Emergence: Babies and Bathwater, Plans and Planning



“Emergent” is a word that I run into from time to time. When I do run into it, I’m reminded of an exchange from the movie Gallipoli:

Archy Hamilton: I’ll see you when I see you.
Frank Dunne: Yeah. Not if I see you first.

The reason for my ambivalent relationship with the word is that it’s frequently used in a sense that doesn’t actually fit its definition. Dictionary.com defines it like this:


1. coming into view or notice; issuing.
2. emerging; rising from a liquid or other surrounding medium.
3. coming into existence, especially with political independence: the emergent nations of Africa.
4. arising casually or unexpectedly.
5. calling for immediate action; urgent.
6. Evolution. displaying emergence.


7. Ecology. an aquatic plant having its stem, leaves, etc., extending above the surface of the water.

Most of the adjective definitions apply to planning and design (which I consider to be a specialized form of planning). Number 3 is somewhat tenuous for that sense and and 5 only applies sometimes, but 6 is dead on.

My problem, however, starts when it’s used as a euphemism for a directionless. The idea that a cohesive, coherent result will “emerge” from responding tactically (whether in software development or in managing a business) is, in my opinion, a dangerous one. I’ve never heard an explanation of how strategic success emerges from uncoordinated tactical excellence that doesn’t eventually come down to faith. It’s why I started tagging posts on the subject “Intentional vs Accidental Architecture”. Success that arises from lack of coordination is accidental rather than by design (not to mention ironic when the lack of intentional coordination or planning/design is intentional itself):



The problem, of course, is do you want to be at the “there” you wind up at? There’s also the issue of cost associated with a meandering path when a more direct route was available.

None of this, however, should be taken as a rejection of emergence. In fact, a dogmatic attachment to a plan in the face of emergent facts is as problematic as pursuing an accidental approach. Placing your faith in a plan that has been invalidated by circumstances is as blinkered an approach as refusing to plan at all. Neither extreme makes much sense.

We lack the ability to foresee everything that can occur, but that limit does not mean that we should ignore what we can foresee. A purely tactical focus can lead us down obvious blind alleys that will be more costly to back out of in the long run. Experience is an excellent teacher, but the tuition is expensive. In other words, learning from our mistakes is good, but learning from other’s mistakes is better.

Darwinian evolution can produce lead to some amazing things provided you can spare millions of years and lots of failed attempts. An intentional approach allows you to tip the scales in your favor.

Many thanks to Andrew Campbell and Adrian Campbell for the multi-day twitter conversation that spawned this post. Normally, I unplug from almost all social media on the weekends, but I enjoyed the discussion so much I bent the rules. Cheers gentlemen!

Managing Fast and Slow

Tortoise and Hare Illustration

People have a complicated relationship with the concept of cause and effect. In spite of the old saying about the insanity of doing the same old thing looking for a different result, we hope against hope that this time it will work. Sometimes we inject unnecessary complexity into what should be very simple tasks, other times we over-simplify looking for shortcuts to success. Greger Wikstrand recently spoke to one aspect of this in his post “Cargo cult innovation, play buzzword bingo to spot it” (part of our ongoing conversion on innovation):

I am not saying that there is no basis of truth in what they say. The problem is that innovation is much more complex than they would have you believe. If you fall for the siren song of cargo cult innovationism, you will have all the effort and all the trouble of real innovation work but you will have none of the benefits.

I ran across an interesting example of this kind of simplistic thought not long ago on Forbes, titled “The Death of Strategy”, by Bill Fischer:

Strategy is dead!

Or, is it tactics?

In a world of never-ending change, it’s either one or the other; we can no longer count on having both. As innovation accelerates its assault on what we formerly referred to as “our planning process,” and as S-curves accordingly collapse, each one on top another, time is compressed. In the rubble of what is left of our strategy structure, we find that what we’ve lost is the orderly and measured progression of time. Tim Brown, of IDEO, recently put it this way at the Global Peter Drucker Forum 2016, in Vienna: “So many things that used to have a beginning, a middle and an end, no longer have a middle or an end.” Which is gone: strategy or tactics? And, does it matter?

Without a proper middle, or end, for any initiative, the distinction between strategy and tactics blurs: tactics become strategy, especially if they are performed in a coherent and consistent fashion. Strategy, in turn, now takes place in the moment, in the form of an agglomeration of a series (or not) of tactics.

