Learning Organization - New Synergy Group

Learning about Complex Systems, and Learning Organization

Systems thinking help us understand complexity, design better operating policies, procedures and practices, and guide change in systems. Learning about complex systems (such as project management systems for developing enterprise software products or solutions) when you also live in them (as project manager or project team member) is difficult. System dynamics provides a method to enhance learning in complex systems.

As Prof. Sterman of MIT [Sterman 2000] points out, Learning in complex systems is itself a dynamic system problem. Learning about complex dynamic systems requires:

Tools to elicit and represent mental models
Formal models and simulation methods to test and improve our mental models, design new policies, and practice new skills
Methods to sharpen scientific reasoning skills, improve group learning processes, and overcome defensive routines for individuals and teams

As Prof. Sterman [Sterman 2000] points out, effective and deep learning happens when there is a double loop feedback system working effectively. Information feedback from the real world not only changes our decisions, but also changes our mental models, which in turn, allows us to change our strategies, structures and policies, which make further changes to decisions.

For effective learning to occur, each link in this double feedback loop system must work effectively and we must be able to cycle around the loops quickly relatively to the rate at which changes in the real world render existing knowledge obsolete. Yet, in the real world (such a complex software project management systems), these feedback loops often do not operate well. Dynamic complexity, time delays, limited information, ambiguities, bounded rationality (many limitations of attention, memory, recall, information processing), problems in implementing decisions are some of the key impediments in learning.

And this is exactly why SCRUM methods so strongly emphasize daily Scrum meetings, monthly sprints, end-of-sprint learning sessions to improve the next sprint iteration, and very high project visibility through shared sprint backlog and burn-down rates.

Hart [Hart 2008] reports that The Software Engineering Institute's semi-annual Process Maturity Profiles of the Software Community shows that the duration to achieve the next level of software process maturity has not improved since 1996. All the software industry's advancements have had no measurable effect on the rate at which a software organization is likely to achieve higher process capability. It is our inability to learn individually and collectively that inhibits current software quality and process improvement efforts.

Prof. Senge of MIT stated that there are five components that, when put together in a company, transform it into a learning organization [Senge 2006].

1. Personal Mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively. An organization’s commitment to and capacity for learning can be no greater than that of its members.

2. Mental Models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. Put simply, it is a case of how I think affecting how I act. Individual mental models become clearer and they evolve as they are made explicit. The power of mental models increases substantially as they become more explicit (through formal modeling and discussions), and commonly understood by members of a team or organization.

3. Building Shared Vision occurs when there is a genuine shared vision (as opposed to the all-too-familiar imposed-from-on-high vision statement); people excel and learn, not because they are told to, but because they want to. All too often, a company’s shared vision has revolved around the charisma of a leader or around a crisis that pulls people together temporarily.

4. Team Learning starts with dialogue, the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine process of thinking and talking together. Team learning is vital because teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations.

5. Systems thinking is the fifth discipline that Senge believes is the key that holds all the five concepts together as a coherent whole. The underlying structure and the interlinking components of each of our systems, shape a great deal of the behavior of the individuals who work inside of the system. As Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s admonished "When something goes wrong, rather than seeking someone to blame, ask, what about the system that caused that individual to fail?"

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