Brian Kernighan,co-author of the C programming language, once said:

Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.

We live in a world where the systems that we use or come across in our day to day lives seem to be ever more complicated. The flight software system that controls a modern aircraft like the new Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” are, on the face of it at least, almost unimaginatively complicated, simply because of their sheer size. According to NASA the software that runs the 787 is almost seven million lines of Ada code, triple that of the 777. The F35 Joint Strike Fighter has 19 million lines of C and C++ code! Does all this mean that these systems are also complex however and if not what’s the difference? Inevitably there are a large number of definitions of exactly what a complex system is however they all seem to agree on a few common things:

1. They are made up of a collection of components.
2. The components interact with each other.
3. These interactions can result in emergent behavior.

Emergent behavior refers to the property that a collection of simple components may exhibit when the interactions between them result in new, and sometimes unpredictable, behavior that none of the components exhibit individually. So whilst complicated systems may be complex (and exhibit emergent properties) it does not follow that complex systems have to be complicated. In fact relatively simple systems may exhibit emergent properties.

In his book Emergence Steven Johnson gives several examples of the emergent properties of all sorts of systems from colonies of ants through to software systems. Whilst some software systems clearly thrive on being complex systems where emergent behavior is a positive benefit (I’m thinking Facebook, World of Warcraft and SecondLife for example) we might be a bit more dubious about getting on an aircraft whose flight software system exhibits emergent behavior! My guess is that most of us would prefer it if that software showed entirely predictable behavior.

Here’s the thing however. Should it not be possible to build some of our business systems where emergent behavior could be allowed and for the systems themselves to be self adjusting to take advantage of that behavior? How might we do that and what software delivery lifecycles (SDLC) might we adopt to allow that to happen? The interesting thing about SDLCs of course is that almost by definition they build predictability into the systems that are developed. We want those systems to behave in the way the users want (i.e. we want them to “meet the requirements”), not in unpredictable ways. However the thing about systems like Facebook is that the users are an integral part of that system and they drive its behavior in new and interesting ways. The developers of Facebook are able to observe this and respond to new ways in which their system is being used, adapting it accordingly. Facebook has clearly been architected in a way that allows this to happen (Nice one Zuck). The problem with many of our business systems is that they are too rigid and inflexible and do not allow emergent behavior. Even the promise of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) where we were supposed to be able to reconfigure our business processes almost at will by combining services together in new and interesting ways has not really delivered on that promise. I think that this is for two reasons:

1. We have failed to adapt our (SDLC) processes to take into account that property and are instead building the same old rigid systems out of slightly new sets of moveable parts.
2. We fail to recognise that the best complex systems have people in them as an integral part of their makeup and that it is often the combination of people and technology that drive new ways of using systems and therefore emergent properties.

Building and managing complex systems needs to recognise the fact that the same old processes (SOPs) may no longer work and what new processes we new develop need to better account for people being an integral part of the system as it is used and evolves. The potential for emergent behavior needs not only to be allowed for but to be positively encouraged in certain types of system.