The pace of change certainly feels faster than ever before (I’m curious, though, as to when the world has not been one of “never-ending change”). However, that nugget of truth is wrapped in layers of fallacy and a huge misunderstanding of the definitions of “tactics” and “strategy”. “Tactical and Strategic Interdependence”, a commentary from the Clausewitzian viewpoint, contrasts the terms in this manner:

Both strategy and tactics depend on combat, but, and this is their essential difference, they differ in their specific connection to it. Tactics are considered “the formation and conduct of these single combats in themselves” while strategy is “the combination of them with one another, with a view to the ultimate object of the War.”[8] Through the notion of combat we begin to see the differentiation forming between tactics and strategy. Tactics deals with the discrete employment of a single combat, while strategy handles their multiplicity and interdependence. Still we need a rigorous conception. Clausewitz strictly defines “tactics [as] the theory of the use of military forces in combat,” while “Strategy is the theory of the use of combats for the object of the War.”[9] These definitions highlight the difference between the means and ends of tactics and strategy. Tactics considers the permutations of military forces, strategy the combinations of combats, actual and possible.

In other words, tactics are the day to day methods you use to do things. Strategy is how you achieve your long term goals by doing the things you do. Tactics without strategy is a pile of bricks without an idea of what you’re going to build. Strategy without tactics is an idea of what to build without a clue as to how you’d build it.

Fischer is correct that strategy executed is the “…agglomeration of a series (or not) of tactics”, but his contention that it “…now takes place in the moment…” is suspect, predicated as it is on the idea that things suddenly lack “…a proper middle or end…”. I would argue that any notion of a middle or end that was determined in advance rather than retroactively, is an artificial one. Furthermore, the idea that there are no more endings due to the pace of change is more than a little ludicrous. If anything, the faster the pace, the more likely endings become as those who can’t keep up drop out. Best of all is the line “…tactics become strategy, especially if they are performed in a coherent and consistent fashion”. Tactics performed in “…a coherent and consistent fashion” is pretty much the definition of executing a strategy (negating the premise of the article).

Flailing around without direction will not result in innovation, no matter how fast you flail. While change is inevitable, innovation is not. Innovating, making “significant positive change”, is not a matter of doing a lot of things fast and hoping for the best. Breakthroughs may occasionally be “happy accidents”, but even then are generally ones where intentional effort has been expended towards making them likely.

In today’s business environment, organizations must be moving forward just to maintain the status quo, much less innovate. This requires knowing where you are, where you’re headed, and what obstacles you’re likely to face. This assessment of your operating context is known as situational awareness. It’s not simple, because your context isn’t simple. It’s not a recipe, because your context is ever-changing. It’s not a product you can buy nor a project you can finish and be done with. It’s an ongoing, deliberate process of making sense of your context and reacting accordingly.

Situational awareness exists on multiple levels, tactical through strategic. While the pace of change is high, the relative pace between the tactical and strategic is still one of faster and slower. Adjustments to strategic goals may come more frequently, but daily changes in long-term goals would be a red flag. Not having any long-term goals would be another. Very specific, very static long-range plans are probably wasted effort, but having some idea of what you’ll be doing twelve months down the road is a healthy sign.

Situational Awareness – Where does it begin? Where does it end?

Infinity symbol

Situational awareness, according to Wikipedia, is defined as “…the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status after some variable has changed, such as time, or some other variable, such as a predetermined event”. In other words, it’s having a handle on what currently is and what is about to happen. It’s a concept that is invaluable to a wide range of interests, particularly management/leadership, architectural design, and innovation. It’s a concept that crosses levels, from tactical to strategic. Just as socio-technical systems architectures exist in a fractal space (application to solution to enterprise), so too does the concept of situational awareness. As such, it’s a common theme for this site, particularly over the last year or so.

The OODA (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) Loop, developed by Air Force Colonel John Boyd, is a framework for decision-making that explicitly incorporates situational awareness:

OODA Loop Diagram

Coupling sense-making with decision-making is critical to achieve a balance of both speed and effectiveness. In my opinion, acting without taking the state of the environment into account is a recipe for disaster. Equally important (likewise, in my opinion), is understanding the dynamic nature of situational awareness. As Boyd’s diagram above shows, it’s not a linear process. Additionally, the very nature of a loop should convey the fact that there’s neither beginning nor end. This is a key concept.

One of the sites that I follow is Slightly East of New, which is run by an associate of Boyd’s and dedicated to his theories. A recent post on that site, “The magic of the OODA loop”, related a paragraph from a sci-fi novel, The Apocalypse Codex, that referred to OODA:

Observe, orient, decide, act: words to live or die by. Right now, Persephone is disoriented — on the run, cut off. It’s time to go on the offensive, work out where she is and what’s going on, then get the hell out of this trap.

