June 1, 2025 • 26 mins
On the folly of designing complex systems in one go, from the top down.
Show notes:
- Traction Heroes ep. 6: Chesterton's Fence
- Traction Heroes ep. 2: Unprecedented
- The Design Squiggle
- Systemantics by John Gall
- A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram
- Wardley map
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jorge (00:00):
I'm as much a platonist as anyone, right?
(00:02):
I have this idealized vision ofwhat a system should be.
And idealized visions oftendon't account for edge cases.
And it's the edge cases, theaccommodations, that make
systems behave in ways thatcomport with actual human
behavior.
Narrator (00:25):
You're listening to Traction Heroes.
Digging In to Get Results withHarry Max and Jorge Arango.
Jorge (00:35):
Hey Harry.
It's good to see you again.
Harry (00:36):
Hey, Jorge, I so appreciate you making time
today.
Jorge (00:40):
I always have time for you, my friend.
These conversations feed me.
Harry (00:45):
Oh, they're so enlivening.
I can't help...
it just, yes! And now, peopleare talking about'em.
Like, people are sending memessages like, Hey, I heard
about your podcast on...
I think the one that I keephearing about is your
Chesterson's Fence.
I hear about that one.
I hear about the, what was theother one?
(01:09):
Oh, Unprecedented.
People talk about that one.
And so, people are starting toreference these to me and ask me
for links to them and stuff likethat.
That's kinda fun.
Jorge (01:17):
Yeah, that's really...
it's really gratifying to knowthat these conversations are
having an impact on folks.
Harry (01:24):
Yeah, no doubt.
Jorge (01:25):
And I think that there are some themes that are
starting to emerge, which isnatural given our backgrounds
and interests and both thingsthat we have in common and
things that are different aboutus.
Harry (01:38):
I'm guessing, given the fact that you wore that
incredibly cool shirt, which isthe one that has the squiggly
line on the...
is it on the left?
And then turns into a straightline on the right, representing
the creative process that youmight, if we're lucky, have
brought something.
Jorge (01:52):
This is the famous design squiggle.
It's a little doodle thatdepicts the design process.
I think that maybe at a highlevel, the reading I brought
today might be seen as part ofthis, but only if you unfocus
your eyes.
Harry (02:12):
Okay.
Jorge (02:14):
Let me get into it.
Let me just start reading this.
Harry (02:16):
All right, let me take my glasses off so my eyes are
unfocused.
Jorge (02:19):
This might be a little long, but we've done longer
passages in the past.
All right.
"How does it come about, step bystep, that some complex Systems
actually function?
This question, to which we, asstudents of General Systematics
attach the highest importance,has not yet yielded to intensive
(02:42):
modern methods of investigationand analysis.
As of this writing, only alimited and partial breakthrough
can be reported as follows."Now, this is me commenting.
The next sentence is rendered inALL CAPS.
Okay?
So, this means it's important.
(03:03):
"A COMPLEX SYSTEM THAT WORKS ISINVARIABLY FOUND TO HAVE EVOLVED
FROM A SIMPLE SYSTEM THATWORKED." All caps off.
"The parallel proposition alsoappears to be true:" And now
we're back to all caps.
"A COMPLEX SYSTEM DESIGNED FROMSCRATCH NEVER WORKS AND CANNOT
(03:27):
BE MADE TO WORK.
YOU HAVE TO START OVER,BEGINNING WITH A WORKING SIMPLE
SYSTEM." Caps off.
"Diligent search for exceptionsto these axioms has yielded
negative results.
The League of Nations, no.
The United Nations, hardly.
(03:48):
Nevertheless, the convictionpersists among some that a
working complex System will befound somewhere to have been
established de novo fromscratch.
Our friends, the mathematiciansand engineers, in particular,
may insist that theseformulations are too sweeping,
that they set forth as naturallaw what is merely the result of
(04:10):
certain technical difficultieswhich they propose to overcome
in the near future.
"Without committing ourselvestoo strongly to either camp, we
will remark that the mechanismby which the transition from
working simple System to workingcomplex System takes place is
not known.
Few areas offer greaterpotential reward for truly first
(04:33):
rate research."
Harry (04:38):
Wow.
Is it done?
Jorge (04:43):
It's done.
That's the end of the quote.
Harry (04:46):
Okay.
A couple things.
the first is I feel like I knowthat book.
I wonder if it's one that'ssitting on my shelf that I...
is it Wolfson or Wolfberg or...
who's the author to that?
Jorge (05:00):
The author and I'll say, the passage that I've read
here...
We were talking in our previousepisode about Hofstadter's Law,
and this is one of these thingsthat has become like a law,
right?
And this passage that I readhere about complex system that
works, et cetera, is oftenreferred to as Gall's law after
(05:22):
the author John Gall.
And the book is calledSystemantics: the Systems Bible.
Harry (05:29):
You're right, a, number of interesting themes are
starting to emerge in theseconversations.
One of them is a concept aroundtightly integrated, loosely
coupled systems.
