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Thursday, February 01, 2018

What did I read today ? AntiFragile, Queuing theory, Learning Theories

I do most of my readings at home or on the train. Thought would write a short post about my reading habit.
While heading to work(today): I learnt about the "Learning Theories". @Edmund O'Shaughnessy had shared the following diagram. The author of this diagram Richard Millwood has taken a lot of effort in capturing the different learning disciplines and its applicability in various fields.
It is a great read to understand various sectors, disciplines and the techniques that could be applied to each area.
Somehow I didn't see Peter Senge's learning organisation and Systems Thinking.
While returning home: I saw this big queue during the rush hour in the Flinder's street. My mind wandered towards solving the issues around Queuing and applying Queuing theory.
It also reminded me of what Reinertsen says
  • cycle time is a trailing indicator
  • queue utilization is a leading indicator
It is a bit of shame that organisations focus more on measuring Cycle time ignoring the importance of Queues. It is too late by the time, you understand and analyse the Cycle time. Measuring and managing queues is a better risk management strategy. This is one of the key reasons LeSS has incorporated this as one of the 10 principles.
After reaching home: Generally, I pick up some random book to read. Today I was in a mood to read Nassim Taleb's Anti Fragile. 
Taleb refers to Maxwell's research that tightly controlling the speed of engines leads to instability.  Any system that is not used to instability or volatility for a longer duration becomes vulnerable to fluctuations in the longer run. 
To build a resilience organisations, one needs to inject a controlled instability or chaos into the system to learn the behavior. Such experiments are extremely crucial for organisations, such as financial corporations running under tight risk management. 
However, these are the same organisations, shying away from such experimentations run the risk of head-on collision when the Sh*t hits the fan.
Last but not least
My upcoming Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane courses details are as below and you can buy the tickets using the links below: Feel free to reach out to me for group discounts or questions.

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