088: Complex isn't the same as complicated

"We often give building a house as an example of something in the complicated sphere. But then we talked in recent episodes about the nightmare build of the Sydney Opera House – that was complex, but people were treating it like it was complicated. What's the difference? What makes one complicated and one complex? Is it a sliding scale from one to the other? How do you know which realm you're in?"

This broad question comes up a lot when people encounter complexity.

• Hello again, Cynefin
• The phase shift from complicated to complex
• You're not "in" any domain: instead, you decompose a project or situation into smaller chunks, distribute those chunks into domains, and then you can use applicable methods
• Then your job is to move those chunks from one domain to another – like constraining something complex and unpredictable so you can make it more predictable for you
• Estimating Complexity by Liz Keogh: have you done this before?
• Light switches vs electricity substations vs energy markets vs power failures.
• Fun with etymology
• "An aeroplane is complicated; a mayonnaise is complex"
• The role of connectedness
• Global warming and a social ice age
• Many folks are intuitively good at handling complexity without knowing all the words and that's OK
• Processes and procedures to make things less unpredictable ... until they stop working
• Methods to achieve the liminal complex to complicated phase shift
• A Simon Wardley example of waste in an organisation
• The surface layer of a thing is not necessarily everything that thing does
• Boeing and the slip over the cliff from Clear to Chaos
• Chesterton's aeroplane seat
• Seeds vs Soil
• The liminal complicated zone where experts disagree and people have Opinions.
• If there's disagreement about an element of a project, decompose it until the disagreement goes away
• Is there always a level of decomposition where you stop disagreeing?
• Football example ...
• Jefferson Fisher's courtroom example ...
• The move into Aporia and the EU Field Guide for Managing Complexity

Linky Goodness

• Cynefin
• Estimating Complexity
• Seeds vs Soil – front | back
• Jefferson Fisher
• EU Field Guide for Managing Complexity

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