Mike Kuphal's Thoughts

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Complicated vs Complex Problem Solving

Posted on July 19, 2020 by Mr. Mike

complicatedvscomplex

Do you know the difference between Complicated and Complex problems?

Earlier this week I was revisiting one of my absolute favorite books: Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World. Excellent book, I encourage you to consider giving it a look if you are interested in modern scaling teams theory and/or how organizations are changing to be effective in a complex and fast-moving world via expanding trust, transparency, agility, and resilience within the organization.

One of the key concepts of the book that resonates with me is the difference between Complicated and Complex problems. I know I have used those two words interchangeably many times, but there is a significant difference in how to attack each type of problem.  If you treat a complex problem like a complicated problem, you are setting up yourself and your company for failure.

Complicated problems

Difficult problems/situations that can be separated and dealt with in a systematic/logical way, relying on static rules or algorithms.  I think of the popular ‘Divide and Conquer’ approach in this space where you break a large system into its smaller subsystems and solve for the pieces to tackle the larger problem.  There is a sense of predictability that can be gained.  Once you figure out how to solve a specific complicated problem, that solution can be used at will for problems of the same type in the future.

Examples: Building rockets, coding a tax calculation engine, repairing a furnace, etc.

  • Difficult, but can be broken down into dependent steps/etc.

Complex problems

Difficult problems/situations that you can’t get a firm handle on the parts and there is a lack of rules/algorithms, predictability.  These are more challenging and different than the sum of its parts thinking, because its parts interact in unpredictable ways.  You might figure these out once, but whatever you did won’t likely generate the same result next time.  Think of the Butterfly effect here.

Examples: Forecasting the weather four weeks out, predicting new product segment success, etc.

  • Highly interdependent, exponential outcomes based situations.
  • According to this article in Inc, integrating two merging companies is included here.

Best Practices to Consider

The Inc article suggests the following considerations:

1) Understand and appreciate the differences between complexity thinking and complicated thinking

  • Both involve different mindsets, different expectations, different tolerances of ambiguity.  Both require dramatically different management techniques

2) Become comfortable with Complexity

  • Complexity thinking is intuitive, simple, and often requires an open mind plus basic common sense.
  • Ask yourself, is this problem complicated (can be broken down into subparts), or Complex (part interactions wildly affect results to where it’s difficult at best to predict)

3) Think “Manage not Solve” when confronted with Complex issues

  • Manage effort with a playbook of broad principles (Guidelines), rather than rule books
  • Use Inspect, Adapt problem solving efforts with tight feedback loops to allow for quick turns/modifications.

TL;DR

In short: In complex situations, embrace that change and uncertainty are inevitable, allow for team flexibility to adjust often via a default=trust culture, vs a default=control culture.

If you got to this point in the post, thanks for reading!

Agree/Disagree with the above thoughts?  I would love to hear your thoughts/experiences in this space.  Ping me and let’s talk!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: Agile | Leave a comment |

Want to make a lasting impact? Focus on bringing people together

Posted on March 26, 2016 by Mr. Mike

DevTeamQdobaAaronOrrCelebration

Just a little over a year ago, Aaron Orr (J. J. Keller Developer at the time) passed away suddenly.  As the anniversary of Aaron’s passing approached, I found myself thinking about Aaron and the times I and others shared with him.  Many smiles/laughs and even a few tears for me during this time.

One really cool thing that came out of this reminiscing was a realization that Aaron still inspires me, even today!   When I asked myself why (something I do often to find root causes of thoughts/etc) I noticed Aaron was a master at bringing groups of people together.  He loved getting small groups of people together for lunch, organizing a Tough Mudder team including weekly training runs, annual ski trips to Granite Peak, weekly Ultimate Frisbee games at the local park in the summer, even late evening Halo/DayZ/League video gaming sessions.  Certainly Aaron’s playful personality was at the center of many of these events but in hindsight, I believe he loved feeling part of a team… if it was our Dev team as a whole, the ski group within it, etc.

What to make a lasting impact? Organize a group outing/event!

Take the extra time to organize a group outing/event that you enjoy doing. Many people will attend these events, but only a select few will take the time to organize the event as well as do the simple (but effective) 1on1 influencing (arm twisting?) needed to ensure a good turnout.

The reward for your efforts: A memorable time with friends/coworkers.  Thanks from those that attended, for your organizational efforts.  The start/continuation of a culture of team/family.  A lasting impact on the group… with stories to tell from the event, jokes to share related to little mishaps/etc that happened during the event, etc.

Take the time to attend group events and engage

Want to get to know more people?  What to expand your circle of influence? Want to be part of something bigger than yourself?  Take the time to attend group events and when attending, fully engage with the group.   Lasting relationships happen when you engage, while attending is necessary to even have a chance to engage!

Bring people together

Whether you organize an event or attend events others organize, take the time to focus on bringing people together.  Even if it makes you a bit uncomfortable, you won’t regret it and I guarantee you will be making a lasting impact like Aaron did, reaching far beyond his physical presence.

Thank you Aaron for helping teach me such a valuable lesson.  If you were here today, I would ask you to stand up and take a bow!

Note: Main article picture is the group of J. J. Keller Developers that got together for lunch to celebrate Aaron’s impact on us all on the first anniversary of his passing.  Qdoba was Aaron’s favorite lunch get together place.  Thanks John and Cody for organizing the lunch event!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment |

Hello World 2.0

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Mr. Mike

The new MikeKuphal.com is now up and running.  After many failed attempts to transfer the content I blogged at mkuphal.wordpress.com via various WordPress tools, I finally broke down and manually copied each post.   Side effect of this manual transfer is a lack of comments posted to the original blog posts.  leanstartupBook

 

I am excited to start blogging again and plan to focus many of my posts on The Lean Startup book/movement.  I have read and reread the book multiple times over the past 18 months.  I get inspired each time I read it. I have also read a number of other Lean Startup series books, and experimented with many of the recommendations/techniques shared both in the books as well as via Lean Startup based blog posts.

 

Now it’s time to start sharing my thoughts related to The Lean Startup as well as other topics I am passionate about like Agile, Scrum, Mobile Development/etc.

 

Stay tuned…

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment |

Hello World

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Mr. Mike

I have had the urge to blog for a few months now.  Finally going to commit to making it happen.  Like all geeks, first step is writing that “Hello World” app.  So here it is and like most Hello World apps, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be, just needed to sit down and do it…. Just like with Twitter, which I have been using for over a year now at @mkuphal Now on to bigger and better posts.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment |

Pages

  • About Me

Archives

  • July 2020
  • March 2016
  • December 2013
  • December 2012
  • August 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011

Categories

  • Agile (10)
  • LeanStartup (2)
  • MobileConnections (16)
  • Scrum (9)
  • Uncategorized (4)

WordPress

  • Log in
  • WordPress

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

CyberChimps WordPress Themes

© Mike Kuphal 2020