A rant on new wine on old wineskins (again)

January 19, 2011

I had a conversation a short while ago with someone who had been using a “complex systems method”. I was told that the originator of this method advocated small experiments which is goodness. However it appeared that her instructions were to do one intervention at a time to see if each one worked before progressing to the next. Now this is arrant nonsense. Its another example of someone grabbing the language of complexity but fitting it into the strait jacket of a linear approach. The essence of the shift to safe fail experiments is that you have multiple experiments in play. This will be the case anyway, a complex system is not a closed one that can be experimented with in this way. In practice it may be a combination of experiments with in situ action that works. The point is that you simply don’t know. Critically all experiments must be tested for coherence, and must be monitorable and also safe-to-fail; but other than that let a thousand flowers bloom.

I often think some of this sort of nonsense is the consultant trying to control the process rather than facilitating it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

About the Cynefin Company

The Cynefin Company (formerly known as Cognitive Edge) was founded in 2005 by Dave Snowden. We believe in praxis and focus on building methods, tools and capability that apply the wisdom from Complex Adaptive Systems theory and other scientific disciplines in social systems. We are the world leader in developing management approaches (in society, government and industry) that empower organisations to absorb uncertainty, detect weak signals to enable sense-making in complex systems, act on the rich data, create resilience and, ultimately, thrive in a complex world.
ABOUT USSUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER

Cognitive Edge Ltd. & Cognitive Edge Pte. trading as The Cynefin Company and The Cynefin Centre.

© COPYRIGHT 2024

< Prev

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

OK its probably man flu but I am feeling very very sorry for myself; ...

More posts

Next >
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram