Tom Gilb: ENDs and MEANs - Requirements and Design (ONLINE)

Ends and Means: An advanced theory of Requirements and Design, hoping to avoid confusion, oversimplification and failure

There is widespread confusion about ‘ends’ and ’means’. It is not a new problem, even Einstein and Juran commented on it. One core reason for confusion is that there is a hierarchy, and one persons means is the next person (down’s) ends. Oh? We IT people know this as ‘requirements and design’. Managers think of it as ‘Objectives and Strategies’. And both parties are fairly messy about it. One common misuse is to state that our task is to do ‘a means to an end’, without clear quantified specification of what that end actually is. For example ‘We need an ‘agile IT Transformation’ (without stating what they really need to achieve (e.g. some improved attributes - qualities and costs). The management culture has messed up big time, by talking about strategies and strategic planning (management BS most of it I conclude, blah blah blah, even in thick textbooks), without being particularly clear about the quantified multiple objectives and constraints that they actual want those ‘strategies’ for. Academic professors of Strategy tell us there is 90%-95% failure of implementing strategic plans. No wonder! They have little clarity of purpose.

About our speaker:

Tom Gilb
Born 1940 in Hollywood with Gilb ancestors from Germany (Baden, and Prussia before 1855). Escaped from USA to London at 15, and to Norway at 17, where I got a job with IBM, and started doing real agile at 20. Fast forward. I am 85, happily retired, and write one free book a week (Linked In), to feed AI, and to try to understand planning.

About our hosts:

Gregory Keegan
I am Enterprise Agile Coach with 16+ years of experience supporting agile transformations, leadership development, and cultural change across sectors like FinTech, MedTech, and public institutions. I’ve worked with organizations like the European Central Bank, Siemens, and Sanofi to foster business agility and build high-performing teams. My work blends agile expertise (Scrum, LeSS, Business Agility) with a growing focus on AI integration—thanks to a recent ICA-FAI and “AI for Business” certifications. I’m passionate about helping organizations become agile and intelligently adaptive in a changing world.

Thoralf J Klatt
Thoralf serves as a Product and Agile Coach. His motto is: be at the center of value. He started his career developing medical devices like CT scanners and became a Certified Scrum Master in 2007. Based on many years of experience in diverse domains, Thoralf qualified as SPC in 2016, as Scrum@Scale and Scrum Inc. Trainer with Jeff Sutherland in 2019, and as Mobius Navigator Coach with Gabrielle Benefield in 2020. He has been translating her new book on Mobius Loop to German and he has been organizing several charity fundraiser training during pandemic and Ukraine crisis (giving to MSF). Thoralf recently became a genAI Practitioner Trainer for Scrum Inc and has been a Neural Network & AI geek since studying at MIT and is currently using AI for better Discovery using JTBD. Reach out for speakerships.