Flashlight Over North Star

A North Star is often intended as a fixed reference point helping the navigation toward a desired destination. The destination is usually set upfront before the beginning of the journey, typically by a 'planner' other than those making the journey, the course is charted using an existing map, and an established route is used whenever possible. This is where a travel agency and a tour operator could help.

Whether it is used as a fixed destination, a fixed reference point to orient a defined direction of travel, it is commonly used as part of a predictive approach.

This interpretation and use of a North Star is effective and efficient when one can count on enough knowledge and certainty. For example for mature, commoditised or industrialised products and services, and when applying canned solutions and standard recipes.

But this interpretation and use is extensively adopted outside those conditions where it works, leading to situations not too dissimilar to the Streetlight effect .

A more effective interpretation of the North Star is that of a beacon shedding light on the path for explorers venturing into the unknown. It involves using the insights gained during the journey thus far to help decide where to direct the very next steps. It is not the interpretation commonly used. It lead us to a better alterative to the North Star anti-pattern.

When dealing with novelty, unknowns and uncertainties, a North Star may be of little help. For example in an Agile, product/service delivery initiative, in an Agile adoption or transformation. This is the territory of pioneers and explorers stepping into uncharted territories. Christopher Columbus could not ask a travel agency to organise his explorations. And still it was only Amerigo Vespucci that fully realised the actual discovery made my Columbus.

The crux of the matter here is openness to the unexpected, with a degree of awareness of the unknowns and limited control.

This metaphor better resemble an adaptive approach driven by those making the journey. And this new metaphor provokes a conversation to align everyone around the interpretation as an adaptive approach.

Agile thinking and Agile practices have emerged to deal with this type of situation. They allow gradual progress toward an ever-changing sense of direction and a continuously evolving understanding of the destination. Those involved agree on the next small bets and experiments, evaluate the results and the learning, decide whether to renew their commitment to the journey and proceed iteratively.

As Søren Kierkegaard suggested, we manage to live our lives forward, deciding, acting, and doing, without knowing the future. As Agile practitioner Brett Maytom suggested, we "coddiwomple our way through life" that is we “travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination.

This concept is expanded in Jeff Patton's presentation Embrace Uncertainty Strategies for on-time delivery in an uncertain world and in his post Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know How to Get It .

Thanks to Kristof Adriaenssens, Mel Kendell, David Williams, Todd Kromann, Michael Küsters, Anthony Little, Murtaza Hussain, Paul Oldfield, and others that participated to the conversation sharing useful insights.