And this is showing up in the AIconversation increasingly,
around how to build systems thatare likely to allow for agents
(05:54):
agentic computing to work.
But I was thinking aboutfractals, and I was thinking
about cellular automata, who isthe guy that wrote the book?
The Mathematica guy,
Jorge (06:12):
Stephen Wolfram.
Harry (06:13):
Yeah.
Maybe that's who it was.
At any rate, the funny thing isthat the more predictable way to
build systems is nowincreasingly being, represented
on two fronts.
One by, I think about, are youfamiliar with Wardley mapping?
Jorge (06:33):
Yes.
Simon Wardley.
Harry (06:34):
Yeah, Simon Wardley's work, where he's using kind of
this technology diffusion curveagainst the closeness to the
user and then to infrastructureto look at how you map out
building a system so that youfigure out, where do you need to
invest, research, or reallycreating something from scratch
(06:55):
versus utilizing commoditycapabilities.
And so, on one hand, I wasthinking about the Wardley
mapping, which...
That guy's a genius; I had thegreat fortune of taking a class
from him on Wardley mapping manyyears ago, I think at Code for
America.
And, then the other piece wasthat this notion of building
(07:20):
relatively sophisticated andmuch better, much more durable,
highly functional andincreasingly adaptive systems by
starting with small modules.
And one of my clients right nowis, I can't really talk too much
about what they do, butthey're...
man, it's hard to know where towhere to draw the line, but
(07:44):
let's just say they're buildingvery complex systems with
off-the-shelf parts.
And that's not something that Ithink was common years and years
ago.
I think people generally, eitherbecause those parts didn't
exist, or because theintegration and standards didn't
exist, or because they thoughteverything was unique and they
(08:07):
needed to build one big complexthing.
Like, these big, giant complexthings often don't...
they're expensive and they don'tgo well often.
They're usually late.
They're usually, way moreexpensive than people think, and
they often take a long time toget to the point that they
deliver on the benefits thatpeople expect.
(08:27):
So there's a weird intersectionhere of, if you're gonna design
something, you wanna use as muchoff the shelf stuff as you can,
you wanna understand what youwould need to invest in, which
is why I like the Wardley map,which, it's like a super
valuable concept, even forsomething like a house, right?
Because you can...
(08:49):
like my dad's house managed tosurvive the fires down in Los
Angeles.
But I've been involved in theseconversations in the planning
for rebuilding the neighborhoodwhere the architects were
proposing using modular homes.
Yeah, modular homes, even inthis kinda ritzy neighborhood.
(09:10):
And, the evolution of modularstuff has gotten to a point
where it's almostindistinguishable from high
quality custom stuff.
And just thinking about that, Idon't know that anybody spends
time thinking about rebuilding ahouse using a Wardley map, but I
think the value of somethinglike Wardley map thinking in
(09:33):
this space is really valuablebecause it allows you to trend
toward a simple designing anddeveloping what ultimately will
be a complex system by startingwith very simple components and
building out from there.
Jorge (09:46):
You've touched on several of the aspects that I think are
critical for the design complexsystems, right?
One is designing for emergence,which to some degree implies
designing for modularity, right?
So you want to create thingsthat can be recomposed and that
have some degree of flexibility.
I think that what I had in mindhere in bringing this passage
(10:09):
from this book to ourconversation is a...
one of the themes I think thatis emerging, certainly for me,
is a certain degree ofconservatism.
Harry (10:21):
Ah.
Jorge (10:22):
And what I mean by this is, we work in a field, in tech,
where, for a lot of people, themantra is"move fast and break
things." But there's also thisunderstanding that comes from
startups of the minimum viableproduct, where you start small
(10:42):
and you have a direction, andthen you test that direction by
putting out the minimum thingthat can work and that can
meet...
bring to life your hypothesis,let's say, right?
And then, as that product meetsconditions on the ground, you
adapt it to the feedback thatyou receive from actual paying
(11:05):
users.
And that is how you end up withreally powerful, complex
products.
Whereas, if you try to designthe product right off the bat
with all the bells and whistles,you're likely not going to get
it right, because you're solvingproblems that might be in your
mind as opposed to the realworld.
(11:27):
And the conservatism thing comesin is that...
by the way, you mentionedearlier our Chesterton's Fence
episode; I'm referring to thatas well.
It's like this idea that we lookat complex systems and we often
take them for granted and arevery willing to jettison them
(11:47):
without thinking of what it tookto get to the point where they
are.
If a system, particularly acomplex system, if it's around
after more than a couple ofyears, it's doing something
right.
Even if it has problems, it'sdoing something right.
And it behooves you tounderstand what that is.
(12:08):
And it takes a great deal ofarrogance, I think, to think
that you can swoop in andreplace a complex system from
the top down.
It takes a tremendous chutzpahto do that, right?
Harry (12:28):
It's astonishing.
When we get done today, I amgonna hop in my car and go to a
meeting to address the situationjust like this, right?
One of my clients called up andsaid that they wanted to drop a
new learning management system,a new LMS, into their product
and service offering.
