The document discusses the Cynefin framework, which categorizes problems into five contexts: simple, complicated, complex, chaotic, and disorder. It emphasizes the importance of adaptive systems, self-organization, and the non-linear behavior of complex interactions in addressing challenges such as poverty and social justice. Additionally, it calls for a shift in mindset towards collaborative and emergent practices in institutional change and recognizes the interconnectedness of science, spirituality, and our ethical responsibilities.

1. @NICKWECREATE
@NICKJANKEL
SCIENCE FOR
IMAGINEERS
NICK JANKEL, WECREATE
KAOS PILOTS
FEB 2012

2. DAY 3
CHAOS, COMPLEXITY &
CYNEFIN

3. DRAW BREAKTHROUGH SYSTEM OF YOUR
‘PROBLEM’
SPOT ASSUMPTIONS
IDENTIFY SWEETSPOTS

4. TODAY
COMPLEXITY
WORK WITH CYNEFIN MODEL, UNDERSTAND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
THE FIELDS OF SIMPLE, COMPLICATED, COMPLEX AND CHAOS AND HOW
THERE IS DIFFERENT METHODS TO APPLY WHEN YOU WORK IN THE
DIFFERENT FIELDS.
BEING ABLE TO ANALYZE AND UNDERSTAND IF A PROBLEM IS IN THE
VARIOUS FIELDS

5. HEART
CLARITY, POSSIBILITY

8. ANTS
NEITHER INDIVIDUAL NOR GROUP
BEHAVIOUR
SIGNALING
ADAPTATION TO WEATHER / ATTACK
HOW THROUGH EVOLUTION?

9. COMPLEX /
ADAPTIVE
BRAINS
HEART MUSCLE
IMMUNE SYSTEM
INSECT COLONIES
GLOBAL ECONOMY

10. BRAIN

13. WEB
FRACTAL

14. COMPLEX
NON-LINEAR COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOUR
FEEDBACK, SIGNALING & INFO PROCESSING
ADAPTATION VIA LEARNING OR EVOLUTION
HAVE A HISTORY
NESTED HIERARCHIES
SELF-ORGANISED EMERGENCE

16. WEB
OF CAUSATION

17. SELF
ORGANISATION
ORDER FOR FREE!

18. ORDER
COMES FROM DISORDER

19. DEFIES
ENTROPY!

20. LIFE
C, H, O, N, S, P, FE CREATE ALL

21. SELF-
ORGANISATION
ROBUSTNESS, FLEXIBILITY,
SPONTANEOUS INNOVATION.
SEMI-AUTONOMOUS
FUNCTIONING NEEDING
MINIMAL SUPERVISION

22. CONTROL
NATURAL RESPONSE TO FIX COMPLEX
PROBLEMS
BUT LOSE RESILIENCE & CREATIVE OF
SYSTEM (AND FAILS)

23. “If biologists have ignored self-organization, it is not
because self-ordering is not pervasive and profound. It
is because we biologists have yet to understand how to
think about systems governed simultaneously by two
sources of order, Yet who seeing the snowflake, who
seeing simple lipid molecules cast adrift in water
forming themselves into cell-like hollow lipid vesicles,
who seeing the potential for the crystallization of life in
swarms of reacting molecules, who seeing the stunning
order for free in networks linking tens upon tens of
thousands of variables, can fail to entertain a central
thought: if ever we are to attain a final theory in
biology, we will surely, surely have to understand the
commingling of self-organization and selection. We will
have to see that we are the natural expressions of a
deeper order. Ultimately, we will discover in our
creation myth that we are expected after all.”
STUART KAUFFMAN

