Ever heard that IT is constantly changing? Or that we all need to be constantly learning? Simple in theory, hard in practice even if like me thats part of what you love about IT. What if you could hack your brain to learn faster? To understand data, situations, and people more quickly? Well briefly discuss some common mental models, illustrate them with IT stories, and let you know where you can learn more.
Note: there's very little text in this presentation - I presented it at South Florida VMUG Usercon for the VMUG Theater and likely will at other usercons.
9. I think it is undeniably true that the human brain must work in
models. The trick is to have your brain work better than the
other persons brain because it understands the most
fundamental models: ones that will do most work per unit.
Charlie Munger
(Rich & Famous)
24. Creativity is mixing and matching patterns of everything you've
ever experienced or come to know in your lifetime. It's saying
"this is kinda like that." The neural mechanism for doing this is
everywhere in the cortex.
On Intelligence
Jeff Hawkins
25. 1. Skills of Reflection
2. Skills of Inquiry
Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful
#2: Start off with intro Thanks for coming, who I am, ever heard that IT is constantly changing and need to be learning? How to do that? - and then get silent.
#7: Ever know a CIO for whom the only answer is cloud? Or an IT worker for whom a script is the answer to everything? Or a director for whom check with the vendor is the universal answer?
#8: We all know need multiple ways to look at the world.what were talking about is.
#9: Talking about is Mental Models - thought process in how we understand the world how take information, store, and process it.
How do we think?
How do people understand a domain of knowledge?
How do we anticipate the world and make sensible decisions about what to do?
What triggers thinking and reasoning?
#12: Heres the thing its not automatically wrong.but understanding thats what is happening helps us decide how to act. (Do we trust that authority? Does that authority have control regardless of what we think?)
Continue
#14: Allows us to make assumptions about how things work, understand more quickly, but also unconsciously influences our behavior and decision making.
#15: 3. Well, the first rule is that you cant really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang em back. If the facts dont hang together on a latticework of theory, you dont have them in a usable form.
4. What are the models? Well, the first rule is that youve got to have multiple models because if you just have one or two that youre using, the nature of human psychology is such that youll torture reality so that it fits your models, or at least youll think it does.
#16: Occams Razor - Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.
Complexity is the enemy of reliability choose the simplest option if in doubt.Read and tweak every option in the manual.
Hanlons Razor - Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Can make an enemy out of someone b/c assume they're out to get you...they're just trying to learn.
#17: Japan gaining market share in automobile industry
US automakers felt reason might be management aside from cheap labour and protected home markets
Detroit visited factories saw no inventory and thought it must be staged.
Mental Model = Real Plants have Inventories
Perception = Japanese staged fake plants, Potemkin villages, for Detroit execs
Reality = Just-in-Time
See the problem? When you have mental models but dont realize them. Lets pull a military term and call it lack of situational awareness.
Lean productionis an assembly-line methodology developed originally for Toyota and themanufacturingof automobiles. It is also known as the ToyotaProductionSystem or just-in-timeproduction.Lean productionprinciples are also referred to asleanmanagement orleanthinking.
#18: Zero Sum Game - find budget for project in new buckets, why joined Varrow and then Rubrik. Also finding budget in different categories.
#19: Blue Ocean Strategy - including Value Innovation the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost
#20: Blue Ocean Strategy - including Value Innovation the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost
#21: Competed on motion control, ease of use, casual gamers before the iPhone/Android ate that market
#22: Systems Thinking - Unintended Consequences
(1) Systems ThinkingBy taking the overall system as well as its parts into account systems thinking is designed to avoid potentially contributing to further development of unintended consequences. (related: causal loop diagrams; stock and flow; Le Chateliers principle, hysteresisthe time-based dependence of a systems output on present and past inputs.; Cant see the forest for the trees.)
NetApp support story.
#23: Availability Bias - People tend to heavily weigh their judgments toward more recent information, making new opinions biased toward that latest news.
LMS Committee senior person.realized they liked the most the last one theyd heard about. Sometimes in a bakeoff, this is why some companies like to go last. Others are betting you dont have availability bias and betting you have Anchoring Effect
#24: NASA is flawless. Successful outcomes caused people to ignore disconfirming information, out of spec performance and dysfunctional decision processes.
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God.
Poem by John Magee fighter pilot who took one of the first flights to 30,000 feet.
MODEL OF INQUIRY
Investigative report post Columbia accident
SUGGESTED ACTION
Unknown
OUTCOME
Halted replacement of orbiter
#26: Skills of reflection slowing down our thinking process so we can become more aware of how we form mental models and how they influence our actions.
Skills of Inquiry how we operate in face-to-facet interactions with others, especially in dealing with complex and conflicting issues seeing difference between what people say (or we say) and what we do.
Tell Sirius purchase story - also happens with every customer.