Dave tries to help his audience understand how to operate with a new perspective when interacting with systems that are not ordered, cannot be ordered. Software development is an example of a Complex Adaptive System. Elegant metaphors help us understand the common misunderstanding of the word complex (cynefin) in reference to a system.
He provides some thoughts on how to navigate to more desirable outcomes: Enabling new perspectives and thinking, first mover exaptation, shifting to adjacent possibilities, ubiquitous language, design for failure + serendipity + unarticulated needs, an appreciation for chef, procrastination, and luck.
Active Listening Notes
Complex Adaptive Systems New Ways of Thinking - Thoughts on language Methods elevated to the religion - There are no recipes Recipe book user versus Chef - more chefs We do not see, what we do not intend to see Survivor of the luckiest - not fittest Exaptation moments of radical repurposing - first mover advantage by repurposing existing technology for novel purpose Design for serendipity Design for unarticulated needs The nature of a complex system is that it always fails - design for early failure - only through early failure can you discover what is possible Complexity - most misused word Ordered / Chaotic / Complex - ordered, not natural (linear causality) - chaotic, without constraint - complex, enabling constraints (no causality) Dispositionality - science of inherent uncertainty - try to project manage a children's party Change ritual to engage in different cognitive activation pattern = Radiologist missing Harambe (gorilla) in lung scans No timesheet at IBM for 7 years : wow Alcohol coffee cycle critical for software development Socratic method, leads to hemlock Small safe to fail experiments on coherent arguments/ideas Analyze a complex system by interacting with it, not through modeling or analysis Cynefin - obvious - complicated - chaos - *starvation, pressure perspective* -- **innovation** - complex People respond to novelty Last responsible moment Art is critical to human invention We learned to paint, before we learned to speak (as a species) Art comes before language in human evolution Distribute cognitive functions in complex systems Shifting to an adjacent possible 
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