24. BIRDS
STAY CLOSE
MATCH VELOCITY
AVOID OBSTACLES

25. BIRDS
STAY CLOSE
MATCH VELOCITY
AVOID OBSTACLES

26. BIRDS
STAY CLOSE (COHESION)
MATCH DIRECTION & VELOCITY
(ALIGNMENT)
AVOID COLLISION (SEPERATION)

27. WHAT ARE THE ‘RULES’ FOR KP
BEHAVIOUR?

28. WEATHER
NON-LINEAR
NON-EQUILIBRIUM

29. BUTTERFLY
EFFECT

30. CHAOS
POSITION, MASS, VELOCITY NOT ENOUGH TO
PREDICT

31. HUMANS
DO NOT OPERATE IN EQUILIBRIUMS EITHER

32. NETWORKS
C. ELEGANS
BRAIN
WEB
HOLLYWOOD
NATIONAL GRID
METABOLISM
GENE EXPRESSION

33. NETWORKS
SMALL WORLD

34. SCALE FREE
HUBS
HETEROGENOUS NODES
SELF-SIMILARITY

37. RICH
GET RICHER

38. EPIDEMIOLOGY
SEXUAL HUBS IN HIV

39. 1/n

41. FAILURE
CASCADING

42. RESILIENCE
EXCEPT FOR HUBS!

43. PHASE
TRANSITIONS

44. EDGE OF
STASIS INSTABILITY
CHAOS
DIVERSITY LOW OPTIMAL HIGH
FLOW OF
LOW OPTIMAL HIGH
INFO
RICHNESS OF
LOW OPTIMAL HIGH
CONNECTIONS
ANXIETY LOW OPTIMAL HIGH
POWER HIGH OPTIMAL LOW

45. EDGE
OF CHAOS
MAXIMUM RATES OF GENERATION /
EVOLUTION

46. COMPLEXITY
COSTS

47. BACKGAMMON

48. HOW DO YOU RATE ON THESE & WHICH IS
STRONGEST & WEAKEST?
AGILE
ATTENTION
EXPERIMENT
ROBUST
OPEN TO MULTIPLE POSSIBILITIES

49. MAKING
CHANGE IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS

50. “Thinking more deeply about
institutions and complexity raises major
dilemmas for development
interventions. On the one hand,
tackling poverty, achieving social
justice and protecting the environment
clearly require institutional
transformation. On the other,
institutions cannot be effectively
changed in a neatly planned, top-down
manner.”
JIM WOODHILL

51. “Don’t disturb complicated systems
that have been around for a very long
time. We don’t understand their logic…
Leave it the way we found it, regardless
of scientific ‘evidence’.”
N. NICHOLAS TALEB

52. REMEMBER
DYNAMIC, RICH INTERACTIONS
DIFFERENT PEOPLE, DIFFERENT LEVELS
FEEDBACK LOOPS
NON-LINEAR, UNPREDICTABLE
EMERGENT CHARACTERISTICS
SMALL CHANGES CAN HAVE LARGE IMPACTS
HISTORY CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

53. HUMANITY
CHANGE CAN ONLY HAPPEN WITH PEOPLE

54. RECEIVED
WISDOM DOESN’T ALWAYS APPLY

55. CYNEFIN
IBM ET. AL.

56. “Often the only way to improve a
complex system is to probe its limits by
forcing it to fail in various ways.”
KEVIN KELLY

57. The Cynefin Model
Complex Complicated
Known causes and effects
Understandable root causes
Use good practice
Use emergent practice
Focus on co-operation
(harness principles)
Focus on collaboration
Sense. Analyze. Respond
Sense. Explore. Respond
Disorder
Chaotic Simple
Predictable causes and effects
Unknowable causes / effects
Use best-practice
Use new practice
Focus on co-ordination
Focus on co-creation
Explore. Sense. Respond Sense. Categorize. Respond

58. BRAINSTORM PROBLEMS FOR EACH PART
OF THE CYNEFIN MODEL
WHAT KIND OF INTERVENTIONS /
APPROACHES?

59. “Part of reinventing the sacred is to heal...injuries that
we hardly know we suffer. If we are members of a
universe in which emergence and ceaseless creativity
abound, if we take that creativity as a sense of God we
can share, the resulting sense of the sacredness of all of
life and the planet can help orient our lives beyond the
consumerism and commodification the industrialized
world now lives, heal the split between reason and faith,
heal the split between science and the humanities, heal
the want of spirituality, heal the wound derived from
the false reductionist belief that we live in a world of
fact without values, and help us jointly build a global
ethic. These are what is at stake in finding a new
scientific worldview that enables us to reinvent the
sacred.”
STUART KAUFFMAN

60. HEART
CLARITY, POSSIBILITY

61. WHAT KIND OF CONTEXT ARE YOU
WORKING IN?
HOW DOES THIS IMPACT YOUR POTENTIAL
INTERVENTIONS?
WHAT WOULD BE YOUR YEAR 1
IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY?

62. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FRANK BARRETT & DAVID COOPERRIDER (AI)
PETER SENGE (SYSTEMS)
STANFORD ENCYLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY
WIKIPEDIA
MICHELLE HOLLIDAY (COMPLEXITY)
BELTOWSKA & RAE (SYSTEMS IMAGES)
AIDAN WARD & RICHARD VERYARD (SYSTEMS)
RICHARD SEEL (COMPLEXITY)

63. CONNECT
NICK@WECREATE.CC
WECREATE.CC (THIS WILL BE UP IN FEW DAYS)
NICKJANKEL.COM