#sociotechnical — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #sociotechnical, aggregated by home.social.
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Organisational Dysfunction of the Day
The change they stopped believing in
Context: The organisation has been through four transformations in seven years. Agile. DevOps. Product thinking. Now a platform strategy. Each time, a consultant arrived, a framework was introduced, roles were renamed, and the deck said this time it was different. Each time, the same people learned new tools, attended new ceremonies, adapted to new reporting lines, and rebuilt working relationships that the reorg had broken. Real disruption. Real cost. And each time, the same people did the same work in the same structure, now with new vocabulary. The current initiative has better executive sponsorship than the previous three. The teams are quiet. Not hostile. Just quiet. They fill in the surveys, attend the workshops, and wait for it to pass.
OST explains: The people in the room are carrying two things. The first is the accumulated cost of repeated disruption: workflows relearned, tools replaced, relationships severed by reorganisations, expertise rendered obsolete by the next methodology. These costs are real, and they compound. Even a well-designed change can produce a net loss when it arrives as the fourth disruption in seven years, the cost of relearning outweighing whatever the change itself was meant to fix. The second is the mounting evidence that the disruption does not produce the promised improvement. Vocabulary, consultants, and frameworks have all changed across four initiatives; the design principle has not. What looks like resistance or exhaustion is pattern recognition operating at a high level of accuracy. In DP1, there is no mechanism by which the people doing the work can decide whether to incur the cost of a change that affects them, let alone shape what that change actually is. They receive it fully designed and handed down, and absorb it. The organisation reads the quiet as cynicism, a personal failing to be managed with better communication. People are not tired of change. They are tired of change that was never theirs to make.
#OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #changeManagement
***
The series has become a book, available now on Leanpub.
https://www.organisationaldysfunctions.com -
Organisational Dysfunction of the Day
The change they stopped believing in
Context: The organisation has been through four transformations in seven years. Agile. DevOps. Product thinking. Now a platform strategy. Each time, a consultant arrived, a framework was introduced, roles were renamed, and the deck said this time it was different. Each time, the same people learned new tools, attended new ceremonies, adapted to new reporting lines, and rebuilt working relationships that the reorg had broken. Real disruption. Real cost. And each time, the same people did the same work in the same structure, now with new vocabulary. The current initiative has better executive sponsorship than the previous three. The teams are quiet. Not hostile. Just quiet. They fill in the surveys, attend the workshops, and wait for it to pass.
OST explains: The people in the room are carrying two things. The first is the accumulated cost of repeated disruption: workflows relearned, tools replaced, relationships severed by reorganisations, expertise rendered obsolete by the next methodology. These costs are real, and they compound. Even a well-designed change can produce a net loss when it arrives as the fourth disruption in seven years, the cost of relearning outweighing whatever the change itself was meant to fix. The second is the mounting evidence that the disruption does not produce the promised improvement. Vocabulary, consultants, and frameworks have all changed across four initiatives; the design principle has not. What looks like resistance or exhaustion is pattern recognition operating at a high level of accuracy. In DP1, there is no mechanism by which the people doing the work can decide whether to incur the cost of a change that affects them, let alone shape what that change actually is. They receive it fully designed and handed down, and absorb it. The organisation reads the quiet as cynicism, a personal failing to be managed with better communication. People are not tired of change. They are tired of change that was never theirs to make.
#OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #changeManagement
***
The series has become a book, available now on Leanpub.
https://www.organisationaldysfunctions.com -
Organisational Dysfunction of the Day
The change they stopped believing in
Context: The organisation has been through four transformations in seven years. Agile. DevOps. Product thinking. Now a platform strategy. Each time, a consultant arrived, a framework was introduced, roles were renamed, and the deck said this time it was different. Each time, the same people learned new tools, attended new ceremonies, adapted to new reporting lines, and rebuilt working relationships that the reorg had broken. Real disruption. Real cost. And each time, the same people did the same work in the same structure, now with new vocabulary. The current initiative has better executive sponsorship than the previous three. The teams are quiet. Not hostile. Just quiet. They fill in the surveys, attend the workshops, and wait for it to pass.