They want to tear their old oneout.
(12:48):
And we were kinda unsuccessfulat getting them to recognize the
risk of doing that over a Zoomcall.
So I got in my car last Friday,and I drove three hours to have
lunch with the guy.
And I said,"Look, our reputationis based on us doing right by
(13:10):
you, right?
Whether you choose to work withus or not, but I couldn't let
you move down the path that youwere gonna go down with or
without us, with any vendor,without sitting down with you
with dry erase markers on awhiteboard to show you why the
approach that you're currentlyabout to take is likely to yield
(13:31):
to an outcome that could tankyour entire business.
Because you've built this systemand you've put a whole bunch of
stuff around it, and it's beenoperating for years.
And it's been adjusted, it'sbeen customized, it's been
tweaked.
Your system is like embodiedlearning, and if you just cut a
(13:53):
line at the bottom of it, tearoff the bottom and shove a new
piece of technology in withouthaving spent the time to think
through what it really needs todo and for whom in how is it
gonna be successful, it will notend well." And sure enough, when
we were done with that meeting,he said,"Look, I, get it now."
(14:14):
And so he pulled his teamtogether and they're coming down
to talk to us today because Ithink I adequately conveyed that
they had a system that was a lotmore complex than they realized,
and just taking a wholesalecleaver to the thing and trying
to fix it to save a little bitof money and to make it a little
(14:37):
bit easier for them was gonna bemore expensive and take longer
than they thought, at a minimum.
Jorge (14:47):
I wonder if there's some kind of cognitive bias here at
play.
And there well might be, I'mjust not aware of it.
But it just feels to me likethis kind of attitude is
endemic, particularly in thetech space.
It was a few months ago thatSonos released that new version
of their app that basicallyaimed to re-platform the whole
(15:09):
thing.
And I don't have any insideknowledge of what happened there
except what was written up inthe media, but the impression
that I got from that is thatthey took for granted the fact
that the existing applicationcontained a large amount of
(15:30):
fixes for edge cases, which nonew app was going to be able to
account for.
No new app undertaken fromscratch, right?
And we also heard, again,another item from the news that
I have zero insight into otherthan what I've read in the news,
is this thing about theDepartment of Governmental
(15:54):
Efficiency, DOGE, going in andsaying that they were going to
eliminate all this COBOL code inthe government.
And I think that anybody who'sworked with these kinds of
systems read something like thatand we go,"Well, that's brave!"
Harry (16:12):
Yeah, more than that.
I read that and I'm like,"Oh,they're gonna try to replace
the, the systems at the FAA andI'm not getting on a plane.
I'm gonna take the train ordrive, because you know that
stuff is way more complex thanpeople realize."
Jorge (16:30):
Yeah, absolutely.
And the thing is and I'll speaknow for myself, like I'm as much
a platonist as anyone, right?
I have this idealized vision ofwhat a system should be.
And idealized visions oftendon't account for edge cases.
And it's the edge cases, theaccommodations, that make
(16:52):
systems behave in ways thatcomport with actual human
behavior.
And the older I get, the more Irealize that that cannot be
designed from the top down.
It can only be realized byputting systems out there,
iterating on them, andincrementally improving them.
(17:14):
And in the tech space, I thinkwe almost fetishize innovation,
just because the shiny new iswhat gets the headlines.
But to your point earlier, someof the best innovations happen
atop existing technologies thathave been reconfigured in
different ways.
(17:35):
And, in fact, many of theinnovations that we've seen in
the last few decades could nothave happened if we had to
invent the whole stack from topto bottom.
So it's all been standing on theshoulders of giants and growing
things.
And in fact, there are lots ofexamples of organizations that
tried to wipe the slate cleanand didn't succeed.
(17:59):
I'm thinking and now, this isone of these that is gonna date
me, but back in the 1980s, whenthe PC standards started getting
away from IBM, they tried torelease a new standard, and that
didn't go well, right?
Like, at that point, there wasan active ecosystem that had
developed around what it meantto be a PC, and even the
(18:19):
industry leader couldn't swaythe way that the market was
going.
So, I think it's incrediblyhard, and I increasingly find
myself skeptical of efforts todesign complex systems in one go
from the top down in violationof Gall's law.
Harry (18:40):
Yeah.
So many thoughts come to mind.
One of them is that many yearsago, I worked at a company
called Dreamworks Animation,PDI, Pacific Data Images,
Dreamworks Animation.
And I had the incredible greatfortune that my office was right
across from Richard Chung'soffice.
And Richard was one of the threefounders of PDI, which was
(19:02):
acquired by Dreamworks.
Richard was the...
I guess he was the technicalpipeline wizard.
Incredibly kind, thoughtful,smart, wise man.
So, I had various conversationswith him about stuff.
And one of them was aboutinnovation, because there was so
much innovation going on at thestudio.
We made Shrek 2, we made SharkTail.
(19:22):
Shark Tail, not so great; Shrek2 pretty awesome, and a bunch of
other movies.
