/home/me

When you talk about experience what do you mean?

Describe what was, for you, a new experience.

Experiences are circumstances that I’ve been through that I’ve remembered. They shape my perspectives and, eventually, my worldview. They are things that I may remember in the future during new experiences, and these prior experiences may shape how I act in the new ones.

I was in the RAF for 12 years and part of that time was spent with a tactical unit in Kuwait. I wasn’t running around in the desert or anything (thankfully!) but I did get to maintain the communications systems at the main airbase there. I’d seen the bombing of Iraq on the television – like everyone else – but had no direct experience of war until I got to Kuwait.

I only got to see some of the aftermath in Kuwait. The airbase had several reinforced concrete aircraft shelters and each of these had been bombed by the allies during the first gulf war. The concrete in these things was several meters thick and these bombs had somehow penetrated all the way through, no doubt destroying everything underneath. I’ve stood on top of one of these shelters and looked down the massive hole left by these bombs. The amount of energy released in these impacts must have been utterly immense.

You really don’t get an idea of how much damage can be done by modern weapons until you’ve seen it yourself. The television makes it look terrifying but you get a feel for how terrible when you can touch the results.

There were other war relics visible in the squash courts. These were used for executions by the Iraqis and the bullet holes were still there. The pragmatism of the British military meant that there was a special “let” rule so that balls ricocheting out of one of these holes would be replayed.

I’m not entirely sure where this one is going but here we go. The right column will be filled in later.

*Update* – after reading further down the course materials here is the right column material too. I’ve used definitions more suited to systems thinking that the generic meanings of the verbs. (updated 14/3/2012)

List the two contrasting ideas from Table 1 (page 66) that you find most challenging to, or supportive of, your current worldview. Explain why.

The table in the question lists “some contrasting features between the traditional Western conception of the disembodied person with that of an embodied person”. I’m not entirely convinced that the course notes have really explained what this means but I’m going to have a stab at a pair of contrasting ideas.

Western conception: The world has a unique category structure independent of the minds, bodies or brains of human beings (i.e. an objective world). 

Embodied person: Our conceptual system is grounded in, neurally makes use of, and is crucially shaped by our perceptual and motor systems. 

I do think that the world can be objectively understood – through science. It is science that defines how we understand reality, so perhaps this is what the traditional Western idea is stating. However, I also think that the embodied persion idea is also correct, in that as individuals we understand everything that goes on around us by our own perception. Our brains interpret everything that we see, hear and taste and the way we understand these signals is shaped by our prior experiences.

Looking at the list on the rest of the table I am more likely to agree with the “embodied person” side rather than the traditional western. This is probably due to my prior learning on T214

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.