© Copyright 2013 Keith D Swenson

Keith D Swenson

March 2013

Antifragile Systems for Innovation and Learning Organizations

We know what fragility is.

But what is the opposite?

Fragile

?

Fragile Robust

Fragile Robust Antifragile

Muscles are

Adaptive

The Body is Antifragile

Learning is Adaptive

“The only sustainable competitive advantage is an organization's ability to learn faster than the competition.”

- Peter M. Senge,

The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization

IT System Perfection

Enlightenment Bias: - Sub-parts of a complex system

are simpler

- A stable system is made from very hard & durable sub-parts.

“Stability is a Time Bomb” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile

Adaptive Systems crave Exercise

Protected Exposed

Adaptive Systems NEED Exercise

Protected Exposed

Adaptive Systems NEED Exercise

Protected Exposed

Forests are Adaptive

Monocultures are Fragile

“Nature loves small error, humans don’t — hence when you rely on human judgment you are at the mercy of a mental bias that disfavors antifragility.”

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile

Enforcing a single best practice on the organization,

can make it … fragile

“No plan survives contact with the enemy.” - Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

“Planning is essential, plans are worthless.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The Planning Fallacy

“The future is uncertain – but this uncertainty is at the very heart of human creativity” - Ilya Prigogine

The Planning Fallacy

“In an unpredictable world, sometimes the best investments are those that minimize the importance of predictions.” - - Gökçe Sargut and Rita Gunther McGrath

Seven Domains of Predictability

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PC

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AC

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Variable, Unique Predictable, Repeatable

Notes Documents

& Unstructured

Data

Databases & Structured Data

Adaptive Case Management

Ap

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tion

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Hu

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PC

M

AC

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SB

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Variable, Unique Predictable, Repeatable

Notes Documents

& Unstructured

Data

Databases & Structured Data

Summary

Organizations are antifragile They improve when stressed. They crave stress (exercise).

Planning is a part of working Not something to be eliminated

I.T. systems should promote variation Demo:

Enforcing a single best practice can make organization fragile.

http://www.bpmnext.com/bpmnext-2013-presentations/

antifragile-systems-for-innovation-and-learning-organizations/

Keith D Swenson Adaptive Case Management http://social-biz.org/