Lessons in Gravity: What Keeps Good Ideas Down? cover image
Agile Leadership

Lessons in Gravity: What Keeps Good Ideas Down?

A discussion on the relationship between product learning and accidental complexity, from the keynote at the Intel Agile Conference in 2014.

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David Hussman
Dec 18, 2018 • 46 min read
5.00 (1)
Systems Thinking
Complexity Thinking
Agile
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Summary

David Hussman took the stage during the Intel Agile conference in 2014 to explore the relationship between product learning and accidental complexity with the analogy of gravity citing that accidental complicity replicates gravity and keeps great ideas in the organization down, hence people need to achieve a certain threshold of velocity to escape.

Takeaways

  • In analogy, accidental complexity is the accumulated gravity that companies need to achieve escape velocity to mitigate.
  • The amount of mass accumulated in an organization has a consequence.
  • The larger the company and its number of teams, the more likely it is to suffer from accidental complexity.

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