And there was all sorts ofinnovation going on in the 3D
animation movie space at Pixarand Dreamworks and others.
And I got into this conversationwith Richard about innovation,
and he said,"You know, Harry,there's no such thing as
(19:43):
innovation." I said,"What do youmean?" He goes,"Can you put
innovation in a bag?" And Isaid,"No, it's just a word." And
he goes,"Yeah, it's, basically averb that's been turned into a
noun so it's this frozenconcept." He goes,"What there is
innovating, the gerund verb,ING, innovating." And he goes,
(20:05):
"Innovating is a creativeprocess of solving valuable
problems." And he goes,"Now,there's tons of that going on
here.
There's no such thing asinnovation.
I don't see innovation anywhere,but I see a lot of innovating.
I see a lot of creative peoplehaving creative, smart,
technical thoughts with problemsthey're trying to solve, and
(20:25):
then they're solving them in avaluable way.
That's where you see the resultsof innovating." And I love that
philosophy.
So I've become very sensitive tothe idea of using
nominalizations, which are verbsthat have been turned into nouns
like innovation.
They make me cr...
(20:46):
like, my hair stands up all.
Look, I don't have very much ofit, but it does stand up.
And, that was the first thingthat came to mind.
And I, realized that this isjust a rich topic.
Because I've been involved inprobably three large
replatforming efforts.
They all went well.
Like, really well.
(21:07):
They were relatively on time.
They're relatively on budget.
They delivered what we said wewere gonna deliver.
So, I haven't had the experienceof being intimately involved in
any of these catastrophes that Isee certainly coming.
Jorge (21:23):
When I hear replatforming, I hear,"Let's
take what is working over hereand change the infrastructure,
maybe the code base, what haveyou." I think that's different
than what the Gall is saying,right?
I think Gall is talking aboutdesigning a net new system.
It's as though you are going tonot replatform the thing, but
like re-implement it in a newway with new features, new
(21:45):
functionality, all done fromscratch.
Harry (21:49):
Fair enough.
I think I was being messy aboutmy language.
I think in replatforming thereI...
Partly, one of the things I wasinvolved in was pulling the
infrastructure out and replacingthe infrastructure so that the
top end remained relatively thesame.
But the thing is the top endcan't remain the same because
the platforms, there are allsorts of accommodations in the
(22:13):
user experience or the UI layerthat work around challenges in
the underlying platform, andthen there are all sorts of
accommodations in the platformto deal with things that it was
never intended or designed todo.
And you have these complexinteractions here.
So, fair enough.
but I, think I was speaking tothe spirit of large platform
(22:37):
changes.
Jorge (22:38):
Yeah, I have no qualms with that.
It's the,"Let's design a largeplatform, net new from scratch.
Maybe replace our old platplatform with a newly designed
one that does all the thingsthat we think it should do, as
opposed to all the things thatthe old platform grew to
accommodate." Those are twodifferent things, I think.
Harry (23:00):
I completely agree with you, and I'm using the same word
to describe both.
The last couple years, I had aclient who failed at this, and I
came in after the decision hadbeen made and after the
execution of the new and shinynew platform had been committed
to, and it had the predictableresults, right?
(23:21):
The small company ended uphaving to manage two platforms
for two years while it figuredout how to take all the stuff in
the old platform that no oneever realized needed to be in
the new platform and bake it inthere so that the new platform
could do more, faster, better,cheaper.
Jorge (23:41):
I don't wanna suggest that any of this is easy.
These are really trickyprojects.
I think maybe to bring it backto practical thoughts for folks,
because after all, what we'retrying to do is help people gain
traction.
And part of the reason why Iwanted to bring this to the
table is that it might be likerule zero when trying to gain
traction is make sure that thething that you're looking to
(24:03):
gain traction on is actuallydoable.
And, this feels to me like oneof those Quixotic pursuits where
it's like,"Let's redesign thewhole thing from scratch!"
Right?
Maybe to try to articulate it inpractical terms, a few things
that someone could do is maybequestion whether redesigning the
(24:25):
whole thing from scratch is thewisest path forward.
Like I said, there are manyexamples of such projects that
have gone awry.
One other thing you've broughtup here, which is emergence,
right?
Like, the idea that if theplatform or product or whatever
is eventually going to becomplex, meaning serve all these
(24:48):
different needs and perform allthese different functions, then
design it in such a way that itcan grow and is not closed ended
in some way.
And the third thing you've alsotouched on, which is, that
implies both designing it to bemodular and bottom up so that
(25:09):
the system can, in fact, evolve.
Harry (25:13):
This is feeling like a really rich topic that maybe we
should figure out how to talkmore about at some later date.
Jorge (25:19):
I'm sure there are more readings.
This is a perennial theme forme, so I'll think about what
else I can bring to the table sowe can keep it going.
Harry (25:27):
What a great conversation, though.
Thank you so much.
Jorge (25:30):
Thank you, Harry.
Harry (25:31):
Yeah.
Take care, Jorge.
Narrator (25:41):
Thank you for listening to Traction Heroes
with Harry Max and Jorge Arango.
