Divergent-Convergent Zones

I've come to think of techies as falling into one of two camps: puzzle (likes well-defined puzzles) or big picture (likes understanding how well-defined puzzles fit into a larger context). Although I only have first hand experience with engineers, I suspect other technically-oriented disciplines (e.g., accounting, medicine) have a similar division.

I mention this in the context of a model I stumbled across recently. It's in Viv McWaters' blog and describes how groups work through a specific issue. The phases shown are (a) a new topic emerges, (b) the topic is potentially closed via "business as usual", (c) the topic diverges into a Complex exploratory space, (d) a "groan zone" is entered where the group struggles to create a frame that will move the issue into a Complicated space, (e) the topic moves into a convergent Complicated space, and (f) the topic is resolved.

Traditional engineering is largely in the convergent zone. Non-engineers (e.g., business analysts, marketing) usually inhabit the divergent zone. They are responsible for exploring topics in the divergent zone and organizing them so that they can be handed over to engineers for creating specific capabilities. Engineers use traditional processes and tools to converge on an implemented capability. And, engineering education is largely devoted to training engineers to use a range of tools that transform an abstract description into a concrete implementation.

This works well enough when capabilities are relatively decoupled (from each other and various use contexts) chunks of knowledge (e.g., systems, machines, applications, etc.). However, it becomes rigid, stovepiped, and slow when small chunks of composable knowledge (along with interoperable data) begin to dominate a topic area.

Technology seems to be in the early stages of such a shift today in the area of information technology. Traditional IT has a clear divergent-convergent divide...divergent in the need/requirement exploration phase, and convergent in the analysis/design/implementation phase. New IT (SOA, cloud computing, and similar composable technoogies) is beginning to blur the distinction between the divergent and convergent zones.

In topic areas where capabilities are information-intensive (and most capabilities are increasing in the amount of information they store and process), this shift means that the divergent and convergent zones will overlap in an increasingly fractal fashion.

This trend seems to point toward small teams of big picture-oriented explorers, puzzle-oriented implementors, topic experts, and a few part-time cognitive and social domain experts...first in IT-intensive domains, then in all information-intensive domains where agile decision making is important.

On the other hand, information storage, processing, and communication infrastructure would seem to be headed toward being a convergent commodity that requires deep and narrow technical expertise (similar to the production and dissemination of electricity)...except when new technologies disrupt (then displace) existing infrastructure technologies.