Category: Notes
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Christopher Alexander on living structure
Here is a presentation on Patterns in Architecture by Christopher Alexander at the 1996 ACM Conference on Object-Oriented Programs, Systems, Languages and Applications (OOPSLA). And here is a full transcript of this talk. Christopher Alexander says that there is something we objectively can call ‘living structure.’ We know it when we are in its presence.…
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Structure follows flow
Jon Husband made an interesting comment on Facebook November 5, 2015 (see below). What I find interesting is that Jon Husband suggests “fluidity of structure”. Husband writes that structure “depends … upon the nature of work, … the pertinent flows of information and motivations and skills … etc.” In other words, that structure follows flow.…
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The big misconception in sociocracy
Georges Romme analyzes The Big Misconceptions Holding Holacracy Back in the 10 September 2015 issue of the Harvard Business Review. Sharon Villines provides a summary and commentary on Romme’s article in the Misconceptions about Sociocracy at Sociocracy.info on 18 September 2015. Here are my own comments. I agree with Georges Romme that Holacracy and sociocracy…
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Open Space is very lightly scripted
Daniel Mezick writes in Open Space Tells The Story (Agile Coaching Lessons) that “Open Space inside organizations is a very lightly scripted drama” and that “great conversations are leading to great solutions”. Keywords for me here are “lightly scripted” because I think heavy scripting chips away the cornerstones of self-organization.
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Are Holacracy and sociocracy Teal?
First a disclaimer. I don’t really know how a Teal organization1 looks like! What Frederic Laloux does in his book Reinventing Organizations is to use Holacracy to define aspects of Teal.2, 3, 4 Well, is Holacracy Teal then by definition? No, not necessarily! In Holacracy, the power is in the process,5 roles and accountabilities are defined…
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Det är notoriskt svårt att få folk att följa reglerna
Jan-Erik Sebestyén skriver i ett mail till Agile Swedens maillista 2015-10-07 08:54:51 att: Men som alla som jobbat med scrum, puls och liknande agil ansatser så kan det se bättre ut än hur det fungerar i verkligheten. Även om grundkonceptet är hur enkelt som helst så är det notoriskt svårt få folk följa reglerna. Exakt!…
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The Tyranny of Structurelessness
Jo Freeman’s essay on The Tyranny of Structurelessness is about the tyranny of ”elites”, where an ”elite” is defined as ”a small group of people who have power over a larger group of which they are part”. The problem with these ”elites” is that they don’t have ”direct responsibility to that larger group, and often…
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Homo sapiens is a small-tribe species
Here’s the core of the issue, as I see it. I think of homo sapiens as a small-tribe species. The large social structures we’ve learned to build are not agile, or resilient, or people-friendly. They don’t suit us. And mostly they no longer work well. The evidence that they are not working has been around…
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Dee Hock on control
Life is not about control. It’s not about getting. It’s not about having. It’s not about knowing. It’s not even about being. Life is eternal, perpetual becoming, or it is nothing. Becoming is not a thing to be known, commanded, or controlled. It is a magnificent, mysterious odyssey to be experienced.1 … I have long…
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Organisms are self-creating, not just self-organizing
Organisms are born to create and maintain their own life. They are self-creating, i.e., autopoietic; they are not just self-organizing. They maintain their own life by constantly recreating it. Their purpose is not to become machines fulfilling some external task. Thus they are autonomic, i.e., obeying self-law. They are autonomous. An organism’s purpose is to…