Punctuated equilibrium in product development?

May 16, 2006 | Posted by stuartchurch | Filed under Design, Evolution, IA  

I’m intrigued to see that there’s a new holding page on IAWiki for Punctuated Equilibrium. Punctuated Equilibiurm is the theory proposed by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould that evolutionary change happens in small bursts of rapid change, interspersed by periods of relatively little change (or stasis).

I’ve never heard of this theory being explicitly applied to anything in the field of IA/design/development/technology before, but I’d definitely say that something akin to Punctuated Equilibrium happens in product development iterations. When I’m working on a prototype website or application, it often stays the same for a while, with only relatively minor tweaks and adjustments. Then suddenly (and usually for reasons entirely unknown to me), my whole view of the design can change. The bigger picture suddenly emerges, the loose ends connect, and the prototype is transformed into a very different (and hopefully a simpler and more elegant) beast. This idea also ties in nicely with Dan Ward’s Simplicity Cycle concept; left unchecked, products tend to slowly, inevitably become larger, more complex and more unwieldy over time as features are added. A rapid design revolution or breakthrough is needed to steer them back towards a “simple-but-good” trajectory.

It’s not just about product development either. Bigger cultural technological changes such as Web2.0, or the iPod appear (superficially at least) to follow this pattern of punctuated equilibrium, although in these cases the change is based on a rapid spread of memes.

Update: I’ve just found reference to Punctuated Equilibrium in Jeff Sutherland’s Agile development: lessons learned from the first scrum (PDF, 137K). The relevant passage is:

The most interesting effect of Scrum on Easels development environment was an observed ‘punctuated equilibrium’ effect. This occurs in biological evolution when a species is stable for long periods of time and then undergoes a sudden jump in capability. During the long period of apparent stability, many internal changes in the organism are reconfigured that cannot be observed externally. When all pieces are in place to allow a significant jump in functionality, external change occurs suddenly. A fully integrated component design environment leads to unexpected, rapid evolution of a software system with emergent, adaptive properties resembling the process of punctuated equilibrium observed in biological species. Sudden leaps in functionality resulted in earlier than expected delivery of software in the first Scrum.

I don’t think I agree with his description of Punctuated Equilibrium, though – there aren’t hidden internal changes in organisms that drive external changes. It’s more to do with sudden external changes (e.g. climate, disruption, isolation) driving rapid genetic change within a gene pool. I’d say the analogy between the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium and product development lies entirely in the rate of change and nothing else.

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I'm Stuart Church, a user experience consultant with Pure Usability in Bristol, UK. Sensorydrive is my personal blog and covers user experience design, information architecture, product design, psychology, research methods, perception and pretty much anything else that takes my fancy! You can find out a bit more about me if you want...