Check out the show notes attractionheroes.com and if you
enjoyed the show, please leaveus a rating in Apple's podcasts
app.
Thanks.
I'm as much a platonist as anyone, right?
(00:02):
I have this idealized vision ofwhat a system should be.
And idealized visions oftendon't account for edge cases.
And it's the edge cases, theaccommodations, that make
systems behave in ways thatcomport with actual human
behavior.
Narrator (00:25):
You're listening to Traction Heroes.
Digging In to Get Results withHarry Max and Jorge Arango.
Jorge (00:35):
Hey Harry.
It's good to see you again.
Harry (00:36):
Hey, Jorge, I so appreciate you making time
today.
Jorge (00:40):
I always have time for you, my friend.
These conversations feed me.
Harry (00:45):
Oh, they're so enlivening.
I can't help...
it just, yes! And now, peopleare talking about'em.
Like, people are sending memessages like, Hey, I heard
about your podcast on...
I think the one that I keephearing about is your
Chesterson's Fence.
I hear about that one.
I hear about the, what was theother one?
(01:09):
Oh, Unprecedented.
People talk about that one.
And so, people are starting toreference these to me and ask me
for links to them and stuff likethat.
That's kinda fun.
Jorge (01:17):
Yeah, that's really...
it's really gratifying to knowthat these conversations are
having an impact on folks.
Harry (01:24):
Yeah, no doubt.
Jorge (01:25):
And I think that there are some themes that are
starting to emerge, which isnatural given our backgrounds
and interests and both thingsthat we have in common and
things that are different aboutus.
Harry (01:38):
I'm guessing, given the fact that you wore that
incredibly cool shirt, which isthe one that has the squiggly
line on the...
is it on the left?
And then turns into a straightline on the right, representing
the creative process that youmight, if we're lucky, have
brought something.
Jorge (01:52):
This is the famous design squiggle.
It's a little doodle thatdepicts the design process.
I think that maybe at a highlevel, the reading I brought
today might be seen as part ofthis, but only if you unfocus
your eyes.
Harry (02:12):
Okay.
Jorge (02:14):
Let me get into it.
Let me just start reading this.
Harry (02:16):
All right, let me take my glasses off so my eyes are
unfocused.
Jorge (02:19):
This might be a little long, but we've done longer
passages in the past.
All right.
"How does it come about, step bystep, that some complex Systems
actually function?
This question, to which we, asstudents of General Systematics
attach the highest importance,has not yet yielded to intensive
(02:42):
modern methods of investigationand analysis.
As of this writing, only alimited and partial breakthrough
can be reported as follows."Now, this is me commenting.
The next sentence is rendered inALL CAPS.
Okay?
So, this means it's important.
(03:03):
"A COMPLEX SYSTEM THAT WORKS ISINVARIABLY FOUND TO HAVE EVOLVED
FROM A SIMPLE SYSTEM THATWORKED." All caps off.
"The parallel proposition alsoappears to be true:" And now
we're back to all caps.
"A COMPLEX SYSTEM DESIGNED FROMSCRATCH NEVER WORKS AND CANNOT
(03:27):
BE MADE TO WORK.
YOU HAVE TO START OVER,BEGINNING WITH A WORKING SIMPLE
SYSTEM." Caps off.
"Diligent search for exceptionsto these axioms has yielded
negative results.
The League of Nations, no.
The United Nations, hardly.
(03:48):
Nevertheless, the convictionpersists among some that a
working complex System will befound somewhere to have been
established de novo fromscratch.
Our friends, the mathematiciansand engineers, in particular,
may insist that theseformulations are too sweeping,
that they set forth as naturallaw what is merely the result of
(04:10):
certain technical difficultieswhich they propose to overcome
in the near future.
"Without committing ourselvestoo strongly to either camp, we
will remark that the mechanismby which the transition from
working simple System to workingcomplex System takes place is
not known.
Few areas offer greaterpotential reward for truly first
(04:33):
rate research."
Harry (04:38):
Wow.
Is it done?
Jorge (04:43):
It's done.
That's the end of the quote.
Harry (04:46):
Okay.
A couple things.
the first is I feel like I knowthat book.
I wonder if it's one that'ssitting on my shelf that I...
is it Wolfson or Wolfberg or...
who's the author to that?
Jorge (05:00):
The author and I'll say, the passage that I've read
here...
We were talking in our previousepisode about Hofstadter's Law,
and this is one of these thingsthat has become like a law,
right?
And this passage that I readhere about complex system that
works, et cetera, is oftenreferred to as Gall's law after
(05:22):
the author John Gall.
And the book is calledSystemantics: the Systems Bible.
Harry (05:29):
You're right, a, number of interesting themes are
starting to emerge in theseconversations.
One of them is a concept aroundtightly integrated, loosely
coupled systems.
And this is showing up in the AIconversation increasingly,
around how to build systems thatare likely to allow for agents
(05:54):
agentic computing to work.
But I was thinking aboutfractals, and I was thinking
about cellular automata, who isthe guy that wrote the book?
