Knowledge and Wisdom

There are two approaches human beings gain understanding of the phenomenal world. One is through indirect experiments. The other is through direct experiences. The former is also known as scientific methods or simply sciences. Sciences emphasis measurement, empirical analysis, and logical reasoning. The latter relies more on intuition, imagination, and analogical reasoning. 

The understanding we gain through sciences forms the body of knowledge. The understanding we gain through life experiences and intuition leads to wisdom.

The complex reality is like an iceberg. We can only see the small part that is above the water. The large part is beneath the water and beyond our sights. So we only know what we know through observation. For the vast unknown, we have to rely on our intuition, imagination and analogical reasoning.

We need both knowledge and wisdom in order to have a more comprehensive and more accurate understanding of the reality and the world.

In his 2005 book “A Whole New Mind”, author Daniel H. Pink coined the term “Conceptual Age” - a new era starting in 21st century that is different from the past Agriculture Age (18th century), Industrial Age (19th century), and Information Age (20th century).

Pink pointed out that while the Agricultural Age and Industrial Age requires physical strength and the Information Age requires knowledge, high tech, and IQ the Conceptual Age requires high concepts, high tough, and EQ.

We have passed the Information Age in which knowledge workers were in demand and had thrived. We are now in the Conceptual Age where people with both knowledge and wisdom are in high demand and will thrive.

Yin-Yang Balance and East-West Harmony

East West Harmony

Yin-Yang balance is the most fundamental concept of the ancient Chinese philosophy. Many aspects of Chinese civilization from culture to politics, from science to medicine, and the many schools of thoughts including Taoism and Confucianism have been deeply rooted in or subtly influenced by this concept.

Yin and Yang are the basic elements or forces that make up or drive the phenomenal reality - physically and metaphysically. The interaction, interconnection, and interdependence of these two opposing but complementary elements or forces is the simplest possible but most elegant way to explain phenomena of any kind, be it cosmos, nature, human, or society.

The imbalance of Yin and Yang is the root of instability. In order for the whole which both Yin and Yang are part of to survive, sustain, and prosper, Yin and Yang have to constantly interact with each other,  complement each, and reach the ever evolving dynamic balance.

Interestingly, the globe is divided geographically into two hemispheres - the East and the West. These two hemispheres also exhibit prominent differences in cultures, religions and economic standings.

The West has the characteristics of the Yang which is masculine, individualist, extrovert, analytical, and innovative. The East has the characteristics of the Yin which is feminine, collective, introvert, intuitive, and conservative. Consequently, the West is more advanced in science and technology, more economically developed and more active and aggressive in world affairs; In contrast, the East tends to focus more on humanity, arts, self-cultivation, harmony between human and nature, harmony within self, family and society.

The global problems and crisis we are facing today can be attributed to the imbalance of the East and the West. This imbalance comes in many shades of grey, but the most important is the imbalance in economic and military power. The West is much more developed in economy, more advanced in science and technology, and possesses overwhelmingly stronger economic and military power.

The differences in cultures and religions and the lack of dialog and tolerance also make it harder for the East and the West to interact and connect with each other, let alone to depend on and support each other.

To achieve balance and harmony, the West and the East should learn from each other's strength. The West needs to put more focus and emphasis on arts, humanity, social justice, and income equality while the East needs to improve on science, technology and economic development.

But most importantly, the East and the West should learn to tolerate and respect the differences and to value and cherish the diversity.

The world peace and the future survival of our human race depend largely on the balance and harmony of the East and the West. If the current trend of imbalance persists, the world will become more and more dangerous and human survival will be at great risk.

H for Humanity, Health, Happiness, and Harmony

Yin Yang Harmony

As human beings, we all seek health, happiness, and harmony.

According to the ancient Chinese wisdom dated back over five thousand years ago, the balance of Yin and Yang is the key to everything. Yin and Yang represent the most fundamental forces of the Universe and are found everywhere in the Nature, human body and mind, families, communities, societies, and the world. Yin represents soft, feminine, water, earth, intuition, introvert, conservative, etc.; In contrast, Yang represents hard, masculine, fire, heaven, logic, extrovert, radical, etc.

