Explore Interviews
& Videos
-
The Difference Between Building SYSTEMS vs Building SOFTWARE
Systems Thinking
Diana Montalion shares why traditional software approaches fall short in today’s complex systems—and how systems thinking offers a better path forward.
-
Navigating Complexity with Systems Thinking • GOTO 2024
Systems Thinking
Andrew Harmel-Law and Diana Montalion explore the critical importance of systems thinking in software development and organizational dynamics.
-
Happy Path Programming
Thinking About Thinking
The 100th episode! Diana Montalion teaches us about Systems Thinking and why it matters for those of us building software in an increasingly complex world.
-
Software Developers Journey
From a Bookstore to Systems Thinking
As a kid, Diana had the feeling that she loved the wrong things. We discussed how she discovered computers but didn't embrace them for a long time. Diana explained how she wanted to become a writer, moved to Montana, and opened a bookshop. We talked about rediscovering programming, and how she finally went all-in, moved to Austin, TX, and became a systems expert.
-
Beyond Coding
Systems Thinking
Diana Montalion shares how we think in terms of systems to accommodate for what we want as users, depending on the context we’re in.
It requires a way of thinking we’re not used to: systems thinking, or non-linear thinking. But doing so and adapting the software we create, can open up opportunities that weren’t there before.
-
Software Architecture Stream
Nonlinear Thinking
We are used to linear thinking – but really nonlinear thinking and systems thinking is what helps in a lot of modern challenges around software architecture. Diana Montalion is an expert on these subjects and applies them to software architecture regularly. She will tell us how nonlinear thinking helps with software architecture and why it is important.
-
Frontmatter
Author Interview
Diana Montalion is the author of the Leanpub book Writing as Thinking: Practices for Technology Professionals. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Diana about her background and her career, becoming a systems architect, the nature of non-linear systems thinking, and how writing can help you learn how to think differently.
-
APIs Unplugged
APIs in a Nonlinear World
In this episode, Mike and Matt are joined by Mentrix Group founder Diana Montalion. They discuss the relationship between APIs, software architecture, and non-linear thinking, as well as the most powerful ways that non-linear, systems, and pattern thinking can be applied in the context of digital transformation. -
Add Dot
Systems Thinking
What is Systems Thinking? Vaughn and Diana discuss how this form of thinking can help software architects. Includes cat herding, metacognition and a few shared personal experiences.
-
Techie Leadership
Building Trust
In this episode you can hear Diana Montalion and Andrei talk about partnering with people who are good at covering your blind spots, the process of structuring change and the essential quality called trust.
-
12/19/24 •Learning Systems Thinking with Diana Montalion and Lisa Moritz
A live discussion on systems thinking, nonlinear skills, and software resilience with Lisa Moritz and Diana Montalion.
-
10/16/24 •Learning Systems Thinking • Diana Montalion & Charles Humble
Diana Montalion and Charles Humble explore the complexities of systems thinking particularly in tech environments resistant to change.
-
9/14/24 •Keynote: Critical Shifts in Thinking for the Systems Age
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.
-
3/27/24 •Systems Thinking for Software Professionals
Systems thinking is becoming a core and critical skill. The Iceberg Mode helps us understand "the rationality that produced" our current situation. As a software professional, you can use it whenever you want to understand the root cause of a system challenge.
-
10/14/20 •Systems are Communication Structures
Achieving conceptual integrity in a system requires crafting conceptual integrity in people.
-
4/19/21 •Architecture as Systemic Reasoning
Learn to practice argumentation – reasoning systematically in support of an idea, action, or theory. It’s the foundational skillset for architects who are navigating uncertainty, and… it works!
-
4/20/22 •Systems Thinking
A wonderful discussion with Patrick Akil on how systems thinking is relevant to our work in software.
-
6/7/22 •The Hard Skills? Essential Systems Leadership Skills
Essential nonlinear skills and practices for IT professionals, skills we might not think of as “IT”. What are the practices that help us navigate from software to systems?
-
10/7/22 •Nonlinear Thinking
How nonlinear thinking helps with software architecture and why it is important.
-
11/1/22 •From Software to Systems: Skills we Need Now
In the world of “digital transformation”, software is becoming systems. Unfortunately, we don’t think in systems. What are the essential skills and practices that help us navigate this paradigm shift?
-
2/23/24 •Strengthening Systems Thinking by Writing
At DDD conferences and workshops, we focus a lot on modeling but not on writing. Most of us working as systems designers do A LOT of communicating, sharing our thinking with words. Writing a fabulous tool for thinking.
-
3/15/24 •Don't Hit the Iceberg
Our thinking designs our architecture. Scaling up our linear thinking cannot resolve systems challenges. We need to shift to systems thinking.