SessionFive005

It's Deja Vu All Over Again
DianeGibson and DonGray

"What goes around, comes around, if you stick around long enough."

Ever have the feeling that you're "experiencing deja vu" in your projects? This happens when external events, interactions and our feelings are similar to situations in which we've been before. Why do we find ourselves in these repeating situations? What can we do to prevent these recurring events?

Systems archetypes are common patterns of behavior -- mostly, of problems or failures -- which are seen repeatedly in projects. The archetypes have been developed using systems tools: graphs of behavior over time and causal loop diagrams. They can be useful in identifying sources of common problems and sometimes counterintuitive ways to resolve them. There are examples in many different areas and types of projects.

In this session we will explore systems archetypes as they apply to common and recurring problems in software development projects.

Objectives:

Review Systems Archetypes
Relate the archetypes to difficulties commonly found in projects
Practice recognizing and drawing archetypes
Develop an action plan to deal with the problem

Prerequisites: Familiarity with Diagrams of Effect (aka Causal Loop Diagrams) will be helpful.

Minimum: 5
Maximum: 30

Constraints: None

These articles include systems thinking information:

Dissecting a Diagram of Effects Added 10/11/2005
How Did This Happen?
Shifting the Burden, Whose Monkey is it?
Process Improvement Hits Limits Added 11/08/2005

For anyone interested in the background material for this session, you can download it from: http:secure/SessionHandout22.pdf (use your wiki login name and password) It's 32 pages long. Great in flight reading material!

I tried unsuccessfully to download the handout. Should it still be there? SherryHeinze 2005.11.01

I can't access it either. I'll check with the webmaster and see how to get it back on line. DonGray 2005.11.08

Updated: Tuesday, November 8, 2005