Day 11 #AdventOfSystemSeeing
Narrative History: Unwinding Threads
Pick up a thread in the situation (in your verbal or visual narrative, or in your experience of it), and explore how it took shape and came to be.
What were the various paths of influence and unfolding? What are some stories of the history that you were there for, or have heard others tell?
While you have time (in the 15-20 minute window), pick up other threads and explore those and notice interconnections.
"Complex systems have a history. Not only do they evolve through time, but their past is co-responsible for their present behaviour. Any analysis of a complex system that ignores the dimension of time is incomplete"
- Paul Cilliers, Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding
Complex Systems
“Realized that the word "context" is shorthand for the cumulative effect of all the past decisions that we cannot change now. Decisions about what business we're in, which clients we serve, what compromises we made, where we've invested time and effort, and where we didn't. All of it adds up.
And here and now we are deciding things that will become tomorrow's context.”
Source: https://ruby.social/@testobsessed/111540359195800768
Image: last year’s System Seeing included this prompt and these quotes
Reused, because history is so important — to understand where we are, and also Chesterton’s Fence
And:
“Q: What's the right way to...?
A: It depends
Q: Depends on...?
A: Context”
Same source: https://ruby.social/@testobsessed/111540359195800768
So cool that mastodon posts have become sources ;)
“The more I look around, the more the engineering world, once you go back more than a few years, looks like subterranean New York City. A mass of strange engineering feats humming away out of sight, produced by long-forgotten ancient peoples, leaving only fragmentary maps and diagrams.”
— an engineer
https://landley.net/history/mirror/institutional_memory.html
Persisted and made available by @landley
@RuthMalan Love this. I have heard @testobsessed say 'current context is made up a history of decisions.'
Seems similar. And hopefully I didn't butcher that too much Elisabeth
@joeltosi @RuthMalan actually I like your phrase better than mine Joel -- tighter & punchier. And I also stand by the quote in Ruth's material. Many thanks to both of you!
@testobsessed and @joeltosi version also allows for context to include more than decisions we made, but i like the reminder, in the context of making decisions, that we’re creating enabling and inhibiting context tomorrow (etc)
@RuthMalan @testobsessed that's interesting as I'd include decisions that can be changed in context as well. And part of today's decisions includes knowing what past decisions can and could be changed to develop better context for tomorrow.
@austingovella part of what is so useful in @testobsessed ‘s phrasing is that it nods towards the interpersonal dynamics in how “context” is used…
@RuthMalan @testobsessed good quote, but context is not limited to things we could have changed. It also includes the competitive environment (what our competitors are doing), and the business pressures and opportunities of our clients
The past is the hidden structure of the present.