In complex, real-world settings, progress often depends on people learning together. This post explores what social learning looks like in practice, and why creating space for reflection, dialogue, and shared understanding is key to working across difference and uncertainty. When people face complex challenges – whether in sustainability transitions, public health, urban development, or freshwater […] The post Social learning in action: working together on complex challenges appeared firs...| learningforsustainability.net
In complex settings, different practices like evaluation, co-design, systems thinking, social learning, and participatory action research often build on common foundations. This post brings together a set of recent reflections that explore these shared starting points: clarity of purpose, attention to context, relational work, and space for reflection and learning. Over the past year, many […] The post Exploring complexity: a thread through recent reflections appeared first on learningforsu...| learningforsustainability.net
In complex, collaborative development initiatives – where outcomes emerge over time, and values may differ – evaluation needs to do more than measure results. This post outlines why and shares five grounded patterns from complexity-aware monitoring, evaluation and learning (CAMEL). Finally it reflects on what this approach asks of evaluators in practice. I’ve worked in long-term programmes where […] The post Evaluation in complex settings: reflections on practice and evaluator role...| learningforsustainability.net
In today’s post, I want to explore an observation about how we make distinctions and what this reveals about the structure of our thinking. I am inspired by the ideas in Spencer-Brown’s “Laws of Form” and broader themes in cybernetics about how observers construct meaning. The starting point is simple. When we make a distinction, […]| Harish's Notebook – My notes… Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
Part 2: Boundary Critique and Condition Creation Refer to my previous post here. In today’s post, I am exploring following up on what leadership means when we recognize that organizations do …| Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
I like how they make the title sound like ritual is a problem. Our culture believes that, I liked to believe it, and so the book is more appealing. (book on amazon, pdf excerpt) The book is not about rituals, but rather the attitude that ritual engenders. It’s an attitude of “If we do things ... Read moreRitual & its Consequences: book summary| Jessitron
“This is one of the things with the fast world that we’re in: how do we get people to stop — and to question?” ~ Mónica Quesada Cordero Solutions journalism is a rigorous form of reporting the…| Listening to the Universe
Part 1: The Reification Trap and What We Actually Observe In today’s post, I am looking at the notion of organizational purposes in light of cybernetic constructivism. The ideas here are insp…| Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
Part 3: The Safety to Dissent In part one we discussed the power and danger in naming psychological safety. In part two, we explored power and diversity. This week we’re continuing our series of reflections with some of the things we’ve […] The post Reflections – Part Three appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
How do some birds, turtles, and insects possess navigational abilities that rival the best manmade navigational technologies? Who or what taught the honey bee its dance, or its hive mates how to read the complex message of the dance? In Animal Algorithms, Eric Cassell surveys recent evidence and concludes that the difficulty remains, and indeed, is a far more potent challenge to evolutionary theory than Darwin imagined. Source| Books – Discovery Institute
Science has made great strides in modeling space, time, mass and energy. Yet little attention has been paid to the precise representation of the information ubiquitous in nature. Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics fuses results from complexity modeling and information theory that allow both meaning and design difficulty in nature to be measured in bits. Built on the foundation of a series of Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
"What are folks’ views on systems so large where cold-starting the whole system is almost impossible?"... — M'colleague, Shivam, In A Slackroom Next Door.| Hi, I'm Aditya Athalye. I make, learn, teach here.
Creating things is a delicate endeavour, fraught with peril. People struggle forward through crazy marketplace and environmental complexities just to get from one day to the other. Yet I can't shake off the feeling that we make it harder for ourselves than it should be. I've been trying to work out why. There's a lot to unpack. This post is a start at thinking about it in public.| Hi, I'm Aditya Athalye. I make, learn, teach here.
Mozambique faces multifaceted challenges that make monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) particularly complex. From protracted humanitarian crises in regions like Cabo Delgado to the effects of climate change in vulnerable rural areas, MEL practice requires innovative and adaptive approaches. This blog shares the practical experience of AVSI Mozambique and its partners in developing and implementing […]| Unstuck by UNDP
Winegrowers manage a complex adaptive system.| Dave's Research Co.
Some threads that connect to the heart of things.| Dave's Research Co.