The Mathematica guy,
Jorge (06:12):
Stephen Wolfram.
Harry (06:13):
Yeah.
Maybe that's who it was.
At any rate, the funny thing isthat the more predictable way to
build systems is nowincreasingly being, represented
on two fronts.
One by, I think about, are youfamiliar with Wardley mapping?
Jorge (06:33):
Yes.
Simon Wardley.
Harry (06:34):
Yeah, Simon Wardley's work, where he's using kind of
this technology diffusion curveagainst the closeness to the
user and then to infrastructureto look at how you map out
building a system so that youfigure out, where do you need to
invest, research, or reallycreating something from scratch
(06:55):
versus utilizing commoditycapabilities.
And so, on one hand, I wasthinking about the Wardley
mapping, which...
That guy's a genius; I had thegreat fortune of taking a class
from him on Wardley mapping manyyears ago, I think at Code for
America.
And, then the other piece wasthat this notion of building
(07:20):
relatively sophisticated andmuch better, much more durable,
highly functional andincreasingly adaptive systems by
starting with small modules.
And one of my clients right nowis, I can't really talk too much
about what they do, butthey're...
man, it's hard to know where towhere to draw the line, but
(07:44):
let's just say they're buildingvery complex systems with
off-the-shelf parts.
And that's not something that Ithink was common years and years
ago.
I think people generally, eitherbecause those parts didn't
exist, or because theintegration and standards didn't
exist, or because they thoughteverything was unique and they
(08:07):
needed to build one big complexthing.
Like, these big, giant complexthings often don't...
they're expensive and they don'tgo well often.
They're usually late.
They're usually, way moreexpensive than people think, and
they often take a long time toget to the point that they
deliver on the benefits thatpeople expect.
(08:27):
So there's a weird intersectionhere of, if you're gonna design
something, you wanna use as muchoff the shelf stuff as you can,
you wanna understand what youwould need to invest in, which
is why I like the Wardley map,which, it's like a super
valuable concept, even forsomething like a house, right?
Because you can...
(08:49):
like my dad's house managed tosurvive the fires down in Los
Angeles.
But I've been involved in theseconversations in the planning
for rebuilding the neighborhoodwhere the architects were
proposing using modular homes.
Yeah, modular homes, even inthis kinda ritzy neighborhood.
(09:10):
And, the evolution of modularstuff has gotten to a point
where it's almostindistinguishable from high
quality custom stuff.
And just thinking about that, Idon't know that anybody spends
time thinking about rebuilding ahouse using a Wardley map, but I
think the value of somethinglike Wardley map thinking in
(09:33):
this space is really valuablebecause it allows you to trend
toward a simple designing anddeveloping what ultimately will
be a complex system by startingwith very simple components and
building out from there.
Jorge (09:46):
You've touched on several of the aspects that I think are
critical for the design complexsystems, right?
One is designing for emergence,which to some degree implies
designing for modularity, right?
So you want to create thingsthat can be recomposed and that
have some degree of flexibility.
I think that what I had in mindhere in bringing this passage
(10:09):
from this book to ourconversation is a...
one of the themes I think thatis emerging, certainly for me,
is a certain degree ofconservatism.
Harry (10:21):
Ah.
Jorge (10:22):
And what I mean by this is, we work in a field, in tech,
where, for a lot of people, themantra is"move fast and break
things." But there's also thisunderstanding that comes from
startups of the minimum viableproduct, where you start small
(10:42):
and you have a direction, andthen you test that direction by
putting out the minimum thingthat can work and that can
meet...
bring to life your hypothesis,let's say, right?
And then, as that product meetsconditions on the ground, you
adapt it to the feedback thatyou receive from actual paying
(11:05):
users.
And that is how you end up withreally powerful, complex
products.
Whereas, if you try to designthe product right off the bat
with all the bells and whistles,you're likely not going to get
it right, because you're solvingproblems that might be in your
mind as opposed to the realworld.
(11:27):
And the conservatism thing comesin is that...
by the way, you mentionedearlier our Chesterton's Fence
episode; I'm referring to thatas well.
It's like this idea that we lookat complex systems and we often
take them for granted and arevery willing to jettison them
(11:47):
without thinking of what it tookto get to the point where they
are.
If a system, particularly acomplex system, if it's around
after more than a couple ofyears, it's doing something
right.
Even if it has problems, it'sdoing something right.
And it behooves you tounderstand what that is.
(12:08):
And it takes a great deal ofarrogance, I think, to think
that you can swoop in andreplace a complex system from
the top down.
It takes a tremendous chutzpahto do that, right?
Harry (12:28):
It's astonishing.
When we get done today, I amgonna hop in my car and go to a
meeting to address the situationjust like this, right?
One of my clients called up andsaid that they wanted to drop a
new learning management system,a new LMS, into their product
and service offering.
They want to tear their old oneout.
(12:48):
And we were kinda unsuccessfulat getting them to recognize the
risk of doing that over a Zoomcall.
