Agile Chaos - Part 1 [Application of Chaos Theory on Project Management]

Agile projects are the bread and butter of most mid-sized technology companies in the world, be it creating a domestic product or accomplishing tasks for a foreign client or even building the technology for the next ICO. It happens, more often than not, the project deadlines are missed, exceeded or even miscalculated. There are many factors at play in designing a great project plan, based on agile methodologies. PMI is a dedicated effort in ensuring that projects are managed with impeccable precision. As per my observation, assuming the same methodology applies to all human engineers is a mistake and is fueled by economic pursuits for expansion on PMI’s part. Nonetheless, it is in the news that many projects, particularly Indian projects, are not up to the mark and that Indian engineers need re-skilling. If we are following the same PMI methodology and we know the code, then where are we amiss?

Have a look at this video, a typical road in India:

http://www.clausewitz.com/MP4/IndianTraffic.mp4

It is chaotic, but as all things in India, it works! I have been reading about Chaos Theory and see that the traffic on our roads can be roughly modelled to a Lorenz Attractor. Traffic in the western civilization is more organized because the people follow the certain tenets of safe driving. Thus, traffic at a turning can more closely be modelled to a periodic function of time and density of vehicles, over an area. This, in all probability, converts to a Lorenz function for our roads, interspersed with a periodic function.

Now what has all this got to do with Agile Methodology? Let me give a view, given that all human interaction is but an inter-related set of personal interactions, it is not difficult to assume the same players are working on agile projects. Owing to social circumstances, we are bound to have a cognitive bias against PMI methodology, even with the best of intentions. In that regard, I propose that Lorenz Attractors can help predict project red flags, given each person is modeled on the big five personality model.

Before you read ahead, have a look at a sample Lorenz Attractor: http://www.malinc.se/m/Lorenz.php

Click the mouse and drag it around in the viewing window to see it in 3D. This function has a period, it has 2 points about with the function cycles about. These points give rise to an equilibrium that is chaotic. In short, if any such function arises in an agile project, it is bound to never be completed. To better understand this, see the above video again. The ideal agile methodology application has a sinusoidal exponential equation that is something like: y=|ceatsin(bt)+ ceatsin(bt+0.5)| and if effort is mapped against time, it might look something like this (each bump being a sprint cycle):

On the other-hand, a chaotic project that does not end, will have a Lorenz Attractor, with a third axis that represents variance in ideal behavior with respect to the PMI origination society.

The equation of a Lorenz Attractor is something like this:

Hold this thought, and consider the Big 5 model:

Each person scores differently on this model and each project requires a certain set of skills in the team members. Beyond the technical skills, a special set of personality traits will ensure that the project is successful. Say there is a Dapps-based blockchain project that must be developed, it would ideally require the project leader to have high openness, a logic developer to have high stability, a QA resource to have high conscientiousness and so on.

Assuming all traits have zero inter-correlation, we can have a factor PT (Personality Trait) that is equal to k(PT) x Openness x Extraversion x Conscientious x Stability x Agreeableness. K(PT) being a factor that varies as per the project type.

In the next post, I will connect PT with Lorenz Attractor and take an example to calculate if a project will fail based on the ρ calculated. Thus, any project needs to avoid the condition of being a Strange Attractor i.e. an endless chaotic project!