Willem van den Ende

In our work as software development coaches, we have noticed that changing your software development method changes your organisation. We have run into questions like: why can't the customer keep up with the programming team and what can be done about it? How can we get a team to start unit testing? Is the lack of unit testing really the team’s biggest problem? What are the underlying dynamics of adding people to a project and how can these be used to increase project velocity?

We have found that the Diagram Of Effects (also known as the Causal Loop Diagram) is a simple and powerful technique for finding answers to these questions. It is a way of seeing organisations, projects, and teams as systems consisting of interrelated and interacting parts. A Diagram of Effects focuses on relationships and on the whole, instead of focusing on the parts in isolation. It helps to identify self-reinforcing feedback loops and not-so-obvious cause-effect relations.

Goal

The goal of this workshop is to apply systems thinking as a methodology-independent tool for understanding and influencing the dynamics of software development projects, teams, and organisations. Participants will learn to apply systems thinking, and in particular the Diagram of Effects (or Causal Loop Diagrams) technique, to different situations in projects, teams, and organisations; they also have an opportunity to share experiences in a structured way.

Process

We start with a collaborative, experiential game. After the game we show a Diagram of Effects from our own practice, so the participants get an idea how the techniques we learnt in the game translate to every-day practice. Subsequently we facilitate groups of participants in translating their own stories in a diagram and finding systemic interventions. Each group presents its results to the rest of the participants.

Audience

software developers, project leaders, coaches, customers, anybody involved in (IT) projects.

Participants are not required to have any knowledge or experience with the technique; the tutorial is also suitable for people experienced in systems thinking.

Outcomes

Participants know how to apply the Diagram Of Effects to software development practice, and have learnt new stories and interventions from other projects.