“There was no obvious connection, of course. There never was. Cause and consequence proliferated across the world like a network of fractal cracks, infinitely complex and almost impossible to predict. Explanations in hindsight were a different matter.”
Tag Archives: change
Drawing a Better Panarchy Diagram
June 29 10
I am always on the lookout for good graphics and diagrams for my lectures on complexity and adaptive change. I often use the Panarchy cycle, which is a useful theoretical model for explaining how complex adaptive systems change over time. The image above is from Garry Peterson‘s excellent page describing Panarchy and the Adaptive Cycle [...]
On learning, collapse and the reduction of complexity
May 11 10
“…in its beginning it is easy to cure, but hard to recognize; whereas, after a time, not having been detected and treated at the first, it becomes easy to recognize but impossible to cure.” – Niccolo Machievelli In response to a Twitter conversation with Dave Snowden and Andrew Curry, regarding the need / possibility of [...]
What next for scenario planning?
January 24 10
How are online tools and social media transforming the practice of scenario planning? Recently I have been interviewing a variety of high profile futurists and up-and-coming strategists on how online approaches are transforming scenario planning and futures work. Although the questions have been largely open ended, conducted in person, over the phone and by email, [...]
Complexity and adaptive change
December 8 09
Here is Part Two of a recent lecture I gave on complexity, strategy, and organisational development at the LSE Complexity Programme. This segment introduces a model of adaptive change developed at the Stockholm Resilience Institute, which explain empirical change in complex ecosystems. The work has been expanded to other classes of socio-ecological systems, with preliminary [...]
Adapting Snowden's Cynefin Framework to Encompass Systemic Organisational Change
November 30 09
This is part of my recent LSE lecture on complexity strategies for change. In this segment I introduce Dave Snowden‘s Cynefin Framework of knowledge management, then adapt it to Gunderson and Holling’s resilience work on the Adaptive Change Cycle. The result is a new framework for strategy making in the context of different kinds of [...]