• Antifragile - Things That Gain from Disorder - What is the opposite of fragile (breaks when confronted with unexpected events)? Changes are people answer with robustness (stays the same under unexpected events). But there’s another way to look at it. Fragile Robust Antifragile Best case scenario Remains unchanged Remains unchanged Improves Worst case scenario Breaks Remains unchanged Remains unchanged Taleb introduces the term antifragile for systems that don’t simply stay the same when subjected to stressors, volatility, and exceptions, but that actually change for the better. Wildfire We tend to naively intervene in systems, without taking into account their natural antifragility. Take wildfire. If we attempt to stabilize - that is, prevent wildfires from happening - we believe we make the forest more robust. [Mathias Verraes]
• Facilitating Event Storming - Event Storming is a technique where you get the developers and the business stakeholders in a room, and visualize the business processes. You do this using stickies with domain events and causality (such as commands), and end with drawing boundaries for aggregates, bounded contexts and subdomains. It’s developed by Alberto Brandolini and is deeply rooted in Domain Driven Design, and CQRS/ES. I facilitated an Event Storming session with the team of Qandidate. com in Rotterdam. I’ve read an early draft of Alberto’s paper on Event Storming, that inspired most of what I did. [Mathias Verraes]

Permalink | From 26 August 2013 to 01 September 2013 | Last updated on: Mon, 7 Jun 2021 09:18:52 GMT

• Switch - How to Change Things When Change Is Hard - As I wrote earlier, I want to post some quotes and a mini-review of the books I read. “Switch” compares humans in change processes to Rider (our logical side), riding an Elephant (our emotional side) down a Path (the environment). By directing the Rider, motivating the Elephant, and shaping the Path, you can change yourself, a team, an organization, or even society. As with all frameworks, it’s limited (which the authors admit upfront). However, as a consultant who’s made it his professional ambition to help teams and organizations build better software, I definitely found a lot of useful advise. If nothing else, the book will help me see which areas of a change process I haven’t paid sufficient attention to. [Mathias Verraes]

Permalink | From 12 August 2013 to 18 August 2013 | Last updated on: Mon, 7 Jun 2021 09:18:52 GMT

• Systemantics - The Systems Bible - Jon Jagger regularly posts snippets from books he’s read on his blog. I think this is an excellent habit, that has helped me to discover some very interesting books, so I want to start doing the same. The book “Systemantics. The Systems Bible” by John Gall is a classic work from 1975. It deals mostly with the idea that one cannot simply design a large complex system, and expect to predict its entire set of behaviours. It’s one of those books that help you see the world as it is. [Mathias Verraes]

Permalink | From 05 August 2013 to 11 August 2013 | Last updated on: Mon, 7 Jun 2021 09:18:52 GMT