It was an interesting post, but nothing noteworthy, until I got to this comment:

I find the phrase, “…on the run, cut off.” very interesting, within the context of “disoriented”. To me, “on the run” mean a decision has been made and acted on, whereas “disorientation” usually means that one can’t make a decision.
Likewise, “cut off” is the position you find yourself in, after all the decisions have been made and, after thinking about it, it is the posture you observe yourself to be in.
In other words, on the run and cut off is not really a disorientation, but a reality.
So, while you may not survive, you have made a decision to run or you are about to make a decision and join the otherside.
I suppose it just depends on where those words show up in the narrative, as to if you made the decision or your competitor made the decision for you.

I may be over-sensitive to the phrasing, but “…decision has been made and acted on…” and “…after all the decisions have been made…” strike me as being too static and too linear. Every action/inaction follows on decision/indecision. The point “…after all the decisions have been made…” is terminal (for the person who has made all the decisions they will make). In my opinion, it is key to bear in mind that the clock is always running and that the reality being processed is already past. Too much attention to the state of what is (or rather, was) takes away from the more important task of getting to a better “to be” state. Additionally, decisions and contexts should be thought of as not just linear, but fractal (e.g. having multiple levels from tactical through strategic) as well.

Loops that have an end are no longer loops. Likewise, we have to be able to strike a balance between just focusing on what’s relevant (too much context/backstory can cause information overload) and the point where we’ve trimmed away necessary context.

Actively thinking about sense-making and decision-making can seem overly academic. The activities are so foundational to nearly everything that they can feel instinctual rather than learned. I suspect that’s a case of “familiarity breeds contempt”. Depending on the application, contempt for developing the best possible situational awareness could be fatal.

[OODA Loop diagram by Patrick Edwin Moran via Wikimedia Commons]

Capability Now, Capability Later

Mock tank, British Army in Italy, WWII


What I failed to do, however, was define what was meant by the term “capability”. That’s a pretty big oversight on my part, because, in my opinion, understanding the concept is critical across all levels of architectural concerns.

Tom Graves, in his “Definitions on capability”, defines the term (along with some related concepts):

— Capability: the ability to do something.

— Capability-based planning: planning to do something, based on capabilities that already exist, and/or that will be added to the existing suite of capabilities; also, identifying the capabilities that would be needed to implement and execute a plan.

— Capability increment: an extension to an existing capability; also, a plan to extend a capability.

— Capability map: a visual and/or textual description of (usually) an organisation’s capabilities.

Yes, I do know that those definitions are terribly bland and generic – and they need to be that way. That’s the whole point: they need to be generic enough to be valid and usable at every possible level and in every possible context – otherwise we’ll introduce yet more confusion to something that’s often way too confused already.

That last paragraph is critical. The concept of “capability” is a high-level one that is useful across multiple levels of architectural concern (ie. application, solution, enterprise IT, and the enterprise itself). Quoting Tom again:

Note what else is intentionally not in that definition of ‘capability‘:

  • there’s no actual doing – it’s just an ability to do something, not the usage of that ability
  • there’s no ‘how’ – we don’t assume anything about how that capability works, or what it’s made up of
  • there’s no ‘why‘ – we don’t assume any particular purpose
  • there’s no ‘who‘ – we don’t assume anything about who’s responsible for this capability, or where it sits in an organisational hierarchy or suchlike

We do need all of those items, of course, as we start to flesh out the details of how the capabilities would be implemented and used in real-world practice. But in the core-definition itself, we very carefully don’t – they must not be included in the definition itself.

The reason why we have to be so careful and pedantic about this is because the relationship between service, capability, function and the rest is inherently recursive and fractal: each of them contains all of the others, which in turn each contain all of the others, and so on almost to infinity. If we don’t use deliberately-generic definitions for all of those items, we get ourselves into a tangle very quickly indeed – as can be seen all too easily in the endless definitional-battles about the relationships between ‘business-function’ versus ‘business-process’ versus ‘business-service’ versus ‘business-capability’ and so on.

In short, it’s a crucial building block in our designs and plans (which is redundant, since design is a form of planning). If we don’t have and can’t get the ability to do something, it’s game over. However, as Tom noted, we need to move beyond the raw ability in order to make effective use of capabilities. We need to think timing and personnel (which will probably largely drive timing anyway). A capability later may well not be as valuable as the same capability right now.