Yin and Yang are not against or opposite to each other but are complementary and interdependent. They are two inseparable parts of the whole just like the two inseparable sides of a coin. They are also like the two movements of a pendulum which swings constantly left and right to achieve the dynamic balance.

When Yin and Yang are in the state of imbalance, say, one is overpowering the other, disorder will come. For example:

• When Yin and Yang in our body lose balance, we become sick; 
• when Yin and Yang in our mind lose balance, we suffer from our internal conflict and stress; 
• When Yin and Yang in the society lose balance ,we see social injustice and unrest; 
• When Yin and Yang in the world lose balance, we see conflicts between cultures, religions, and nations and large scale human suffering follows when conflicts escalate and wars erupt. 

Interestingly, humanity, health, happiness, and harmony all begin with alphabet "H". "H" is symmetric and represents balance. "H" also looks like a bridge connecting two sides. In the world, There are gaps between the rich and the poor, the power and the people, the privileged and the disadvantaged, the West and the East. Global issues and social problems are rooted in the gaps and imbalance and bridging the gaps and restoring the balance are keys to long term peace and harmony. The health and happiness of all human beings depend on the harmony and the peace of the world.

Hard Systems vs. Soft Systems

If you live in a densely populated metropolis and have to deal with the traffic congestion in your everyday work and life, you would understand the inconvenience and the stress it brings.

Of course technology can help. For any given day and time, to get from A to B, you can always rely on GPS navigation device or App coupled with real-time live traffic data feed to find a fastest route. Although this does not solve the overall congestion problem, it helps individuals alleviate some of the trouble and stress. This is the concept of “Hard System” in which the problem is well defined (To determine a fastest route to get from A to B), sufficient data about the problem can be collected (Live traffic data are gathered), and scientific analysis or tools can be developed (Navigation software uses algorithm to find an optimal route).

But on the other hand, the problem of traffic congestion is not so easy to analyze and solve. The traffic patterns are very dynamic and unpredictable and are attributable to many interwoven factors. It involves many interconnecting highways, roads, and streets with traffics from many different sources such as schools, shopping trips, work, tourists. Weather plays a big part in influencing the traffic. On a foggy, rainy or snowy day, the traffic definitely gets worse. The day and time also matter a lot. Rush hours and weekdays see much heavier traffic. Furthermore, the overall economy, the immigration policy can also impact the traffic in a larger perspective and scale. There is no simple way to describe, model, analyze and solve the overall problem. That is why traffic congestion problems are forever unsolved and even get worse overtime in major cities. This is the concept of “Soft System” where the problem is complex and even ill-defined, facts are complicated and may not be evident or even agreed upon by all stakeholders, data are hard to collect let alone to analyze, and no optimal solutions exist or can be found.

In the late 1960's systems researchers in the University of Lancaster, UK led by Peter Checkland developed a new approach called Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). One unique characteristic of this approach is its emphasis on the understanding of the problem before even attempting to solve it.

Thinking is only the means, not the end. The end goal is to solve problem. But to solve problems, we have to understand them first. Thinking has to begin with seeing first.

Scrum Team and Self-organization (Part II)

Self-organization as a concept and a phenomenon has its root in systems theory.  It is a key characteristic of a complex adaptive system.

In a complex adaptive system,  a large number of diverse component parts interact and form a cohesive, robust, and resilient whole that exhibits emergent properties and achieves higher order in the absence of intervention or control from external forces.

Natural scientists first discovered these phenomena in natural systems such as a colony of ants, a forest, an ocean.

Engineers attempting to create better, larger, and more complicated systems such as a satellite, a power plant, or an enterprise information system apply the lessons and principles learned from the natural systems to improve the structure, design, and functions of the engineered systems.

Social scientists also find similar phenomena in social systems such as a community, a stock market, an economy and follow the suit by applying scientific knowledge and engineering techniques to effect social changes and to improve human conditions.

Self-organization enables a complex adaptive system to evolve from an initial chaotic, dysfunctional state into a cohesive, functional state. Self-organization also makes a complex adaptive system more robust and resilient to perturbations and uncertainties from its changing environments.

Now let's get back to our original question: Can a scrum team achieve self-organization? or phrase it in a different way: Is a scrum team a complex adaptive system?

