Cloud Native Transformation

Chapter 4. Beyond Patterns: Behavior, Biases, and Managing Evolution

We humans, sitting as we do atop the evolutionary apex, like to think we are logical and rational—not animals driven by impulse and instinct. In fact, though, we are prone to all kinds of proven biases, cognitive quirks, and mental shortcuts. These cognitive biases presumably served our hunter–gatherer ancestors well by allowing fast decision making: when facing down a predator, speed was more valuable than accuracy.

Many of these biases continue to serve us well. If followed by a stranger when we walk alone at night, our fight-or-flight instinct is more valuable than engaging that stranger in a discussion about the unequal distribution of wealth in our society. Other times, however, these very same biases can cause us to think and act quite irrationally, to our own detriment.

In cloud native, cognitive biases can lead us to try to build a cutting-edge, distributed microservice system by following traditional (comfortable) approaches we’ve used to build software for the past two decades. In this chapter we take a look at cognitive biases and discuss the ones most likely to impact a cloud transformation—and how some biases can be harnessed to work for, instead of against, success.

Imagine a commercial construction company in your town, one that is well established and successful, and known for producing solid, high-quality apartment buildings. Now imagine that the company’s leaders decide to broaden the business ...