Category Archives: Complexity-worthiness
Applying Complexity Thinking to the Real World
PRINCIPLES FOR [BRINGING ABOUT] EFFECTIVE CHANGE IN [REAL-WORLD] PRACTICE The eleven ‘Principles of Practice’ below have been derived from the experiences of practitioners (people who are responsible for bringing about real-world change) which are discussed in a companion book “Complexity … Continue reading
Limits to modelling – Godel’s Incompleteness theorem
Agent-based modelling is often hailed as a way of modelling the future, predicting outcomes in social situations. But there are both hard limitations on what you can predict with modelling, and a lack of understanding of those limitations.This post examines … Continue reading
Possibility, Risk Asessments and dealing with Possible Futures
There is a fundamental flaw in most risk assessments – they are based on past data. That means that they are useless in the face of crises or deep uncertainty, in ambiguous situation or when faced with so-called ‘zero-day’ events. … Continue reading
Organisation forms and Contextual Complexities
‘Contextual complexity’ provides an ‘objective’ perspective (as far as it can be) on the realities of the context and is the basis of exposing givens, realities and unspoken assumptions. When practitioners wish to establish their Contextual complexity (by undertaking ‘Symptom … Continue reading
How do we define ‘Complexity’ – ways of talking about it
In our book, ‘Complexity Demystified – a Guide for Practitioners‘ (page 8) we differentiate four different ways of talking about complexity: as it is naturally; as academics see it generally in theory; as it is seen objectively when in some … Continue reading
Complexity-Worthiness in a nutshell
Having ‘Complexity-worthiness’ means being able to access, deploy and employ capabilities which are appropriately matched to the nature of things being worked with – and being able to adapt them dynamically as circumstances change. Whether or not you use the … Continue reading
Harnessing Dynamic Change 