Antifragility

Revision as of 21:00, 2 October 2017

The concept of being antifragile

The idea of being antifragile is to be the opposite of fragile by following the thought process of Nassim Nicholas Taleb who created the concept of Antifragile.

First let us look at what is it to be fragile in this setting. The fragile items or systems break when they are mishandled, e.g. a house of cards do not like when the wind blows next to it. So the fragile is situations and items that can easily be damaged if we are not careful.

How do you protect a fragile system? If we look at the house of cards example again, then the door could be closed so no wind could enter. The door is then our robust shell, it will keep the wind out and the house of cards will not trip over as long as the door is closed. Well, that is until our younger sibling comes running through the living room swinging his new badminton racket right into the house of cards.

What do the example tell us? By looking at the house of cards we cannot protect it by putting up 1 robust safety barrier, we would need 1 for each scenario that happens if the cards should keep forming the house. But want did I learn from the situation? That I will build my house of cards in my own room the next time. This lesson means I have improved and learned from a negative impacting scenario. Next time it will be harder to trip over the house of cards. That is the antifragile system, the antifragile wants to be pushed, it wants to receive impacts and chaos both negative and positive, that is the way it learns and improves. That is why Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls antifragile the opposite of being fragile.

Being antifragile is for a system to not only withstand or endure chaos, stress and high-impact events but to improve and upgrade itself because of these impacts. By looking at a system to be antifragile it adapts to the surroundings, and it is here that the antifragile system changes from the robust system. The robust system can withstand high-impacts and will not break when negative scenarios happen but neither will it take in the possitve impacts or scenarios, it will never improve before the whole system is changed. The antifragile system learns from the impacts, negative and possitive, and thus becomes stronger with each hit it takes.

"The antifragile loves randomness and uncertainty, which also means— crucially— a love of errors, a certain class of errors." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb^[1]

To understand and use the aspects of antifragility it is important to remember it is the opposite of fragile. The chaos has to be around an hit the antifragile system or else it will not improve. The concept of antifragility is developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and discussed in his books, Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan and Antifragility. In his book Antifragility, Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about the idea and thoughts of the antifragility.

Defenition of antifragile:

Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb^[2]

Recall that the fragile wants tranquility, the antifragile grows from disorder, and the robust doesn’t care too much. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Crucially, if antifragility is the property of all those natural (and complex) systems that have survived, depriving these systems of volatility, randomness, and stressors will harm them. They will weaken, die, or blow up. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness

something that is robust merely tolerates adverse or unexpected conditions, whereas something that is antifragile thrives—its performance actually improves. - Robert W. Lucky, Antifragile Systems

The antonym of “fragile” is not robustness or resilience, but “please mishandle” or “please handle carelessly,” using an example from Taleb when referring to sending a package full of glasses by post. - Terje Aven, The Concept of Antifragility and its Implications for the Practice of Risk Analysis

‘Fragility’ can be defined as an accelerating sensitivity to a harmful stressor: this response plots as a concave curve and mathematically culminates in more harm than benefit from random events. ‘Antifragility’ is the opposite, producing a convex response that leads to more benefit than harm. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb, ‘Antifragility’ as a mathematical idea

How to create an antifragile system?

Because of antifragility being this state a system can be in, it can be applied to multiple systems in very different aspect. Just think about how it was described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb using muscles that regenerate themselves and becoming stronger, a Hydra growing two new heads when one i cut off, restaurants competing to improve food and service, all these are different complex and organic systems. The antifragile system as a concept idea can be applied to a multitude of systems because the defining factor is not the antifragile concept but whether or not the system can accomodate to being antifragile, that is to improve when affected by events.

This antifragile thinking can be a bit confusing when we are thinking of systems, but think of it as a learning by doing situation. If the system cannot learn it cannot be antifragile. Nassim Nicholas Taleb describes it as the mechanical, noncomplex vs. the organic, complex. This means that system has to be organic before it can be antifragile. Following this thought process is a good way to look at the system wished to adapt to become antifragile. Eventhough this is a general rule there will of course be found mechanical systems/components/something else that will prove this rule wrong, but thinking about the system in an organic way helps to give the manager an idea if it is possible to make antifragile.

Using the antifragile system in Project, Program and Portfolio Management

Starting a new project has a great deal of unknown and "has a posibility to happen" scenarios. In the first steps of planning the project, the project manager might have done a Gantt Chart, a Stage-Gate Model, an FMEA analysis and used other planning and risk tools for planning the time line and the steps of the project as well as dealing with the scenario that could happen. Using these tools create a more robust project but events will happen, some foreseen and some might suddenly hit and create an unwanted situation. Eventhough we have become better at identifying the unkowns and how to deal with them ^[3] It is still a very important and often occurring (also reoccurring) event for manager of projects, programs and portfolios are dealing with risk and the uncertain aspects of when or how something will happen . Protecting their projects and making them able to respond to threats and survive the negative events is a big part of managing projects, programs and portfolios. It is here that the antifragile system enters the picture.

"At the core of antifragility is the conviction that planning is, to a large extent, futile, as unforeseeable events keep destroying our carefully laid out plans and detailed schedules." - Article, "Complexity management for projects, programmes, and portfolios" ^[4]

An antifragile system thrives in disorder and with stressors. Therefore the antifragile system is the ideal match for venturing out into the unknown. It is important to note however that being antifragile does not solve all solutions and antifragility is an idea and a state a project can be in, it still requires planning, errors, and a lot of learning by doing (maybe even burning) to keep the antifragile system afloat.

Implementing the antifragile idea

When working with Project, Program and Portfolio Management the implementation of the antifragile concept can be difficult to handle. There is as such no list to follow on how to make an antifragile system, being antifragile is a state the system is in when outside actions and impacts have a positive effect on the system.

In order to work towards being antifragile the article Complexity management for projects, programmes, and portfolios^[5] proposes 5 rules to follow:

• Rule 1: Think of projects as human bodies, not machines.
• Rule 2: Create project portfolios that can collectively learn from the others' mistakes.
• Rule 3: Small projects and project teams are efficient.
• Rule 4: Fail often, fail cheaply.
• Rule 5: Project managers must have real skin in the game.

The 5 rules can be used by managers to work towards becoming more antifragile.

Limitations of the antifragile

References

1. ↑ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2012, Antifragile Things that Gain from Disorder, Penguin Books
2. ↑ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2012, Antifragile Things that Gain from Disorder, Penguin Books
3. ↑ https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/characterizing-unknown-unknowns-6077 , Kim, S. D. (2012). Characterizing unknown unknowns. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2012—North America, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
4. ↑ https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/complexity-management-projects-programmes-portfolios-10674 , Oehmen, J., Thuesen, C., Ruiz, P. P., & Geraldi, J. (2015). Complexity management for projects, programmes, and portfolios: An engineering systems perspective. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2015—EMEA, London, England. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
5. ↑ https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/complexity-management-projects-programmes-portfolios-10674 , Oehmen, J., Thuesen, C., Ruiz, P. P., & Geraldi, J. (2015). Complexity management for projects, programmes, and portfolios: An engineering systems perspective. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2015—EMEA, London, England. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.