So I got in my car last Friday,and I drove three hours to have
lunch with the guy.
And I said,"Look, our reputationis based on us doing right by
(13:10):
you, right?
Whether you choose to work withus or not, but I couldn't let
you move down the path that youwere gonna go down with or
without us, with any vendor,without sitting down with you
with dry erase markers on awhiteboard to show you why the
approach that you're currentlyabout to take is likely to yield
(13:31):
to an outcome that could tankyour entire business.
Because you've built this systemand you've put a whole bunch of
stuff around it, and it's beenoperating for years.
And it's been adjusted, it'sbeen customized, it's been
tweaked.
Your system is like embodiedlearning, and if you just cut a
(13:53):
line at the bottom of it, tearoff the bottom and shove a new
piece of technology in withouthaving spent the time to think
through what it really needs todo and for whom in how is it
gonna be successful, it will notend well." And sure enough, when
we were done with that meeting,he said,"Look, I, get it now."
(14:14):
And so he pulled his teamtogether and they're coming down
to talk to us today because Ithink I adequately conveyed that
they had a system that was a lotmore complex than they realized,
and just taking a wholesalecleaver to the thing and trying
to fix it to save a little bitof money and to make it a little
(14:37):
bit easier for them was gonna bemore expensive and take longer
than they thought, at a minimum.
Jorge (14:47):
I wonder if there's some kind of cognitive bias here at
play.
And there well might be, I'mjust not aware of it.
But it just feels to me likethis kind of attitude is
endemic, particularly in thetech space.
It was a few months ago thatSonos released that new version
of their app that basicallyaimed to re-platform the whole
(15:09):
thing.
And I don't have any insideknowledge of what happened there
except what was written up inthe media, but the impression
that I got from that is thatthey took for granted the fact
that the existing applicationcontained a large amount of
(15:30):
fixes for edge cases, which nonew app was going to be able to
account for.
No new app undertaken fromscratch, right?
And we also heard, again,another item from the news that
I have zero insight into otherthan what I've read in the news,
is this thing about theDepartment of Governmental
(15:54):
Efficiency, DOGE, going in andsaying that they were going to
eliminate all this COBOL code inthe government.
And I think that anybody who'sworked with these kinds of
systems read something like thatand we go,"Well, that's brave!"
Harry (16:12):
Yeah, more than that.
I read that and I'm like,"Oh,they're gonna try to replace
the, the systems at the FAA andI'm not getting on a plane.
I'm gonna take the train ordrive, because you know that
stuff is way more complex thanpeople realize."
Jorge (16:30):
Yeah, absolutely.
And the thing is and I'll speaknow for myself, like I'm as much
a platonist as anyone, right?
I have this idealized vision ofwhat a system should be.
And idealized visions oftendon't account for edge cases.
And it's the edge cases, theaccommodations, that make
(16:52):
systems behave in ways thatcomport with actual human
behavior.
And the older I get, the more Irealize that that cannot be
designed from the top down.
It can only be realized byputting systems out there,
iterating on them, andincrementally improving them.
(17:14):
And in the tech space, I thinkwe almost fetishize innovation,
just because the shiny new iswhat gets the headlines.
But to your point earlier, someof the best innovations happen
atop existing technologies thathave been reconfigured in
different ways.
(17:35):
And, in fact, many of theinnovations that we've seen in
the last few decades could nothave happened if we had to
invent the whole stack from topto bottom.
So it's all been standing on theshoulders of giants and growing
things.
And in fact, there are lots ofexamples of organizations that
tried to wipe the slate cleanand didn't succeed.
(17:59):
I'm thinking and now, this isone of these that is gonna date
me, but back in the 1980s, whenthe PC standards started getting
away from IBM, they tried torelease a new standard, and that
didn't go well, right?
Like, at that point, there wasan active ecosystem that had
developed around what it meantto be a PC, and even the
(18:19):
industry leader couldn't swaythe way that the market was
going.
So, I think it's incrediblyhard, and I increasingly find
myself skeptical of efforts todesign complex systems in one go
from the top down in violationof Gall's law.
Harry (18:40):
Yeah.
So many thoughts come to mind.
One of them is that many yearsago, I worked at a company
called Dreamworks Animation,PDI, Pacific Data Images,
Dreamworks Animation.
And I had the incredible greatfortune that my office was right
across from Richard Chung'soffice.
And Richard was one of the threefounders of PDI, which was
(19:02):
acquired by Dreamworks.
Richard was the...
I guess he was the technicalpipeline wizard.
Incredibly kind, thoughtful,smart, wise man.
So, I had various conversationswith him about stuff.
And one of them was aboutinnovation, because there was so
much innovation going on at thestudio.
We made Shrek 2, we made SharkTail.
(19:22):
Shark Tail, not so great; Shrek2 pretty awesome, and a bunch of
other movies.
And there was all sorts ofinnovation going on in the 3D
animation movie space at Pixarand Dreamworks and others.
