All Unit Tests Passed

A Real-World Example of Managing Parts Over Their Interactions

THE AIM for this brief post is to share a short video clip a colleague (David Bland) posted on LinkedIn that I thought unintentionally really great at illustrating the opposite of leading with a systems view for quality: the managing of parts over their interactions. David posted this with the heading “All Unit Tests Passed”, a wry, cheeky reference to an anti-pattern in software development that happens when automated tests are engineered to pass in spite of the product not working as the customer expects.

Within we see what happens when care and consideration for how well parts fit together and work together is de-prioritized over optimizing them in isolation of each other, and the effect this has on the quality of a product, in this case a washer/drier closet in a very tightly-packed condo unit.

Managing Parts Over Interactions: The Video

In the clip above we see a condo unit tenant demonstrating how to access their ensuite washer/drier, or rather, how they can’t because no one thought carefully enough about the interactions of three doors: the washer/drier’s, the closet’s that the appliance is housed in, and the front door which is right next to the closet.

When the tenant wants to use the washer/drier, they need to open the closet’s folding door which can’t fully extend because it hits the front door handle. As a result, the washer/drier door can’t be opened because it hits the closet’s folding door. A perfect storm of mismanaged interactions of parts in a system! The solution? Opening the front door so the closet door has enough clearance to open wide enough to permit opening the washer/drier door. Problem solved!

It’s all reminiscent of that old proverb, For the Want of a Nail:

For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

In this case, it’s all for the want of a closet door that could open that the laundry was lost.

The Parts Don’t Fit

The performance of a system depends on how well the consituent parts fit together and work together in service of the aim.

In our example video we can see that while all the doors work well independently, when they need to work together to allow the tenent to use their washer/drier, their ill-fit cause the system to literally jam up. Why? Because the architect and planners didn’t take into sufficient consideration how well the parts of their design fit together and worked together. Result? Poor quality.

This is reminds me of a talk Dr. Russ Ackoff gave years ago about how architects design homes, which I have teed-up below:

As Ackoff explains, architects are usually systems thinkers who try to design their buildings from the outside-in, starting with an overall design to contain the parts, then designing the best arrangement of the parts to fit the clients requirements:

What does the architect do? He has a set of properties that the client wants; does he sit down and start to design the kitchen and then the living room and then the bedrooms and then the garage? Is that what he does? Of course not!

What he does is produce an overall design of the house; now he produces designs of the rooms to fit into the design of the house, but he discovers in a process that he can modify the house in such a way as to improve the quality of the rooms, but he will never modify the house to improve the quality of the room unless the quality of the house is simultaneously improved.

- Dr. Russ Ackoff. If Russ Ackoff had given a TED talk. (mark 6:56)

Our hapless tenant’s washer/drier access problem is the consequence of a design and execution process that thought in parts apart separate from their interactions. This was then translated to individual trades and installers who all worked independently to meet the specifications they were given for the building of the closet, the installation of the folding door in relation to the front door, and finally putting the washer/drier into the closet which would have revealed the fault as they all worked together.

Yet, it still was “shipped” into production. Everyone did their jobs, but no one cared how the product of their work would be used by another. The system that caused the result worked perfectly, to-design.

Leading with a Systems View

The antidote to the problems created from thinking in parts is to think about their interactions, which is the essence of leading with a systems view. This comes from a long-standing tradition built over hundreds of years where we break problems down into descrete parts to build an understanding of the whole. It is a process that Dr. Ackoff describes as “analysis” which when used in management, narrows our focus:

…[A]nalysis means to separate the whole into parts and study each part individually, and analysis became the dominant mode of thought in the western world for almost 400 years. In fact, even today we use analysis and thinking as synonymous terms. That's the way we manage: we take corporations and schools apart into departments or disciplines try to run each one, and then aggregate them into a whole. You cannot explain the behavior of a system by analysis: you can reveal its structure and say how it works but you can't say why it works the way.

- Dr. Russell Ackoff. A Theory of a System for Educators and Managers. (mark 7:09)

Ackoff’s remedy is to use synthesis, which is the process of “outside-in” thinking where you first build an understanding of the whole to appreciate why the parts behave the way they do. From this vantage point a new perspective is gained that informs how to change the behaviour of the system through the interactions of the parts.

This is leading with a systems view.

Challenge: How Would You Explain This to Others?

We deepen and develop our understanding of Dr. Deming’s theory and those of his contemporaries like Dr. Ackoff by explaining what we have learned to others. How could you use the video clips above to explain leading with a systems view to your peers?

What examples could you draw reference to from how you currently manage for quality to the allegory of the appliance closet? What workarounds were put in place to compensate? What would a whole-system approach to understanding a current problem or observed behaviour look like?

If you can, share your experiences in the comments below…