The Art of Complex Problem Solving
Via StumbleUpon, I found Idiagram's / Marshall Clemens' beautifully-illustrated The Art of Complex Problem Solving with mouse-over detail to the baseline graphic. Of course, Idiagram's business is in helping other businesses create visual models of their complex business problems. So it should be no surprise that they have a visual description of the process. I think of my friends at XPlane doing similar things with visual descriptions of business processes.
One note regarding the term "complexity." Complex systems are not unknowable. They just have lots of moving parts and are difficult to see at the big picture level. The other aspect of complex systems is that changes to one piece of the system are likely to have impacts on other areas of the system -- there are connections throughout the system. The good thing about this is that one should be able to find the biggest leverage point where a small change will have the greatest impact throughout the system. In business, this is the strategic control point that enables growth.
2 Comment(s)
said:
Ski- You are right. I was being lazy with my thinking. There are several related terms with respect to systems: simple, complicated, complex, chaotic. People throw them around willy-nilly, and I didn't help.
Complicated is a measure of how many words it takes to describe the system. This has nothing to do with "simple" or "complex" in TOC-speak.
Complex is, as Ski suggests, opposed to simple. Simple systems have a single leverage point. Complex systems have multiple (unrelated) leverage points.
Chaotic systems have no leverage points -- or they have thousands. They appear to behave randomly to systematic inputs, rather than behaving logically. Hopefully, your business is not in this class. If it is cash out now!
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Jack
Actually, (as you know) a complex system rarely has integrated pieces, where one change (or leverage point) will affect change in other pieces.
In Goldratt speak, a simple system allows for one (or very few) leverage points to "move" a business into growth mode. By fixing the weakest link.
However, with a big enough span of control, complex systems can be addressed (if not fixed). Think Welch at GE. He made the complex systems of the various components of GE grow by a simple policy: each business entity would either be the 1st or 2nd place market leader, or it would be sold.
Few of us take that approach to leverage to heart. More should. Einstein said complex problems require simple solutions.
It requires a lot of work. First you must know the goal or mission statement.
But keep up the good work; I enjoy your posts. They often require me to think different.
-ski