Learn how to apply systems thinking to organized complexity, crucial for understanding and managing real-world complex issues with interconnected factors.| Systems Thinking Alliance
My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them as steps to climb beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) – Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractus Logico-Philosophicus In my recent post on the […]| Harish's Notebook – My notes… Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
I borrow the term ‘dogma’ from W. V. Quine’s classic essay Two Dogmas of Empiricism, where he showed that unquestioned assumptions can quietly shape an entire field. Complexity science, too, rests on its own dogmas that deserve examination. In today’s post, I want to explore what I see as two fundamental dogmas with how we […]| Harish's Notebook – My notes… Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” was one of my favorite poems as a child growing up. This was taught in my high school as part of my English classes. In today’s post, I a…| Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
Are we raising our young people to throw themselves up against the storms which rage at the highest altitudes of our civilization? How will these seedlings become strong pines?| Samsara Diagnostics
GDS reform expert, Alice Goldman, examines the value of public design to governments now.| publicpolicydesign.blog.gov.uk
In today’s post, I am exploring Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety and why it might be both more necessary and more slippery than most presentations suggest. Ashby’s Law might not be just another management principle. It could be a window into how we navigate complexity when the world refuses to be pinned down by our […]| Harish's Notebook – My notes… Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
Systems Thinking for Business and Managementby Umit S. Bititci and Agnessa Spanellis Organizations, markets, and economies are systems, analogous to ecosystems. This clearly-written, 278-page textb…| The Key Point
I was going to walk through how one might divide the armhole and sleeve unequally when I realized that the unequal practicalities need to be considered at other places in... The post Unequal Practicalities: Parts 3 & 4 appeared first on Jill Wolcott Knits.| Jill Wolcott Knits
By Doug Garnett & JP Castlin, July 2025 In the May 23rd edition of JP Castlin’s Strategy in Praxis newsletter we suggested businesses often face a type of uncertainty JP named “dynamic uncertainty” — a unique uncertainty revealed when we understand the inherent complexity of doing business. Dynamic uncertainty, though, is missing from the canon of uncertainty classifications. In that article we noted: …dynamic uncertainty keeps changing. Experiments lessen uncertainty in the moment ...| Doug Garnett’s Blog
In the May 23rd edition of JP Castlin’s Strategy in Praxis newsletter we suggested businesses often face a type of uncertainty JP named "dynamic uncertainty"| Doug Garnett’s Blog
Doug Garnett and JP Castlin wrote a blog post titled Complexity: The Dynamic Uncertainty of Emergence (1 August 2025).| Articles of Interest
In today’s post, I am exploring the notion of “doing the right thing.” We encounter this expectation everywhere in workplaces, personal relationships, and civic life. The phrase appears in mission statements, performance reviews, and everyday conversations. At first glance, it feels simple and reassuring. Of course we should do the right thing. In regulated industries, […]| Harish's Notebook – My notes… Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
In today’s post, I am exploring the notion that viability depends on our capacity for action, and that this capacity may not entirely rely on having a perfect grasp of “Truth.” This possibility, dr…| Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
I got quite excited about a poem recently. Part of it was along the lines of, “Crane Flies change the spin of a cricket ball at Lords, and get burnt in their thousands”. Woah I think, is this the c…| What's the PONT
In today’s post, I am exploring the nature of probability. Is probability an intrinsic feature of events that evolves over time, or is it something else entirely? My view is that probability …| Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
Solving IT problems is solving business problems. Information Technology (IT) is never an end goal. Simple IT solutions make dreams reality and can have a positive impact on the quality of our lives. However complex IT solutions are the de facto standard for too many solutions. Complex IT solutions have a large negative impact. But solving and preventing IT complexity is hard. | NO Complexity
By Peter Steiglechner1, Marijn Keijzer2 1 Complexity Science Hub, Austria; steiglechner@csh.ac.at2 Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, France Abstract ‘Noisy’ behavior, belief updating, or de…| Review of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
At a recent exhibition, I saw a sign that read: “Exit Only. No Re-Entry.” It seemed not just as a logistical instruction but as a metaphor. Around the same time, I came across a photo o…| Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
Complexity is a matter of degree and not a kind. – Glenda Eoyang In today’s post, I am exploring the importance of incorporating diversity when navigating complex environments. I have written…| Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
Unser Honorarprofessor Robert J. Sternberg hatte mich eingeladen, für ein von ihm und seiner Kollegin Weihua Niu konzipiertes zweibändiges Werk mit dem Titel „A Multidisciplinary Approach to Critical…| Joachim Funke
The Organisational Fabric of Psychological Safety (AKA psychological safety is more than just a team phenomenon) By Tom Geraghty When we talk about psychological safety, the definition we usually use is something along the lines of “a shared belief that […]| Psych Safety