A team consists of members who interact with each other to achieve a common goal. In traditional project management, a team is led by a team lead or a project manager and has well defined roles and responsibilities and top-down command and control hierarchy. Clearly, this type of team does not conform to the definition of a complex adaptive system which is a bottom-up grass-root organism without controlling forces imposed from the above.

A scrum team by definition consists of a scrum master which is a servant leader, a product owner which is the liaison of the end users and the champion for the end products, and a development team whose responsibility is to design, build and deliver the products to the end users in an incremental and iterative fashion.

The size of the development team within a scrum team can vary and even the guideline varies as well. Some say 5 plus or minus 2, others say 7 plus or minus 2. The rationale here is that the development team should be cross-functional in that all necessary disciplines are represented (for example, designers, developers, testers) but at the same time should have minimal number of people in order to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in communication and collaboration.

This reflects the emphasis of individuals and interactions from Agile Manifesto:

"Individuals and interactions over processes and tools"

This also reflects the emphasis of face to face conversation from agile principle #6:

"The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation."

This results in a overall scrum team size of less than a dozen people. In practice, the average scrum team size is even smaller. a complex adaptive system typically have large number of component parts. In another words, critical mass is needed to generate the dynamic behavior and to allow for the resilience and robustness to develop over time. Small group may be easier to communicate and collaborate, it does not generate the critical mass.

Another aspect of scrum is the emphasis of the role of the scrum master. A scrum master is the opposite of a traditional project manager or team lead in that it does not provide management function of command and control. In contrast, it is a servant leader and its primary goal is to protect the team from external influence, to facilitate communication and collaboration,  to remove impediments, and to enable the team to focus on the tasks and deliver the products. In one of the agile projects I have worked on, we call the scrum master "Super Mom" to reflect the similarity of the role and the same initials (SM). This makes the scrum team somewhat like a closed system instead of an open system which a complex adaptive system is meant to be.

From the above, we can clearly see that agile methodology and scrum process put some structure and constrain around the makeup and function of a scrum team in terms of size, roles and responsibilities, and interaction with external entities such as end users, subject matter experts, and stakeholders.

The structure and constraints find its roots in the traditional project management and make the scrum team less a complex adaptive system.

Additionally, several characteristics of a complex adaptive system are missing in a scrum team.

First, a complex adaptive system typically starts in a organic way in that component parts are not "hand picked" by an external force but rather are naturally formed together organically such as a flock of birds or a schools of fishes.

Secondly, component parts within a complex adaptive system are typically equal and diverse without supervisor-subordinate relationship and clear distinction of roles and responsibilities. They are sometimes called agents. The emergent properties of a complex adaptive system come from the free and seemingly random interactions among the parts and also with the environments.

Lastly, it takes time for a complex adaptive system to form organically and to transition from chaotic state to a harmonic state. The time boxing nature of scrum and the limited time duration of projects do not provide the time needed for a scrum team to adapt and grow naturally.

The conclusion is that a scrum team is not a complex adaptive system and cannot achieve self-organization naturally or organically.

This is why scrum teams struggle to self-organize.

Scrum Team and Self-organization (Part I)

Among many agile frameworks (Extreme Programming, Kan-ban, Lean, etc.), Scrum has become prevailing and dominant over the past decade. Many organizations from businesses to government agencies adopt scrum as they move away from traditional waterfall methodology to agile methodology. Some follow agile and scrum strictly and religiously, others mix it with waterfall in a hybrid attempting to reap the best of both worlds.

Ken Schwaber, one of the two co-developers of Scrum process, both among the 17 initial signatories of the Agile Manifesto, wrote in his book "Agile Project Management with Scrum":

"For Scrum to work, the team has to deeply and viscerally understand collective commitment and self-organization. Scrum’s theory, practices, and rules are easy to grasp intellectually. But until a group of individuals has made a collective commitment to deliver something tangible in a fixed amount of time, those individuals probably don’t get Scrum. When the team members stop acting as many and adopt and commit to a common purpose, the team becomes capable of self-organization and can quickly cut through complexity and produce actionable plans."

This echos one of the 12 principles behind the agile manifesto:

"The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams."

The key phrase here is "self-organization" as a noun or "self-organizing" as an adjective.

Even though many agile and Scrum practitioners are preaching "self-organization" and trying hard to improve the effectiveness of the scrum teams through self-organization, the results are mixed.