OST explains: The people in the room are carrying two things. The first is the accumulated cost of repeated disruption: workflows relearned, tools replaced, relationships severed by reorganisations, expertise rendered obsolete by the next methodology. These costs are real, and they compound. Even a well-designed change can produce a net loss when it arrives as the fourth disruption in seven years, the cost of relearning outweighing whatever the change itself was meant to fix. The second is the mounting evidence that the disruption does not produce the promised improvement. Vocabulary, consultants, and frameworks have all changed across four initiatives; the design principle has not. What looks like resistance or exhaustion is pattern recognition operating at a high level of accuracy. In DP1, there is no mechanism by which the people doing the work can decide whether to incur the cost of a change that affects them, let alone shape what that change actually is. They receive it fully designed and handed down, and absorb it. The organisation reads the quiet as cynicism, a personal failing to be managed with better communication. People are not tired of change. They are tired of change that was never theirs to make.
#OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #changeManagement
***
The series has become a book, available now on Leanpub.
https://www.organisationaldysfunctions.com -
Organisational Dysfunction of the Day
The change they stopped believing in
Context: The organisation has been through four transformations in seven years. Agile. DevOps. Product thinking. Now a platform strategy. Each time, a consultant arrived, a framework was introduced, roles were renamed, and the deck said this time it was different. Each time, the same people learned new tools, attended new ceremonies, adapted to new reporting lines, and rebuilt working relationships that the reorg had broken. Real disruption. Real cost. And each time, the same people did the same work in the same structure, now with new vocabulary. The current initiative has better executive sponsorship than the previous three. The teams are quiet. Not hostile. Just quiet. They fill in the surveys, attend the workshops, and wait for it to pass.
OST explains: The people in the room are carrying two things. The first is the accumulated cost of repeated disruption: workflows relearned, tools replaced, relationships severed by reorganisations, expertise rendered obsolete by the next methodology. These costs are real, and they compound. Even a well-designed change can produce a net loss when it arrives as the fourth disruption in seven years, the cost of relearning outweighing whatever the change itself was meant to fix. The second is the mounting evidence that the disruption does not produce the promised improvement. Vocabulary, consultants, and frameworks have all changed across four initiatives; the design principle has not. What looks like resistance or exhaustion is pattern recognition operating at a high level of accuracy. In DP1, there is no mechanism by which the people doing the work can decide whether to incur the cost of a change that affects them, let alone shape what that change actually is. They receive it fully designed and handed down, and absorb it. The organisation reads the quiet as cynicism, a personal failing to be managed with better communication. People are not tired of change. They are tired of change that was never theirs to make.
#OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #changeManagement
***
The series has become a book, available now on Leanpub.
https://www.organisationaldysfunctions.com -
Organisational Dysfunction of the Day
The change they stopped believing in
Context: The organisation has been through four transformations in seven years. Agile. DevOps. Product thinking. Now a platform strategy. Each time, a consultant arrived, a framework was introduced, roles were renamed, and the deck said this time it was different. Each time, the same people learned new tools, attended new ceremonies, adapted to new reporting lines, and rebuilt working relationships that the reorg had broken. Real disruption. Real cost. And each time, the same people did the same work in the same structure, now with new vocabulary. The current initiative has better executive sponsorship than the previous three. The teams are quiet. Not hostile. Just quiet. They fill in the surveys, attend the workshops, and wait for it to pass.
OST explains: The people in the room are carrying two things. The first is the accumulated cost of repeated disruption: workflows relearned, tools replaced, relationships severed by reorganisations, expertise rendered obsolete by the next methodology. These costs are real, and they compound. Even a well-designed change can produce a net loss when it arrives as the fourth disruption in seven years, the cost of relearning outweighing whatever the change itself was meant to fix. The second is the mounting evidence that the disruption does not produce the promised improvement. Vocabulary, consultants, and frameworks have all changed across four initiatives; the design principle has not. What looks like resistance or exhaustion is pattern recognition operating at a high level of accuracy. In DP1, there is no mechanism by which the people doing the work can decide whether to incur the cost of a change that affects them, let alone shape what that change actually is. They receive it fully designed and handed down, and absorb it. The organisation reads the quiet as cynicism, a personal failing to be managed with better communication. People are not tired of change. They are tired of change that was never theirs to make.
#OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #changeManagement
***
The series has become a book, available now on Leanpub.
https://www.organisationaldysfunctions.com -
From the Leanpub Blog: The Leanpub Podcast 🎙 Feat. Yevgen Nebesov, Author of The Architecture of Power: See what shapes outcomes. Find where you can act.
#books #leanpublishing #selfpublishing #systemsthinking #powerstructures #organizationalchange #sociotechnical #architectureofpower #changemanagement #softwarearchitecture #leanpub #techlead
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From the Leanpub Blog: The Leanpub Podcast 🎙 Feat. Yevgen Nebesov, Author of The Architecture of Power: See what shapes outcomes. Find where you can act.