In my last post on adapting to chaos I asked — what changes in our sensemaking practices should we incorporate to adapt to a world that is often more chaotic than complex? I received 12 comments here and another ten comments on LinkedIn. Confusion was one theme commented upon and Chris Corrigan referenced an excellent post on that topic — escaping confusion.| Harold Jarche
I’m finding it difficult to write here these days. And I have written a fair bit as this is post #3,685. Given the turmoil with our American neighbours it’s hard to focus on much else. Just in my professional networks on both sides of the border I personally know people who have lost their jobs, their clients, and any ability to plan for the near future — all in the past month. I should be writing a book. I even have a publisher. But I won’t. At least not at this time. Most of my thin...| Harold Jarche
A guest post by Philip Clark Introduction: I am happy to share the blog space with guest author Philip Clark for the fourth in the series of his reflecting on the learnings of our little CoP on…| Full Circle Associates
My first conversation with the AI Aiden Cinnamon Tea (ACT) – Part 3 Dear friends, For many months I’ve been exploring connections between my work, the metacrisis, and Indigenous worldviews and wisdom. Several weeks ago I had a conversation with a ChatGPT trained by the team around Vanessa Andreotti, the Indigenous academic …| Random Communications from an Evolutionary Edge
Not only can things be otherwise, they already are, and it is a matter of tuning, tending, activating, connecting, and defending these processes of change that are already in the making. Nick Montgomery and carla bergman, Joyful Militancy Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2025. The system is broken, it is getting worse, and ... Read moreThe world is terrible and great| Jessitron
OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) are a framework for validating alignment through the organization. As a company, as a department, as a team: what are we focused on this quarter? What are we try…| Jessitron
We always think we have perspective on our situation but - as a rule - we don't! When we think we have perspective (which is most of the time) we don't; when - on the other hand - we see that we are lacking in perspective, then this perception is…| radicaluncertaintydotcom
Experiments, bets and probes One of our mottos at PsychSafety is “everything is an experiment”. The outcome of work shouldn’t just be getting the thing done, it should be learning how to do it better next time. Experiments don’t mean […]| Psych Safety
Abstract| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Discover the challenges of parenting adult children from a distance and learn how to hold space for them while prioritizing self-care.| Heather Plett
In today’s post, I am exploring complexity through the lens of George Spencer Brown’s “Laws of Form”. This philosophical and mathematical treatise explores the foundations o…| Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.
Explore the profound concept of emergence and its crucial role in systems thinking—philosophical roots to real-world applications. Discover how emergence empowers thinkers to navigate complexity.| Systems Thinking Alliance
Following up from yesterday’s post — fix the networks — this presentation at XOXO Festival 2024, by Ed Yong tells the story about how the pandemic defeated him. Yong wrote many articles focused on making sense of the pandemic for The Atlantic from 2020. In 2021 Yong won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. His first premise is that succeeding or failing to deal with a pandemic is a choice. For me, just the fact that Yong wears a N95 respirator mask while presenting, makes this ...| Harold Jarche
Many people claim that evolution has a direction toward increased complexity—and that humans represent its apex. Our destiny, they declare, is to break out of our earthly limitations and explore th…| Patterns of Meaning
A guest post by my friend and colleague, Philip Clark (bios at end of post for Philip and Lynda!) “Here is a test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.” Richard Bach Within the larger Liberating Structures network there is a community of practice devoted to the development … Continue reading Rewilding Strategic Knotworking with Lynda FrostSource| Full Circle Associates
Ecotone organising offers a promising approach for fostering collective action on complex challenges. By creating spaces that are independent of existing organizational structures, we can cultivate hybrid cultures, shared capabilities, and flexible governance.| Fieldnotes by Sam Rye | Social & Environmental Regeneration
I recently rediscovered a 2017 article I’d forgotten about that not only describes where the Wise Democracy Project came from but articulates really well the underlying mission of my past decades of co-intelligence work. Check it out! – Tom| Random Communications from an Evolutionary Edge
Part 3 – In the final post, we introduce PactFlow’s new AI-augmented contract testing. We share our vision for AI in contract testing and demonstrate how our solution, through intelligent test automation, helps developers reduce effort, improve accuracy, and simplify API integration testing.| Pactflow Contract Testing Platform
Part 2 – We examine how Generative AI could automate parts of contract testing, while acknowledging its current limitations. We discuss the technology’s potential and challenges, emphasizing the need for smarter automation solutions to effectively tackle API testing complexities.| Pactflow Contract Testing Platform
Part 1 – We explore how contract testing can be applied to simplify the complexities of traditional API integration testing. We recognize common barriers, like the learning curve and test maintenance, and introduce the idea of leveraging Generative AI to address these challenges.| Pactflow Contract Testing Platform
