Satir workshops

Put the "chi" back in Ar"chi"tecting

By nature, humans manage complexity by categorization and modeling, whether we call it architecting or not. When “architecting” we decompose (break down), abstract and encapsulate according to meanings that were made from information we have available at a certain point in time. A system metaphor for how we generally architect in IT could very well be

We aim, we shoot, we seem to miss,
and then we endlessly discuss, think or get angry about why we missed,
or we absolutely ignore that the “dividing” goes really well but that the “conquering” does not deliver desired results.

Audience

People wishing to reframe "Divide and Conquer" strategies to a “Divide and Unite” version

We aim, shoot, and if and when we seem to miss we take in the results of our shot,
investigate why we aimed at what we aimed at (obviously),
and then we congruently take aim again ...
or not.

Benefits

• Put the "chi" back into architecting.
• Explore the (re)usefulness of wheels for the purpose of adapting the way we architect to become more effective at building systems that are more effective.

In its current form the workshop synergizes triangles and circles in refactoring spirals. (see history below for other forms and shapes).

Content outline and choreography

In aikido, triangles are often associated with "attack", squares with "defense" and circles with "flow". In human architecture we use these concepts. In this workshop the usefulness of wheels for changing the way we architect and architecting effective organizational and cultural change are explored.

We use the Satir Mandala and Change Model for changing the way we architect and architecting effective organizational and cultural change in an experiential learning cycle:

• Getting acquinted; short explanation on experiential learning and on spirals; Simulation instructions.
• Powerring simulation of a development process in which spirals are used as metaphors guiding development of a system made of Powerrings. The simulation can run in maximally three contextually different groups.
• Read out of product and spiral results by each of the groups and observations made by observers
• Group discussion on how well spirals meet our desires to have an effective tool, a gestalt, to guide development of complex systems.
• For people wishing to actively experiment with spirals on the job: Using the Satir Change Model; Tie-in with simulation experiences and work related experiences.

Cycles within cycles in Natural Patterns Inc.

In the simulation we will go through two or three small experiential learning cycles, using mandalas to record reflection, generalization and tie-in results. This happens within a larger cycle implemented in the whole session. The reflection and tie-in of this cycle are done after the simulation exercise. We end with a mini-retrospective and preparing participants for application of a cycle in the work environment.

Workshop history

This workshop has a long history in finding form. A first version of Change Architecting ran at AYE 2001, facilitated by Bob King, Nynke Fokma and Jerry Weinberg with subtitle, Setting the Essential Unchanging Nature of the Way a System Changes. With containers based on Kaner's facilitation categorization in the corners of a square to put lessons learned from a Powerrings simulation in, the result was a pyramid form.

Building on the in the article Metaphor Architecture and XP (pdf) by David West reported experiential exploration, Change Architecting at OT2003 used a preset form: mandalas (circles) for building powerring products in the simulation company Natural Patterns Inc. This resulted in eXtreme chaos.

Architectures are not.
Architectures provide
realities in which its occupants can create their own realities

More Information on cycles and spirals in Stone Circles

In order of "latest first": 

Cycles, time and spirals

The Oxford Universal Dictionary states a cycle is:
“A circle or orbit in the heavens. A recurrent period in a definite period of years. A period in which a certain round of events or phenomena is completed, recurring in the same order in equal succeeding periods. A long, indefinite period, an age. A round, course […]

Star cycles

On the largest scale, everything is held together by gravity. All matter, all energy attracts other things by the gravitational “force” (or “interaction”), and all matter and energy is affected by it.
Yet gravity is actually the weakest of the forces. It dominates everything on a large scale because it always attracts: everything attracts […]

Seasonal cycles

From “Understanding why the groundhog comes out when he does proves valuable to human medicine”
“For more than 15 years, Cornell researchers have been raising the world’s only disease-free woodchucks (Marmota monax) to study hepatitis B infection and the liver cancer it can cause. Those studies, supported by the National Institutes of Health, have resulted in […]

Plant cycles

There are close to 400,000 known different species of plants on the Earth. They range from tiny, single-celled algae to huge sequoia trees.
Life on Earth would not be possible without plants because they are the […]

Geological cycles

Rocks have a cycle too!
Rocks are continually circulating in the mantle just below the crust of the Earth and are sometimes thrust up into the crust due to convection currents. That’s when their journey starts!
Imagine stone soup slowly cooking in a big pot in a kettle on a fire. The soup gets thicker as […]

Atomical cycles

Atoms are forever!?
The mineral (stone) world has no beginning and no end??
Atoms are made of a central core containing a collection of protons and neutrons. Almost all of the mass of the atom is contained in its nucleus. Around that we can imagine a cloud of electrons whose number equals that of the number […]

Unplanned futures

Our human ability to model “reality” seems amazing. And our thinking extensions seem to deliver way beyond expectations. Verrry reuseful for creating gestalts, be those collective or individual.
If the systems we wish to create are to be more fully human or woolly mammoth, we need to self-organize in more fully humane or woolly mammothy systems […]