Embracing Messyness
It is astounding that many projects, programs, and initiatives continue to use linear, deterministic methods with an inherent lack of understanding of complexity and complex adaptive systems. This continues in the era when Gen AI has hit us, and most people have not really made “sense’ of how to respond to it.
The “wayfinder” approach described in this article is really the way to go for most projects, especially the Gen AI ones. We are in really uncharted territory, with a lot of constraints and unknowns yet tonnes of possibilities, making it worth taking a shot.
The Wayfinder or similar thought process might help make sure that we have more shots that actually hit the “basket” !!
Quoting the author, “The Waysfinder provides a scaffold that enables new thinking and practice, not a series of linear steps. It is made up of a combination of various types of constraints and wayfinding practices that collectively create a coherent adaptive space or search field.”
A couple of more gems from the same article:
The shift towards embracing messiness and diversity seems almost impossible, especially to leaders and managers who equate competence with control.
Embracing messy coherence requires us to let go of long-held assumptions of a world where stability, certainty, and predictability are the norm. In this world, we were taught to use linear, deterministic management methods and tools and also that alignment to shared goals and values is key to success.
