The Role of Rules

In the context of the ongoing dialog in the lean/agile community about "defined processes" (in the sense of documented processes with clear guidelines or rules, not necessarily deterministic processes), the following sets of books have come to together to make an impression on me:

• Group 1: The End of Overeating, by David Kessler Strategy and the Fat Smoker, by David Maister Overcoming Organizational Defenses, by Chris Argyris (see also www.actionscience.org)
• Group 2: Software For Your Head, by Tom and Michele McCarthy (see www.mccarthyshow.com) Agile Project Management with Scrum, by Ken Schwaber (see scrum.org)

The books in Group 1 have a common thread which is that knowing how you want to behave is not the same as actually behaving that way. Changing behavior is very hard, particular when that behavior is linked to long standing psychological or physical inclinations. While each of these books offers approaches for implementing behavior change in the domain they are addressing, David Kessler in particular points out that, due to the different parts of the brain involved, creating discrete rules for oneself is much more effective in changing behavior that establishing more abstract objectives.

The books in Group 2 are interesting in that the each provides a set of strict rules and guidelines to be followed in their particular domain. Each has also been criticized as being too prescriptive and too constraining. But the Group 1 books explain that this is precisely why these protocols are effective. This topic also seems related to Bloom's taxonomy of learning and various concepts of mastery levels, where one progresses from learning rules, to applying rules, to teaching rules, to breaking rules, to making rules.