Write down your own initial impressions to the metaphor of the systems practitioner as juggler.

What juggler? Oh, this one:

I’m going to be seeing a lot of this juggler, I can tell. My initial impressions of this are that the metaphor sounds pretty reasonable on the face of it. It is difficult to manage anything complex and it does sometimes feel that I’m a pretty poor juggler trying to keep lots of extremely uneven objects in the air all at the same time.

The B ball has been covered by T214 already and I think I have a reasonable grasp on what is expected of systems practitioners. The E ball is the bit I find hard – the engaging with the real world bit. I’m not entirely sure what the C ball is trying to tell me. I have a vague idea but I’m keeping a space in my brain free for that information. I am hopeless at managing anything, so I suspect that this is the bit I shall be finding most difficult.

In your Learning Album list some of the practices you engage in personally and professionally. Suggest some measures of performance for these practices, i.e. how do you know if you do them well?

So, this activity is trying to get me to think about being a practitioner of something, how I do things and how do I measure my success in those things. This isn’t something I’ve done much thinking about in the past but it’s something that sounds like I should have thought about.

Let’s take my current career: software testing. I am a software tester, someone who tests software. Test software for what purpose? Well, in order to make sure that software produced is fit for purpose perhaps, or that it doesn’t contain many bugs. There’s lots of discussion about this sort of thing out there but I haven’t really engaged with them. I like my job, I bugger about with software all day making sure that it works within a certain set of parameters.

How do I know that I’ve done it well? Is it if I’ve raised a few dozen defects and annoyed all the developers? Is it if the software is rolled out into the wild and accepted by the customer? Is it if I feel that I’ve made a positive influence on the development of the product or made some other contribution that’s been recognised by my management? It’s all of these things, and many other things. There are all sorts of ways I can measure success, and they’re not all related to the software I’m testing.

For instance, I could say that I’ve had a successful day if I’ve managed to avoid doing any work all day, drunk lots of coffee and spent large parts of an afternoon playing Bejewelled on Facebook without getting caught. I wouldn’t actually feel happy about that (of course!) but some people might find that to be quite a successful day.

I actually feel that I’ve done well if I’ve learned something new, applied it to my job and succeeded in something new. I feel successful if some tests I’ve written are reviewed by an analyst and I do not need to do any updates. I get a sense of satisfaction if a colleague requires help and I’m able to provide it. I think I’ve had a good day, and done well, if I’ve had a good day (if you see what I mean).

This question is not as easy to answer as I thought. There are so many ways of measuring success in my job. It’s just as well I’m doing a course in managing complexity…

Locate yourself in your rich picture.

Well, I did already draw myself in the rich picture – performing a nice :facepalm: – but I do wonder if the way I included myself is actually correct. My understanding is more nuanced than it suggests. I do despair about the whole thing, of course, but I could also have linked myself up as a tax-payer in there.

Identify traps that may arise from your initial evaluations of the situation, for example, traps set by stakeholdings or identification; the ‘core issue’ trap; the ‘unacknowledged feelings’ trap; the ‘gut-reaction solution’ trap, all discussed above.

T306 hasn’t really properly defined these “traps” as of yet, although I kind of guess what they’re on about. T214 did go into thinking traps quite a bit and I even made some notes on that at the time.

So, did I fall into some traps in the previous activities? Of course I did. I have a particular view and although my views do encompass more than one political viewpoint my initial analysis is always going to be led by my own experiences. I’ve certainly fallen for the “gut-reaction” trap of thinking I know what the problem is, or some of the causes.

I do think that these days I’m fairly self-aware and understand that my own perspectives can get in the way of forming a “true” picture of any situation. T214 gave me that. I’m just not that good at trying to look from alternative perspectives.

Identify and record any stake you hold in this situation.

I wouldn’t have had much of a stake in the CSA situation back in the 90s, other than as a tax-payer. I could argue that I’d seen it on the news and had views on it then, which were based mostly on the way that the BBC et al were reporting it. If my memory serves me well then in certainly didn’t get much of a glowing review.

These days I still have no need of the CSA, although I do have a daughter with my wife. Our relationship is excellent but I guess there’s still potential that something can go wrong with our marriage and the CSA could be called into action on my daughter’s behalf. I very much doubt this will happen, but Ruby is only two and a lot can happen in 16 years. Continue reading →