| Hi Doc
Complex adaptive systems are all around us, from gene _expression_ within us, our social networks of friends, the organisations we work for, all the way to the societal markets in which we live. I have been using complexity theory in my consulting work for the past 15 years. It provides a range of metaphors, methods and tools to help manage change in organisations. Dave Snowden has provided a very useful model for decision making depending upon whether the behaviour of the system is simple, complicated, complex or chaotic. Each of the four behaviours have different characteristics and require different types of decision making styles to manage them effectively. He wrote about the behaviours and the decision making styles in easy terms in the HBR ( http://aacu-secure.nisgroup.com/meetings/ild/documents/Symonette.MakeAssessmentWork.ALeadersFramework.pdf) and in more detail in the IBM Systems Journal ( http://www.valuenetworksandcollaboration.com/images/Cynefin_NewDynamicsOfStrategy.pdf). Evidence suggests that 35% of behaviours are simple and can be managed through best-practices, 25% are complicated and cam be managed through good practices, 25% are complex and can be managed through a probe-sense-respond approach and 15% are chaotic are must be managed through an act-sense-respond approach. I went through Dave's Cognitive Edge training about five years ago and have used his narrative based approach in my consulting work since. It is highly effective.
Before we get bogged down in the complicatedness of complexity theory, I suggest we read a little of Dave Snowden's work. Best regards from Bishopsgate, London, Graham On 19 Jan 2014, at 19:44, Doc Searls <
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> wrote: That's good. I like "rugged landscape."
Links:
<http://www.lsa.umich.edu/polisci/people/faculty/ci.pagescott_ci.detail>
<http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~spage/>
<http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/complexadaptivesystems/>
<http://knackeredhack.com/2007/04/30/how-chippy-do-you-like-your-ice-cream/#more-166>
<https://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=4758>
<http://bit.ly/19FstmJ>
On Jan 19, 2014, at 9:43 AM, Guy Higgins <
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> wrote:
It strikes me that this set of bullets describing wicked problems also
applies to problems involving complex adaptive systems. Inherently, VRM
is dealing with complex adaptive systems involving players who want to
control their private data and players who want to make use of other
player¹s private data. Scott Page uses the term ³rugged landscape² to
create an image of a solution space in which there are numerous potential
solutions (peaks) and it is not obvious nor easy to determine which
solution is optimal. Scott goes on from that image to one he calls
³dancing landscapes² in which the attributes of a rugged landscape apply
but the peaks and valleys all change in response to the actions of players
in the solutions space and even in response to externalities. This latter
solution space of dancing landscapes is where complex adaptive solutions
and wicked problems dwell.
Don¹t know if this perspective is helpful or not ‹ but fer what it¹s worth
Š
Guy
On 1/19/14, 10:04 , "Doc Searls" <
">
> wrote:
The quoted passage below showed up in another list. It looked to me like
it might be relevant to VRM, so I'm sharing it.
Here is the original:
<http://www.uctc.net/mwebber/Rittel+Webber+Dilemmas+General_Theory_of_Plan
ning.pdf>
While the excerpt below lays out what "wicked" problems are, what
intrigues me is that it poses them against "tame" ones.
I think the problem of customer captivity is not the captivity itself,
but the valuing of it ‹ and the normative nature of value systems, even
when those systems later fall into discredit and abandonment. And I think
my problem with marketing-framed answers to the questions raised by VRM
ambitions is that they strike me ‹ in the context posed by this piece ‹
as tame. I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean it in the sense that
marketing is a mature, deep and well-understood field. What VRM poses is
the idea of free customers, which marketing on the whole doesn't care a
lot about or would rather not see. (Perhaps Graham can correct me on
that, or shed more light on the matter.) In any case, marketing is a
corporate practice, and VRM is about personal ones. Today we have a
limited box of tools at customers' disposal. VRM seeks to add more tools
to that box.
I suggest that liberating customers from systems that value holding them
captive is the core challenge of VRM. There are other challenges in the
shaft behind that arrowhead, such as making VRM work. But liberation is
key. I think doing that is a wicked problem.
Einstein said (or is said to have said ‹ it's not clear), "You cannot
solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it." I
suggest that a corollary might be, "Wicked problems are ones that cannot
be solved from any level place," meaning any tame (mature,
well-understood) place.
Obviously, those places don't go away. Newton's proven theories did not
cease to apply when those of relativity theory and quantum mechanics came
along. But the thinking that yielded the latter was not Newtonian. It was
different. Einstein credited "the gift of fantasy" for his own insights.
Anyway, those are some digressive thoughts on a Sunday morning. I'd
tighten them up if we didn't have guests. But we do, so there ya go.
Doc
Excerpted from:
Rittel, H., & Webber, M. (1973). ³Dilemmas in a General Theory of
Planning,² Policy Sciences, 4, 155-169.
Wicked Problems
According to Rittel and Webber, wicked problems have 10 characteristics:
€ Wicked problems have no definitive formulation. Formulating the
problem and the solution is essentially the same task. Each attempt at
creating a solution changes your understanding of the problem.
€ Wicked problems have no stopping rule. Since you can't define the
problem in any single way, it's difficult to tell when it's resolved.
The problem-solving process ends when resources are depleted,
stakeholders lose interest or political realities change.
€ Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad.
Since there are no unambiguous criteria for deciding if the problem is
resolved, getting all stakeholders to agree that a resolution is "good
enough" can be a challenge, but getting to a ³good enough² resolution
may be the best we can do.
€ There is no immediate or ultimate test of a solution to a wicked
problem. Since there is no singular description of a wicked problem, and
since the very act of intervention has at least the potential to change
that which we deem to be ³the problem,² there is no one way to test the
success of the proposed resolution.
€ Every implemented solution to a wicked problem has consequences.
Solutions to such problems generate waves of consequences, and it's
impossible to know, in advance and completely, how these waves will
eventually play out.
€ Wicked problems don't have a well-described set of potential
solutions. Various stakeholders have differing views of acceptable
solutions. It's a matter of judgment as to when enough potential
solutions have emerged and which should be pursued.
€ Each wicked problem is essentially unique. There are no "classes" of
solutions that can be applied, a priori, to a specific case. "Part of
the art of dealing with wicked problems is the art of not knowing too
early what type of solution to apply."
€ Each wicked problem can be considered a symptom of another problem.
A wicked problem is a set of interlocking issues and constraints that
change over time, embedded in a dynamic social context. But, more
importantly, each proposed resolution of a particular description of ³a
problem² should be expected to generate its own set of unique problems.
€ The causes of a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways.
There are many stakeholders who will have various and changing ideas
about what might be a problem, what might be causing it and how to
resolve it. There is no way to sort these different explanations into
sets of ³correct/incorrect.²
€ The planner (designer) has no right to be wrong. Scientists are
expected to formulate hypotheses, which may or may not be supportable by
evidence. Designers don't have such a luxury‹they're expected to get
things right. People get hurt, when planners are ³wrong.² Yet, there
will always be some condition under which planners will be wrong.
-- Dr. Graham Hill UK +44 7564 122 633 DE +49 170 487 6192
Partner Optima Partners
Senior Associate Nyras Capital
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