#books #leanpublishing #selfpublishing #systemsthinking #powerstructures #organizationalchange #sociotechnical #architectureofpower #changemanagement #softwarearchitecture #leanpub #techlead
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From the Leanpub Blog: The Leanpub Podcast 🎙 Feat. Yevgen Nebesov, Author of The Architecture of Power: See what shapes outcomes. Find where you can act.
#books #leanpublishing #selfpublishing #systemsthinking #powerstructures #organizationalchange #sociotechnical #architectureofpower #changemanagement #softwarearchitecture #leanpub #techlead
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From the Leanpub Blog: The Leanpub Podcast 🎙 Feat. Yevgen Nebesov, Author of The Architecture of Power: See what shapes outcomes. Find where you can act.
#books #leanpublishing #selfpublishing #systemsthinking #powerstructures #organizationalchange #sociotechnical #architectureofpower #changemanagement #softwarearchitecture #leanpub #techlead
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NEW! The Leanpub Podcast 🎙 Feat. Yevgen Nebesov, Author of The Architecture of Power: See what shapes outcomes. Find where you can act.
#books #leanpublishing #selfpublishing #systemsthinking #powerstructures #organizationalchange #sociotechnical #architectureofpower #changemanagement #softwarearchitecture #leanpub #techlead
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NEW! The Leanpub Podcast 🎙 Feat. Yevgen Nebesov, Author of The Architecture of Power: See what shapes outcomes. Find where you can act.
#books #leanpublishing #selfpublishing #systemsthinking #powerstructures #organizationalchange #sociotechnical #architectureofpower #changemanagement #softwarearchitecture #leanpub #techlead
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NEW! The Leanpub Podcast 🎙 Feat. Yevgen Nebesov, Author of The Architecture of Power: See what shapes outcomes. Find where you can act.
#books #leanpublishing #selfpublishing #systemsthinking #powerstructures #organizationalchange #sociotechnical #architectureofpower #changemanagement #softwarearchitecture #leanpub #techlead
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NEW! The Leanpub Podcast 🎙 Feat. Yevgen Nebesov, Author of The Architecture of Power: See what shapes outcomes. Find where you can act.
#books #leanpublishing #selfpublishing #systemsthinking #powerstructures #organizationalchange #sociotechnical #architectureofpower #changemanagement #softwarearchitecture #leanpub #techlead
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Listen to this podcast if you want to know why security and security champion programmes may thrive in a good company culture. And also to learn a bit about good company culture. And a lot more.
For me it was yet another reminder how everything in software development is a people problem as well as a technical one.
#security #SoftwareEngineering #sociotechnical #companyculture
via @lisihocke
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Organisational Dysfunction of the Day
The gates they removed
Context: The organisation used to run a CAB for every change, an architecture board sign-off for major decisions, a security gate at the end of each project, a privacy review for new data flows. None of it was fast. But it gave specialist functions a degree of oversight over what the organisation built. Then the organisation moved to a product model. The gates were removed because they slowed delivery. Teams were told they were now trusted. The compliance function still assumes it has oversight. The architecture team believes its standards are being followed. Security expects to be consulted on significant changes. None of them are. The oversight that existed, however imperfectly, is gone. What replaced it was never named.
OST explains: CABs, architecture reviews, security gates, and privacy checkpoints were DP1 compensating mechanisms. Coordination sat too far from the work, so specialist functions were inserted as checkpoints. Slow and bureaucratic, they were nonetheless the only mechanism those functions had. The product model removed the gates without moving coordination and control to the teams. Teams received a backlog and a sprint, not the mandate, multiskilling, or structural authority to own security, architecture, privacy, or compliance decisions themselves. Specialist functions were told to become enablers rather than gatekeepers, which in practice means responsibility without authority. This is laissez-faire, responsibility for coordination and control unclear, not absent by design but simply unassigned.
#OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #compliance
***
The series has become a book, available now on Leanpub.
http://organisationaldysfunctions.com -
A couple things illustrating my work and interests, and how they come together:
#Zotero group, collection, and posts created as part of my ongoing learning and #WorkingOutLoud process:
#SocioTechnical Ecosystems and Solidarity #FoodSystems: https://www.zotero.org/groups/4284229/socio-technical_ecosystems_and_solidarity_food_systems/
From Food Security journal:
How food systems change (or not): governance implications for system transformation processes. (Leeuwis, C., Boogaard, B.K. & Atta-Krah)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-021-01178-4