Let’s assemble some building blocks that lead to this article. First, thanks to France Culture, I’ve just been diving back into Lacan. To say that I understand would be a step I won’t take. But through these small podcasts that allow me to reconsider the question of a sustained reading of Lacan or not, I was struck by what I love: the importance of language. And by the idea that an analysis could not be conducted as well in English as in French¹… The language used — the tongue — not allowing the same type of appropriation, expression, exposition, etc.

Then in my daily life I see references to BDD, Behaviour Driven Development, flourishing. I was able to use it to try to “normalize” interactions between product owners, product managers and the/their teams a few years ago. I won’t go back to that. Today all the BDD examples I see flourishing make my hair stand on end. They appear to me as a process that pretends to be an interaction. Aversion accentuated by a resurgence in me of this definition of user stories defended by its very inventor Ron Jeffries²; a definition that wants a user story, a user story, to be realized through a conversation around a story and really, but really, very very little writing. According to him (and I follow him) if your user story exceeds three or four lines you’re off topic. The conversation and interactions, on the other hand, can contain all the richness you desire. The effort is not to write, but to describe through a conversation.

This is the whole idea of this evolution in a complex world, the idea of constant improvement, constant introspection, which feed on constant learning (based for example on feedback). This is why this current world develops on interactions between individuals rather than the application of processes. This is one of the keys, probably the most important, of the agile movement.

And so I wonder. Could it be that we must reappropriate these words, this language, to better understand it? Process, interaction? Reappropriate them, clarify them expressly to stop the pretenses and the drifts? Is it possible? Let’s try.

Process

Ordered sequence of facts or phenomena, responding to a certain schema and leading to something: The process of a crisis.

Continuous series of operations, actions constituting the way of doing, manufacturing something: Manufacturing processes must be reviewed.

Way that someone, a group, has of behaving with a view to a particular result responding to a precise schema: According to the usual process, he will arrange to get himself excused.

Says Le Larousse

Here’s what my brain retains by mixing these phrases from the dictionary: “ordered sequence of actions according to a precise schema”.

Interaction

Reciprocal reaction of two phenomena on each other.

Reciprocal action exerted on each other by two or more physical systems.

Says Le Larousse

I retain from it: “actions or reactions between several systems”.

It’s easy, one is determined, the process, the other is not, the interaction.

In a moving world predetermination is the wrong choice. It doesn’t imply adaptation.

Hence rather the orientation toward a strategy of actions and reactions that are not determined but controlled.

Controlled? Yes, an endless chain of actions and reactions that we would observe helplessly would have no interest. No interest in the vast vast majority of contexts where agility actors evolve. We need to let actions and reactions occur without them being predetermined, but we also need predictability. This is operated by a framework that introduces predictability by defining a perimeter.

The “framework” comes into play.

Framework

Limits of a space; the space thus circumscribed: A house with its framework of greenery.

Surroundings, environment, context: Living in a pleasant framework.

What bounds, limits the action of someone, something; what circumscribes a subject: Going outside the framework of one's functions.

Says Le Larousse

The framework is a limit (hello Kanban). A limit serves to increase predictability because precisely it limits the possibilities, the options, of possible actions and reactions.

Boundaries and mutations

So here are the questions I ask myself.

At what moment does interaction risk becoming a process?

If it becomes too predetermined. If actions/reactions are predetermined they become processes and are no longer valid in a moving, complex world. Two ways to lose the dynamic of these actions/reactions:

• The framework is too constrained, the actions/reactions combination becomes too poor, predetermined.
• We freeze the action/reaction because we want to repeat it. It has become a process.
• We don’t have the freedom to change, adapt the process.

This is what I reproach — for example — in my observations of many examples of BDD³ (Behavior Driven Development). We have so tooled the idea that it has lost its space, and there is no longer enough possibility of action and reaction. Form has taken over substance. We apply ourselves well to respecting the tool, the form (Given When Then) we forget the meaning, the substance. The signifier obliterates the signified. And so there is no more intelligence: learning, feedback, real interactions.

“Meaning” comes into play:

Meaning

Raison d'être, value, finality of something, what justifies and explains it: Giving meaning to one's existence.

but also

Direction in which a movement is made: Crossing France in the north-south direction.

Says Le Larousse and still Le Larousse

It is therefore I would say “a direction toward a finality”.

How can we transform a process into an interaction?

How can we make them lose their predetermination? We can “relax” the process, insert space to produce or diversify interactions. To use the words again: when the schema is no longer precise, when the sequence is no longer ordered. So not everything is described, zones of freedom, of decisions are present. Ideally only the entry point (why) and the exit point (expected result) are described.

For a process to become an interaction one must be able to transgress it, twist it, change it, for that one needs space. To have space one needs knowledge of a limit, a framework. Entry point, exit point. Duration. For example.

Time

The time limit is often important because time has always been space⁴. If the finality is distant: there is a lot of space, if the finality is close (“next month”) the space is tightened. But too much space is also too much time between action and reaction and therefore little interaction. We favor a short time between action and reaction to increase interactions.

So it becomes easier for me to state certain things:

Learning

Two types of learning or appropriation of this agile way of functioning, of being:

By imitation of gestures

That is to say by imitating processes (“ordered sequence of actions according to a precise schema”). This is what we call the “SHU”. Then knowing how to detach from it [(HA & RI)]](/2015/09/paradoxes-des-transformations-agiles/).

The difficulties

First, it’s complicated to say that one applies to the letter but …temporarily, to then detach from it. We don’t know how to communicate about the temporary side of application to the letter.

Then sometimes we apply without knowing why it was thought of, and so it never comes to mind to detach from it because we don’t know why it is done (this process). This is the famous Cargo Cult: when not only do we repeat a process (“ordered sequence of actions according to a precise schema”), without knowing anymore why it was done this way.

Finally sometimes it’s easier to say that we imitate, that we apply, but not really because “we are different”. So we detach immediately without even having perceived the slightest teaching, the slightest learning. We detach without knowing from what, nor why. It’s a total illusion.

By emergence: without process but by setting a framework.

That is to say by setting a framework and meaning (limits and a direction). Having very regularly observations to learn and make emerge.

The difficulties

First it’s not so simple to describe a framework and meaning. One must constantly repeat, clarify, find varied ways to state them to correspond to people. Moreover this framework and this meaning are moving. The world not being fixed is normal. This adds to the difficulty of description.

Then we are very quickly caught up by our will to repeat things, to transform these interactions into processes, into rules, into protocols. It’s easier, it’s more restful. An incessant adjustment. An incessant ballet between process and interaction.

Finally we imagine wasting a lot of time. Useless to learn again to make fire by emergence when others “know”. It’s sometimes true, sometimes not. Sometimes the context is the same, sometimes it seems the same but is very different. Sometimes by imitating we don’t really integrate the meaning. Sometimes it’s a shame not to save this time.

To conclude

I come back to language. Process: “ordered sequence of actions according to a precise schema”. Interactions: “actions or reactions between several systems”. Process is very linear, unidirectional. Interaction is an exchange, bi-directional. I’m going to look for the adequate verbs.

I give meaning (it’s an exchange between systems), I give a framework (it’s an exchange between systems). Follow a process. It’s linear. Apply BDD. It’s linear. Try BDD (reactions possible). Draw inspiration from BDD (exchange between systems).

Language is not innocent. We knew it since “doing agile” or “being agile”. Now observe and try to find process, interactions, framework and meaning in your ecosystem. Ideally transform processes into interactions and not the reverse.

p.s. (This article is also an echo to my reflections on questioning: training in questioning