Management 3.0 – Software development meets General Management

I am not a software developer. But last week I attended a management course conducted by a software developer and attended solely by software developers. I made a big discovery.

WE SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE!

My background in management is Peter Drucker and the St. Gallen Management School. I had the privilege to get trained and to work with Malik Management. Management is the profession to achieve results. Scientific insights are derived from systems theory, complexity thinking and cybernetics. “How to cope with complexity?” is one of the basic questions. Ashby’s law (“Only complexity can absorb complexity”) regarded as a “law of nature”.

SOFTWARE GUYS HAVE THE SAME APPROACH!

I discovered that software developers start with the same basic question and the same theoretical foundation! Obviously, software development is in a way the essence of what Peter Drucker once labeled “knowledge work”. It brings together highly specialized and highly abstract thinking people, collaborating on a very high degree of work-sharing, in very big numbers.

The consequence has been a very steep learning curve in how to get structured, how to collaborate, and how to manage. With far-reaching implications for the field of general management outside the software industry.

CONGRATULATION!

It was already in 2001 when like-minded software developer gathered and put  down the “Manifesto of Agile Software Development“. Since then ideas spread and theories, tools, methodologies, and experiences on how to “manage” flourished. In 2011 Jurgen Appelo has put nicely together theories and practices in his book “Management 3.0“.

Today, the outcome of software development not only makes important contributions to the foundation of a new era of management but also provides answers to the question of “How to change the world?” – as Jurgen Appelo has set the title of his new book.