In my lifetime, we have experienced the equivalent of 20,000 years of change. Nonlinear change. Digital information systems have had a staggering effect on relational complexity. Yet, we still approach software development in a mechanistic, industrial and reductionistic way.

To design information systems, we need to think in systems. I don’t just mean adopt Kubernetes. I mean change the structure of our thinking.

As Robert Pirsig said, “If a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory.”

In this talk, we’ll explore “the rationality that produced” our current approaches. And describe mindshifts that can help us thrive in the systems age.

Systems experts have taught us how to improve our software systems:

Peter Senge has demonstrated that we blame the wrong things (events, situations or processes) for our systemic problems.

W. Edwards Deming says that 94% of the time, the system is to blame for performance issues, not the individual parts of the system.

Jay Forrester discovered counterintuitiveness: most organizations “fix” systemic problems by inadvertently making them worse.

Donella Meadows said, “We'll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost-effective.”

As relational complexity increases, we need to think in systems. I don't just mean adopt Kubernetes. Technology systems are always, also, people systems. Without systems thinking, nothing is transformed. As Robert Pirsig said,

"If a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory."

Systems thinking is becoming a core and critical skill. The Iceberg Model, for example, helps us understand "the rationality that produced" our current situation. As a software professional, you can use itwhenever you want to understand the root cause of a system challenge.

Using tools like the iceberg model is deceptively simple. Avoiding the iceberg ... takes committed practice.

From Software to Systems: Modern Agility

Early in my career, I worked on highly-productive Agile teams building software for big internet properties. Ten years (or so) later, I worked as principal systems architect for some of the same organizations. Everyone needed "digital transformation" to move away from legacy software (some I helped build). Which meant moving away from working as one feature-driven team to architecting across multiple product and platform teams.

On social media, I regularly see "agile is dead". "Agile didn't keep up with the times." Or other disparagements of agility. My experience has been the opposite. Teams without fundamental mental and social agility can't scale (effectively) as the architecture becomes more inter-relational.

In this talk, we'll explore the key patterns and principles that maintain cohesion, communication and conceptual integrity as software scales to systems of software. And how the skills Agile taught me have scaled to integral skills for architects.

(Note: I will not recommend SAFe.)