While rebuilding a service or migrating from one technology to another, people often think about the consequences of that process. First-order thinking prevents them from having a look at why the decisions have been made before to build a service in that way. In each change, organizations should think more with second-order thinking. Yet, it’s not easy. When organizations don’t have decision records and some documentation, it’s a big challenge to figure out. When we think about Chesterton’s fence, organizations build fences somewhere but don’t put a sign on it or inform the city council about why they do it. When someone arrives at the fence (or an old service in an organization) sometime later, they have no idea why it’s been built like that. They think it doesn’t make sense and decide to remove it. That’s first-order thinking. Organizations need second-order thinking and build mechanisms to provide a foundation for second-order thinking.
- Related Note(s):
- 19a: Knowns and Unknowns;
- 3: Being a Team Manager and Manager’s Job;
- 23: The First Question of Feedback Discussions;
- 1h: Continuous Improvement Means Changing The System;
- 30: Scientific Thinking and Fact-Checking for A Better Life;
- 34: Clarity in Organizations;
- 53d: Listen with attention and ask questions with curiosity to encourage others to be open;
- 59: Functional Decomposition in Software Systems;
- Source(s): Chesterton’s Fence;