This was brought to mind while skimming a book review on a military strategy site (emphasis added by me):

In March 2015, then-Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army General Raymond T. Odierno admitted to the British newspaper The Telegraph that the so-called special relationship between the United States and Great Britain isn’t what it used to be. “In the past we would have a British Army division working alongside an American army division,” he said, but he feared that in the future British battalions and brigades would have to operate “inside” American units. “What has changed,” Odierno declared, “is the level of capability.”

Later that week, I asked a senior British general about Odierno’s remarks. He replied, deadpan, that although Odierno’s candor was appreciated, his statement was factually incorrect. “We can still field a division,” the general insisted. “It is just a question of how long it takes us to field one.” Potential tanks, he seemed to think, were just as relevant as an actual ones.

The highlighted portion of the quote illustrates my point. Having the capability to do something immediately and the capability to do that same thing at some point in the future are not equivalent (just to be fair to the British Army, the US Army was in this same position during Operation Desert Shield – the initial ground forces that could be deployed were extremely thin). Treating them as equivalent potentially risks disaster.

It should be noted, however, that level of concern will color the perception of the value of a future capability versus a current one. At the tactical level, in business as well as in war, “…first with the most…” is likely a winning move. At the strategic level, however, where resources must be budgeted across multiple initiatives, priorities should dictate which capabilities get preference. Tactical leaders may have to be satisfied with “on time with just enough”.

Regardless of level, a clear assessment of capabilities, what’s available when, is key to making effective decisions.

Strategic Tunnel Vision

Mouth of a Tunnel








Buying into a fad can be extremely expensive.





Who Needs Architects? – When Tactics Do Not Add Up to Strategy

Death of Wladyslaw Szujski, 1914

Going into World War I, the French army had adopted a simple doctrine, attack. Attaque à outrance; attack to excess. Courage, particularly that inspired by the Poilu‘s dashing red trousers, would carry the day. Unfortunately for several million French soldiers, the plan was flawed.

It’s easy to see why this is the case in the age of machine guns and modern artillery, but it would likely have been just as ineffective without that complication. The bigger problem was that, even if the attacks had succeeded, each additional success would carry the seed of a greater defeat in the future. Each success would carry the victorious unit farther forward, making re-supply and communications that much more difficult. Each success would spread the victor that much thinner, making it more brittle to counter-attack.

Without focus, lots of little tactical successes can breed strategic defeat.

Or, as Richard Sage put it:

Lack of clarity should always be a warning sign.

It’s important to understand that while there is a relationship between goals, strategies, and tactics, there are differences as well. Seth Godin’s “Goals, strategy and tactics for change” captures both:

The Goal: Who are you trying to change? What observable actions will let you know you’ve succeeded?
The Strategy: What are the emotions you can amplify, the connections you can make that will cause someone to do something they’ve hesitated to do in the past (change)? The strategy isn’t the point, it’s the lever that helps you cause the change you seek.
The Tactics: What are the actions you take that cause the strategy to work? What are the events and interactions that, when taken together, comprise your strategy?

While he was defining the terms in the context of implementing change, the same definitions work well for software development. More than just a bag of tactics, a strategy is a set of tactics focused on attaining a goal. Just as a book is made up of words and sentences, it is also more than that. The intentional structuring of those words and sentences are what makes it a book; that is what gives it meaning. Likewise, systems are more than the sum of their parts.

A system exists via the structure and interaction of its component parts. A well designed system is one where those parts are intentionally structured so that their interaction achieves a goal effectively and efficiently. A failure to do so can impact the technical architecture of a system (taken from Tony DaSilva’s “Fragmented, Half-baked, Thoughts”):

System in Context by Tony DaSilva

While both System A and System B have been made to fit their context, is there any question as to which is more likely to have quality issues? Extensive refactoring, particularly at the architectural level, can become expensive. This leaves the owners of System B with a dilemma – how long can they tolerate the technical debt caused by the mismatch between the system and its context before the costs justify the work?

Failure to intentionally design can also manifest in the user experience. As Stephen Anderson tweeted:

As I noted in “Who Needs Architects? – Navigating the Fractals”, systems exist in contexts which exist in ecosystems. When designing for a particular level of abstraction, you must consider your context(s) and design your internal architecture accordingly. Likewise, you must consider the ecosystem in which the system will exist and design the external architecture accordingly. Avoiding intentional design (which I will note is neither BDUF nor over-engineering) might seem agile, but is in reality, a form of technical debt affecting quality, cohesion, and maintainability.

Tactical excellence focused on a goal is strategic excellence. Without the focus, however, tactical excellence is wasted.