The Amplio Capabilities and Patterns Project
Recordings of the sessions are on YouTube here.
EXPANDING TO AMPLIO SCRUM CAPABILITIES JANUARY 28, 2025.
Amplio has a set of capabilities that let you know what needs to happen and a GPS to provide an improvement path
Amplio has identified a number of capabilities that must be manifested and uses patterns to give guidance on creating solutions.
- Amplio Is a Framework of Capabilities and Patterns
- Two different types of reductionist thinking – from top to bottom and from bottom up.
The Amplio Capabilities and Patterns Project
This project has a two-fold purpose. The primary one is to help flesh out Amplio’s capabilities and patterns. The second is to provide a learning experience of how to define and implement capabilities and patterns. Nothing is a better teacher than doing.
This project started on January 7 and continues every Tuesday at 8AM Pacific. It is part of the Amplio Community of Practice which you can join to participate in and attend live.
An overview of how Amplio’s pattern language is different from others
This section provides a list of the concepts that Amplio builds on that you won’t find in Agile frameworks.
The column to the right provides indepth articles on these concepts for those who want a deeper understanding.
An overview of what Amplio Provides to Create Patterns
The column to the right has indepth articles on each of the items in this summary.
This enables the patterns in Amplio to be solutions to recurring problems in a context. This means they can be tailored to your situation.
Amplio provides a set of first principles that can be verified by anyone with experience in knowledge work. These can be used to have confidence in how to change workflow with a high expectation of it being an improvement.
Amplio is based on value stream analysis which enables people to look at the whole.
While knowledge work is complex there is enough known that we can take action that will enable us to navigate to an emergent solution with little waste and risk.
We have found the following to be true
- The overwhelming majority of companies need to accomplish conceptually the same thing
- Define your framework based on the capabilities needed, not the practices to be used.
- You can identify where improvement is needed by seeing where organizations and teams are not meeting their needed objectives.
- Use Inherent Simplicity to understand the issues involved
- Use Alexandrian patterns to help determine how to implement the capabilities
Amplio is based on thinking, not following
Amplio is based on a scientific engineering approach. This enables us to do much more than is often considered possible.
The links in this column provide in-depth materials that explain a more powerful mindset than empirical process control.
Amplio Patterns are Solutions to a Recurring Problem in a Context
Amplio’s patterns are styled after Chris Alexander’s works, in particular, The Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language. He defines patterns as solutions to a recurring problem in a context. The “in a context” is critical, because very few solutions are universal. He states “Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice.”
An example pattern is “The Courtyard Pattern”
Consider the forces at work in a courtyard. Most fundamental of all, people seek some kind of private outdoor space, where they can sit under the sky, see the stars, enjoy the sun, perhaps plant flowers. This is obvious. But there are more subtle forces too. For instance, when a courtyard is too tightly enclosed, has no view out, people feel uncomfortable, and tend to stay away … they need to see out into some larger and more distant space. Or again, people are creatures of habit. If they pass in and out of the courtyard, every day, in the course of their normal lives, the courtyard becomes familiar, a natural place to go … and it is used. But a courtyard with only one way in, a place you only go when you “want” to go there, is an unfamiliar place, tends to stay unused … people go more often to places which are familiar.
Ironically, as useful as patterns are, Dr. Alexander states (page 545 of a 549 page book) “At this final state, the patterns are no longer important: the patterns have taught you to be receptive to what is real.”
What Dr. Alexander means is that the issues previously mentioned (a view out, crossing paths, …) are the issues to look at. We create a proper courtyard based on where we are.
Some Background on “forces” in knowledge work
Understanding why things work the way they do is very important. Here are some posts on why that is so.
- A lack of theory causes resistance and slow learning. See Why theory is so important.
- The difference between patterns as solutions to recurring problems and patterns a la Alexander.
- I asked Perplexity and Grok “What’s the difference between a pattern being defined as a solution to a recurring problem and as a solution to a recurring problem in a context.” *
- What are verifiable first principles and why are they so important. *
The Amplio Capabilities and Patterns Project
It is suggested you work through Amplio Foundations at some point. These insights are very valuable and not available in popular frameworks.
These posts provide valuable background information for the project. They are useful concepts that will help you regardless of what approach you use.
Resources
- Problems and Disempowering Beliefs: A collaboration board that will be linked to the patterns.
Here is as list of the capabilities. In the Amplio system there are links to describe each capabiity and the pattern associated with it.
All work done in this project is under Creative Commons
©Success Engineering. The materials in this project are offered for license under the Attribution Share-Alike license of Creative Commons, accessible here and also described in summary form here. You agree that all materials you contribute to this project become available under this Creative Commons and you agree to abide by its rules.