From many years of practicing agile and Scrum in both small scale and large scale information technology projects ranging from private to public sector, I witnessed teams struggle to form cohesion and to deliver the outcomes promised by Scrum. Many of the projects are short-term ranging from a few months to a year or so, by the time the team has gone through the forming, storming, and norming phase and you start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, the project deadline is approaching which leaves little time for the performing phase. Much of the fruits from the initial team learning and development effort goes underutilized or even untapped.

This leads me to think about "self-organization": 

• What exactly is "self-organization"? 
• Can a scrum team achieve self-organization? 
• If yes, how can the team achieve it? 
• If not, what are the impediments? 
• Can the team achieve some level of self-organization under some circumstances?

More to come. Stay tuned.

(picture from https://www.mendix.com/blog/the-road-to-adopting-scrum-team-composition/)

To Solve Social Problems, We Need A Different STEM

The world has become more complex and less safe even though the last several decades have seen rapid advancement in science and technologies and increasing global economic development and growth. We are now facing challenging threats from global warming, terrorism, identity theft, cyber attacks, racial and religious conflicts, income inequality and social injustice, and many more.

What is puzzling is that as a human race we were able to send spaceships and astronauts to the outer space and we invented Internet, mobile devices, and social media networks to instantly connect people worldwide but we are still not able to resolve our differences and conflicts. More sadly, we still resort to bloody wars and sufferings of innocents for settling disputes and achieving peace the same way it has been for thousands of years.

Apparently, the STEM as it stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math alone does not solve human problems. The advancement in STEM does not directly lead to solutions of human problems and does not directly translate into the betterment of humanity. Even though people enjoy the benefits of what STEM brings to their daily lives, they continue to suffer from stress and anxiety from deteriorating environments, declining health, broken relationships, and physical and financial threats.

It may be time to look at alternatives. How about a different kind of STEM?

This one stands for Systems Thinking, Engagement, and Mindfulness.

First, system thinking is a paradigm shift. We can no longer look at problems in isolation. We are much more interconnected and interdependent at many aspects and at many levels now than ever. All problems are correlated and affect each other whether we see the relationships or not.  We don't just examine and solve one problem. We have to examine and solve all problems together in a systemic way.

In addition to treating problems as systems with a holistic and panoramic lenses, we must devise potential solutions with systemic approaches. There is no single approach or solution to problems. We have to evaluate multiple alternatives. Alternative approaches don't necessarily compete with each other but rather they complement each other. Science and technology are not the only solutions, they are part of the more comprehensive and overarching solutions. Science and technology alone are not able to solve social problems. Humanity has to be considered as a key component in the solutions.

It is actually part of the problem that we give the traditional STEM too much attention and value. Many young talents are attracted to the STEM fields with the promise of better career and higher income. Businesses touts countless innovations to gain competitive advantage and to maximize corporate profits and shareholder returns. The subjects of humanity such as arts, music, languages, cultures, religions, and history are neglected and undervalued. The imbalance between science and humanity limits our options and our abilities to solve multi-faceted social problems.

The E in the new STEM stands for Engagement. The top down, command and control approach of problem solving from traditional management textbook no long works in the modern complex world. To solve problems, we need to engage stakeholders at all levels at all times. Engagement brings about multiple views, alternative ways of thinking, and better solutions. Engagement is really a part of system thinking. To gain system perspective, we have to engage everyone.

The M in the new STEM stands for Mindfulness. Mindfulness is a Buddhist concept and practice followed by millions of followers for thousands of years and have been adopted by the west for the past many decades for its benefits in improving both physical and mental health. Buddhism believes that human sufferings originate from ignorance which is the incorrect view of the reality and of ourselves and instructs its followers to clam and cleanse their mind by focusing on the present moment and paying close attention to ourselves and our surroundings without forcing and judging. Regular practices of mindfulness will help reduce and eventually eliminate the ignorance and hence bring us back to full awareness, enlightenment, wisdom, and happiness.

If engagement is about collective wisdom, then mindfulness is about individual wisdom. Collective wisdom relies on individual wisdom.  They go hand in hand just like the parts and the whole in the systems thinking.

(Picture source: http://missioncollege.edu/student_services/stem/images/STEM-Logo1.jpg)