Design principles for managing complexity

These are generic principles for design in anthro-complexity:

1. optimise the granularity, which generally means to reduce it
2. distribute the cognitive process of situational assessment
3. disintermediate the decision maker

Things that you are wary of:

1. premature convergence
2. pattern entrainment
3. retrospective coherence

Things that you ask:

1. What can I change?
2. (out of that set) Where can I monitor the impact of change?
3. (out of that set) Where can I readily amplify success or dampen failure?

You scale a complex adaptive system by decomposition (to the lowest level of coherent granularity) and recombination

Commentary

The scaling principle also applies to the way you resolve conflict

The common (and often not properly attributed) What, So What, Now What question sequence really needs to interweave with the above rather than apply to the situation as a whole. For more on that phrase, its origin and issues this post has some thoughts