Systems do not exist..?

“There doesn’t seem to be much value in claiming something doesn’t exist” my son said when I told him that sys

The tangled mess of corporate Project Management

Corporate projects reflect the complexity of our interconnected world. Mistakes like relying on external managers, siloed oper

The purpose of a system is….

…. the value it provides? The widely accepted definition of a system’s purpose was coined by Stafford Beer (2001)

Project Management, as easy as ….. Apple Pie?

You know what's funny? Whenever I bake an apple pie, it always turns out to be a great. Then why is it so difficult to have a

Planning …. backwards?

If you carry an umbrella, do you expect the weather to take notice, perhaps refraining from raining or, on the contrary, ensur

Dealing with problems…

Russell Ackoff (Re-Creating the Corporation, 1999) outlines four fundamental ways to treat a problem: absolution, resolution,

So, what is a system?

Working with John Flach & Adam Walls on the system thinking cartoons (e.g. see here) I re-emerged myself in the topic. Hav

Roads to Rome

Cognitive Systems Engineering – Academic Enterprise or Field of Practice?? See John Flach’s Linkedin Post. Note Do

What is real?

The illustration above pictures a situation in a city with snow, and two characters: the older man with his red hat and scarf,

A shark?!

Sometimes we are so concentrated, focussing on doing what we are doing, that we forget the context in which we are working.

Hindsight has 20/20 vision

Hindsight often leads to plausible causal narratives to explain known outcomes. However, these narratives typically trivialize

7th Principle: Emerging properties

Think of all the different ways an organization might “serve the interests of its members.” Do some ways lead to m