
Streetsmart
Discovery
Flexible
Swift
Nimble
Civilications/large organisations
Control
Procedures
Rules
Static
Hierarchical
Let’s frame this agile versus bureacracy
Bureacracy is everywhere
Not just government, companies are just as bad
They are interwoven
Do we examine the purpose of bureacracy?
Do we think about the implications of it?
Could we do without?
Bureacracy serves a purpose.
Easily repeatable value extraction
Intelligence no longer needed
Just operate the machinery
Ultimately rests on the threat of violence
The violence is invisible, as opposed to barbarians
It has invaded our civilizations
If ever there was a Matrix, this is it
The office according to the Office: Explain
Ask if people have questions?
Explain, ask if people have questions
Of the rent-seeking variety
Fractal cycle
Everything is from within nowadays
Might stabilize
Improved communication
Improved job mobility
Improved geographical mobility
Lower marginal costs to start with, sometimes converging to zero
Large machinery slows speeding up the cycle
Do not misunderstand the purpose of an organisation
Don’t be clueless!
This is why our stories are so appealing!
But mind you, there looking for ways to augment their capabilities, not replace them
Speeding explore exploit cycle
Tinkering walhalla
A hack is a creative local exploit
