Complexity

Making Sense of Complexity: Joburg & Cape Town Accreditation

We are proud to announce the arrangements for hosting back-to-back Cognitive Edge Accreditation courses in 2012. After the sold-out inaugural Cape Town course in 2011, in partnership with theUniversity of Stellenbosch Business School, we will be back in Bellville from 28th to 30th March 2012. Thereafter we will be in Johannesburg from 2nd to 4th April 2012. Steve Bealing, CEO of Cognitive Edge, will again be joining us from Singapore to facilitate the accreditation. Spaces are limited to 24 only, so be sure [...]

By Aiden Choles|January 18th, 2012|Categories: Complexity|Tags: aiden choles cape town, Cognitive Edge, Complexity|0 Comments

Work and meaning

I'm busy reading The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely (and really enjoying it). In one of the chapters he reflects on work and meaning. Can human beings find satisfaction and be engaged in work that pays well, but offers no meaning? He unpacks two "types" of meaning: "m"eaning - a feeling of being challenged by whatever our work is, and completing it to our own satisfaction vs "M"eaning - a hope that someone else, potentially a significant someone, will find value [...]

By Aiden Choles|October 5th, 2011|Categories: Complexity|Tags: behaviour, Complexity, Psychology|0 Comments

Traffic regulation: self-organisation vs control

Navigating the traffic here in SA can be quite a complex affair (as I'm sure is true in most other countries). Traffic authorities make extensive use of traffic lights and other control mechanisms to regulate traffic, especially in urban areas. I came across this interesing video the other day, about how allowing for self-regulation on busy roads often leads to less congestion and paradoxically, less road accidents. I'm not sure if this will work in South Africa, but it certainly [...]

By Aiden Choles|October 4th, 2010|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, self-organisation|0 Comments

Announcement: The Narrative Lab & World’s View Academy TweetChat on “#Leadership & Complexity”

The Narrative Lab in collaboration with World’s View Academy will be hosting a live TweetChat on an article written by Aiden Choles, founder of The Narrative Lab, on Overcoming Perplexity - Frames of Mind Required for Engaging with Complexity. In the lead up to Dave Snowden's visit to South Africa in October, the good folk at World's View Academy asked Aiden Choles to write about this topic and to present it at their Organisation Development Cafe on 21st August. Who should be joining in the discussion?  [...]

By Aiden Choles|August 19th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: Complexity, Development Perplexity, leadership Organisation|0 Comments

The power of African Fractals

We often laugh at the perceptions people have of Africa and her people, like the one that we still have wild animals roaming the streets of Johannesburg. Hopefully the thousands of visitors that came to South Africa for the 2010 Soccer World Cup will dispell that myth once and for all. Another persistant (and more worrying) perception seems to be that African culture and intelligence is inferior to those of Western nations. Most people still think that the various Europian [...]

By Aiden Choles|July 19th, 2010|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, education, mathematics, perception, self-organisation|0 Comments

Complexity explained

I came across this great little video by our friends at Anecdote in Australia. I think Mark does a great job at explaining complexity and why it's important to business leaders today.

By Aiden Choles|February 2nd, 2010|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity|0 Comments

Complex projects

I am not a good project manager. There, I said it! Even 5 years in IBM could not drill the organised thought processes required to manage a big project into me. I'm just not wired for that. That being said however, I don't believe that all projects (I won't go so far to say no projects) lend themselves to being managed with structured, deterministic so-called "Waterfall" methodologies that are so popular in most IT companies. Agile methodologies like SCRUM are [...]

By Aiden Choles|September 30th, 2009|Categories: Management|Tags: Complexity, dissent, diversity, Management, projects|0 Comments

Ethics Conference

Sonja and I are in Cape Town tomorrow for the Unashamedly Ethical conference on Friday and Saturday. Since the release of the King 3 report on corporate governance earlier this month, there is increased pressure for Board's and Directors to report on and manage the ethical performace of their companies. Managing ethics? The reality is that the realm of ethics is a profoundly complex problem, a problem that escapes direct management ... added to this complexity is the problem of human nature [...]

By Aiden Choles|September 16th, 2009|Categories: Narrative|Tags: Complexity, ethics, Narrative|0 Comments

Dave Snowden @ the CSIR on 19 August

Dave Snowden is in the country early in August and will be giving a public talk for the Pretoria chapter of the KM Practitioner Forum at the CSIR on the 19th. I've attached the invite for your convenience The topic is "How to make KM strategic to your organisation". Dave's talks are always challenging and entertaining. Seats are limited and registrations are coming in quickly, so make sure you register soon to ensure your spot. I hope to see you there! Attachment [...]

By Aiden Choles|July 29th, 2009|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, Dave Snowden, KM|0 Comments

SCRUM training 29 & 30 July 2009

Our friends at Kaizania are hosting a SCRUM trainingcourse at the end of this month, and for those who don't know, it has nothing to do with rugby! We've long been interested in the SCRUM methodology, an AGILE approach to project management. It has a solid foundation in complexity and makes use of narrative techniques to ensure effective communication and delivery, especially on complex projects where the end goal is not narrowly defined. It is most often used in the software development space, but we [...]

By Aiden Choles|July 9th, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: Agile, Complexity, SCRUM training|0 Comments

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