Problem Solving

Systems Thinking Complicates Things

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  I’ve had the honor and pleasure of appearing as a regular on Tom Cagley‘s SPaMCast podcast for almost three years now. Before I write one of my “Form Follows Function on SPaMCast x” posts, I always listen to the podcast to make sure that the summary is right (the implication being, relying purely on […]

I fought the law (of unintended consequences) and the law won

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Sometimes, what seemed to be a really good idea just doesn’t turn out that way in the end. In my opinion, a lack of a systems approach to problem solving makes that type of outcome much more likely. Simplistic responses to issues that fail to deal with problems holistically can backfire. Such ill-considered solutions not […]

Babies, Bathwater, and Software Architects

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I try to be disciplined about my writing (picking themes, creating a backlog, collecting notes and links on those topics, etc.), but it seems like serendipity won’t be denied, no matter what I do. On the same day that XKCD published this cartoon, Erik Dietrich published “Software Architect as a Developer Pension Plan”. While I […]

All Aboard the Innovation Band Wagon?

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  It seems like everyone wants to be an innovator nowadays. Being “digital” is in – never mind what it means, you’ve just got to be “digital”. Being innovative, however, is more than being buzzword-compliant. Being innovative, particularly in a digital sense, means solving problems (for customers, not yourself) in a new way with technology. […]

Abstract Dangers – When ‘And’ Meets ‘Or’

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There’s an old saying that if you put one foot in a bucket of ice and the other in a bucket of boiling water, on average you’re comfortable. Sometimes analyzing information in the aggregate obscures rather than enlightens. A statistician named Francis Anscombe pointed out this same principle in a more visual (though less colorful) […]

better problems and technology knowledge transfer

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Often, the work of problem-solving spurs the creation, or escalation of other problems. Most are implications of solution execution; expected or not. Sometimes though, the new problem is a result of poking and prodding the original problem, long before solution work. While considering your problem, you unearth a better problem. Not better as in more […]

Innovation – What’s Old can be New Again

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There’s an old rhyme about what a bride should wear for luck on her wedding day: “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue…”. While reading an article on the origins of the US highway system, I thought about this rhyme in relation to the concept of innovation. Part of that article related the US […]

Ignorance Isn’t Bliss, Just Good Tactics

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There’s an old saying about what happens when you assume. The fast lane to asininity seems to run through the land of hubris. Anshu Sharma’s Tech Crunch article, “Why Big Companies Keep Failing: The Stack Fallacy”, illustrates this: Stack fallacy has caused many companies to attempt to capture new markets and fail spectacularly. When you […]

The Seductive Myth of Greenfield Development

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Greger Wikstrand‘s tweet from earlier this week packed a wealth of inspiration into one image: The second statement particularly resonated with me: “The present is built on the past.” How often do we, or those around us, long for a chance to do things “from scratch”. The idea being, without the constraints of “legacy” code, […]