And I got into this conversationwith Richard about innovation,
and he said,"You know, Harry,there's no such thing as
(19:43):
innovation." I said,"What do youmean?" He goes,"Can you put
innovation in a bag?" And Isaid,"No, it's just a word." And
he goes,"Yeah, it's, basically averb that's been turned into a
noun so it's this frozenconcept." He goes,"What there is
innovating, the gerund verb,ING, innovating." And he goes,
(20:05):
"Innovating is a creativeprocess of solving valuable
problems." And he goes,"Now,there's tons of that going on
here.
There's no such thing asinnovation.
I don't see innovation anywhere,but I see a lot of innovating.
I see a lot of creative peoplehaving creative, smart,
technical thoughts with problemsthey're trying to solve, and
(20:25):
then they're solving them in avaluable way.
That's where you see the resultsof innovating." And I love that
philosophy.
So I've become very sensitive tothe idea of using
nominalizations, which are verbsthat have been turned into nouns
like innovation.
They make me cr...
(20:46):
like, my hair stands up all.
Look, I don't have very much ofit, but it does stand up.
And, that was the first thingthat came to mind.
And I, realized that this isjust a rich topic.
Because I've been involved inprobably three large
replatforming efforts.
They all went well.
Like, really well.
(21:07):
They were relatively on time.
They're relatively on budget.
They delivered what we said wewere gonna deliver.
So, I haven't had the experienceof being intimately involved in
any of these catastrophes that Isee certainly coming.
Jorge (21:23):
When I hear replatforming, I hear,"Let's
take what is working over hereand change the infrastructure,
maybe the code base, what haveyou." I think that's different
than what the Gall is saying,right?
I think Gall is talking aboutdesigning a net new system.
It's as though you are going tonot replatform the thing, but
like re-implement it in a newway with new features, new
(21:45):
functionality, all done fromscratch.
Harry (21:49):
Fair enough.
I think I was being messy aboutmy language.
I think in replatforming thereI...
Partly, one of the things I wasinvolved in was pulling the
infrastructure out and replacingthe infrastructure so that the
top end remained relatively thesame.
But the thing is the top endcan't remain the same because
the platforms, there are allsorts of accommodations in the
(22:13):
user experience or the UI layerthat work around challenges in
the underlying platform, andthen there are all sorts of
accommodations in the platformto deal with things that it was
never intended or designed todo.
And you have these complexinteractions here.
So, fair enough.
but I, think I was speaking tothe spirit of large platform
(22:37):
changes.
Jorge (22:38):
Yeah, I have no qualms with that.
It's the,"Let's design a largeplatform, net new from scratch.
Maybe replace our old platplatform with a newly designed
one that does all the thingsthat we think it should do, as
opposed to all the things thatthe old platform grew to
accommodate." Those are twodifferent things, I think.
Harry (23:00):
I completely agree with you, and I'm using the same word
to describe both.
The last couple years, I had aclient who failed at this, and I
came in after the decision hadbeen made and after the
execution of the new and shinynew platform had been committed
to, and it had the predictableresults, right?
(23:21):
The small company ended uphaving to manage two platforms
for two years while it figuredout how to take all the stuff in
the old platform that no oneever realized needed to be in
the new platform and bake it inthere so that the new platform
could do more, faster, better,cheaper.
Jorge (23:41):
I don't wanna suggest that any of this is easy.
These are really trickyprojects.
I think maybe to bring it backto practical thoughts for folks,
because after all, what we'retrying to do is help people gain
traction.
And part of the reason why Iwanted to bring this to the
table is that it might be likerule zero when trying to gain
traction is make sure that thething that you're looking to
(24:03):
gain traction on is actuallydoable.
And, this feels to me like oneof those Quixotic pursuits where
it's like,"Let's redesign thewhole thing from scratch!"
Right?
Maybe to try to articulate it inpractical terms, a few things
that someone could do is maybequestion whether redesigning the
(24:25):
whole thing from scratch is thewisest path forward.
Like I said, there are manyexamples of such projects that
have gone awry.
One other thing you've broughtup here, which is emergence,
right?
Like, the idea that if theplatform or product or whatever
is eventually going to becomplex, meaning serve all these
(24:48):
different needs and perform allthese different functions, then
design it in such a way that itcan grow and is not closed ended
in some way.
And the third thing you've alsotouched on, which is, that
implies both designing it to bemodular and bottom up so that
(25:09):
the system can, in fact, evolve.
Harry (25:13):
This is feeling like a really rich topic that maybe we
should figure out how to talkmore about at some later date.
Jorge (25:19):
I'm sure there are more readings.
This is a perennial theme forme, so I'll think about what
else I can bring to the table sowe can keep it going.
Harry (25:27):
What a great conversation, though.
Thank you so much.
Jorge (25:30):
Thank you, Harry.
Harry (25:31):
Yeah.
Take care, Jorge.
Narrator (25:41):
Thank you for listening to Traction Heroes
with Harry Max and Jorge Arango.
Check out the show notes attractionheroes.com and if you
enjoyed the show, please leaveus a rating in Apple's podcasts
app.
Thanks.
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