Stay in your lane. Stick to your knitting. These are perhaps the worst cliché words of advice anyone can give in our interconnected, networked world.| Harold Jarche
I walk the short distance to work whenever I can. My route takes me to a grassy hill between the neighborhood and the hospital (I work in Rehab) emergency room parking lot. A small pond (sadly, lots of trash) is on one side of the path at the foot of the hill. The other side The benefits and pitfalls of rewilding yards and gardens| Harvesting Stones
0:00:00.0 Sean Carroll: Hello everyone and welcome to the Mindscape Podcast. I'm your host Sean Carroll. Today's podcast has a good news, bad news situation. The bad news is there will be bad language in this podcast. Not because we're getting especially salty or profane or anything like that, but because we're going to be talking about computer simulations that were written and run using a language called Brainfuck. Sorry about that if you have sensitive ears, but this is a very real compute...| Sean Carroll
There are scores of tomes written on “authentic” leadership, but all too often in practice they come across as farce. People simply don’t trust managers — perhaps the reason why authentic leadership is a cottage industry of its own. A primary reason for this mistrust is the disconnect between the| Leading Sapiens
“It might be down to the time of year; it’s always quieter in the summer months but it feels a bit different right now. Firstly, it feels like there has been a BIG pause because of ChatGPT and other LLMs. It feels like people are still getting their heads round what they can do, their effectiveness, quality, etc. And when they do look at it, they don’t ‘get’ how they’ll use it.” —Andrew Jacobs 2024-08-09 I have witnessed this same malaise in the business world for the past yea...| Harold Jarche
, crisis management and crisis communication advisor, explains the factors that determine whether some events become crises while others do not.| About Resilience -
We need to address the complexity gap in climate responses.| Fieldnotes by Sam Rye | Social & Environmental Regeneration
Explore the ten defining properties of wicked problems as outlined by Rittel & Webber. Discover why these complex issues are so challenging to solve.| Systems Thinking Alliance
Why does due diligence create such stress and anxiety? To answer that question, we must understand what it involves. As a requirement imposed by funders, its formats can vary widely. For example, bilateral funding sources such as USAID have stringent requirements, which may include retaining paperwo| Another Way Is Possible
Small wins and small bets can be an effective strategy instead of going for the big win. But there are several nuances that are misunderstood.| Leading Sapiens
Framing is a key skill to create psychological safety and improve performance. But most leaders are unaware or don't know how to get better at it.| Leading Sapiens
Leadership development is usually about positive abilities. Negative Capability is often forgotten but equally critical. What is it and what prevents it?| Leading Sapiens
For the past year, I’ve been helping one of my clients with company wide adoption of their enterprise architecture. Their pursuit of this has been long, and filled with challenges. So far, they’ve approached it by utilizing external advisors, communicating rules through the chain of command...| Context specific agile, product, and systems coaching
The systems thinking iceberg is a useful thinking model for leaders when dealing with intractable problems that never seem to go away. Part of the challenge is what the model calls “events” — surface level issues that are constantly on your radar — which are essentially fire-fighting, but that never really address| Leading Sapiens
A few weeks ago, I received the Hexi Base Kit V2 from The Cynefin Company. It features 120 Hexis, and contains core Cynefin and SenseMaker methods. Last week, I used it with Johan Axelson, Johan Sjöström, and Christian Fredrikson and I wanted to share our experiences with it. I want to mention...| Context specific agile, product, and systems coaching
Following up on my earlier post about the horrendous situation in Israel and Palestine, I’m offering here a similar broad-spectrum empathic reflection by columnist Nicholas Kristof. Then I share a fascinating conversation I had with ChatGPT, to whom I gave the challenging prompt to be a Great Peacemaker there. Under my urging, it responded with increasingly creative approaches. Finally, I note some interesting grassroots nonviolent direct actions happening there that could be expanded...| Random Communications from an Evolutionary Edge
A guest post by Philip Clark (Nancy’s Note: Philip and I are members of this little community of practice focusing on the use of Liberating Structures in strategic planning and work.| Full Circle Associates
The Challenge: Role Complexity and Overwhelm Following a reorganization at one of my clients, various formal and informal leadership roles were consolidated into a new position—the Engineering Manager. This role encompassed a wide range of responsibilities, from recruitment and career development to handling expenses, internal mobility, product and value creation, collaboration and processes, and technology. The large scale of the organization, along with technical interdependencies between...| Context specific agile, product, and systems coaching – I do Agile and Orga...
This is blogpost two in a series of posts originating from the ”Re-Wilding Agile” Masterclass that I took with Dave Snowden. In this post, I look at how we too often destroy symbiotic relationships that have emerged over time and through necessity. And how it is our vanity and ideals about “what workplaces should look like” or “how people ought to collaborate” that is the source of this. I start this post with a story about my garden and its ladybug and aphids. I then relate my ...| Context specific agile, product, and systems coaching – I do Agile and Orga...
