Promise Theory - What Is It?

When he came to us from the future, Mark Burgess didn’t just bring CFEngine back with him. He also brought Promise Theory.

Promise Theory is a simple yet powerful conceptual model that helps think about relationships between certainty and uncertainty.

Why are those relationships important to consider?

In this talk I will present a brief introduction to Promise Theory.

• Describe what Promise Theory is in layman’s terms.

• Share examples of how we can use Promise Theory to construct a convincing illusion of certainty out of underlying uncertainty.

These examples will consider, not just technical systems, but also the social ones (such as DevOps) that bear ultimate responsibility for service quality.

Jeff Sussna

Ingineering.IT is a virtual agency founded and led by Jeff Sussna (http://ingineering.it/jeffsussna.html). We facilitate Adaptive IT (http://ingineering.it/adaptiveit.html) through teaching, coaching, and strategic design.