When Charles Darwin studied the animals on the Galapagos islands, he found that finches had adapted to their circumstances and developed distinct traits. Some Finches had evolved to eat seeds, some to spear insects, and eat cactus fruit and seeds. They evolved together with their environment over a very long period of time. Their beaks have high utility in their contexts yet if you moved a Ground Finch to an environment where the main source of food were cactus, that finch might starve, or at...| Context specific agile, product, and systems coaching – I do Agile and Orga...
How do you view your role of leader or manager? Is it as a chess master or a gardener? The lure of control Often unknowingly, leaders and managers suffer from the myopia of control. The underlying ethos is of knowing everything, solving problems directly and having everything under control. It's| Leading Sapiens
The "if...then" way of thinking about cause and effect is common in business. Circular causality is often missed in the decision making process.| Leading Sapiens
Balancing the long term with the short term is an ongoing challenge for leaders. Peter Drucker addressed how to go about it in his writings.| Leading Sapiens
Most common discourse on mental models takes an additive approach. But this tends to be half-baked, often useless in practice. There is equal value, even more so, in a subtractive approach to mental models. The key is in understanding the difference between hard and soft mental models. How is the| Leading Sapiens
Leaders are often cautioned to watch their actions and behavior because it sets an example and gets replicated through the organization. Which begs the question: why do people copy leaders? The common explanations tend to be psychological. But it goes beyond simple carrot and stick notions from behaviorism. There's a| Leading Sapiens
Last year, the most valuable book I read was General Stanley McChrystal’s Team of Teams and I found his discussion of building an organization to deal with a complex environment particularly useful…| The Business of Social Games and Casino
Let's talk about Experimentation Portfolios. Visualising an array of experiments to see active and latent potential to shift systems through living labs, mission-oriented innovation and challenge precincts.| Fieldnotes by Sam Rye | Social & Environmental Regeneration
In March 2023 I wrote — understanding the hype and hope — of AI and I highlighted several insights from various experts.| Harold Jarche
More musings on communication and structure in TTRPGs| Līber Lūdōrum
Sensemaking is a manual skill, which can be assisted with various tools, but the most important tool is our mind, using good practices.| Harold Jarche
A rigorous experimentation approach (experiment-to-learn) will most likely outperform planning-based approaches (analyse-to-predict) where the challenge is dynamic and ever changing (i.e. any complex social and environmental challenge). This post explores how to do experimentation for change.| Fieldnotes by Sam Rye | Social & Environmental Regeneration
Wherein we ponder the axiom “If it feels good, do it.” And then we go and count the ways. THE WEEKLY CHALLENGE – PERL & RAKU #199 “Too much is always better than not eno…| Programming Excursions in Perl and Raku
Re-posting here in the hope that such discussions continue and a shared language and understanding is co-created around these topics.| Generative Identity
CBDCs are an expression of bankers’ fantasy of total control. Their first pilot program lasted 108 days and ended in total failure, lost elections and prison time. This post was originally pu…| The Naked Hedgie
For: [Virtual open Space] Systems Thinking and Skillful Interaction 20 September, 2023 Keynote by Jessica Kerr, jessitron.com These are my notes, publishing for people who were there (or anyone who…| Jessitron
In The Fifth Discipline, there's a useful primer on systems thinking that I keep going back to. Senge calls it the laws of the fifth discipline, or in other words, laws of systems thinking. [1] Senge's ground-breaking book was published in the early 90s, and yet in the ensuing decades,| Leading Sapiens
Viktor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor and the founder of Logotherapy, is most known for his classic book Man’s Search for Meaning. The construct of meaning forms the core of his philosophy. He identified an important framework that’s not as widely known — his laws of dimensional ontology. Although| Leading Sapiens
Almost everyone has the term “problem-solving” featured prominently in their resumes. Conversely, barely anyone uses the term “problem-setting”. Except in complex domains like leadership, problem-setting is often more critical than problem-solving. What is problem-setting, how is it different from good old problem-solving, and why is it critical to effective leadership?| Leading Sapiens
Using common CLI, let's analyze two open source project to find their potential complexity: Devdash and Kubernetes.| The Valuable Dev
When looking at a codebase, we shouldn't forget to look at its context, its environment. It can help to measure the complexity of a project.| The Valuable Dev
Do we need to measure complexity? With what metrics? What benefits can it brings? This is the questions we'll answer in this article.| The Valuable Dev
We speak about it, we complain about it, we want to get rid of it. But do we really understand what's a legacy system?| The Valuable Dev
