Navigating Complexity (online) – May 11-12 2020

Navigating Complexity – Learn how to make sense of complexity and ”Wayfinding” uncertainty in two halfday online sessions with Sonja Blignaut.

May 11th and 12th 13:00-17:00 CET

Sonja Blignaut, an internationally respected thinker and practitioner in the field of complexity is , will facilitate a practical workshop intended to introduce participants to not only the theory of complexity, but also the practical implications thereof.  She will also introduce practical tools to help navigate uncertainty and do strategic wayfinding in uncharted territory..  

Even before the covid19 pandemic, there was a growing awareness that the organisations we work in, and the social systems we live in are more like unpredictable and interconnected ecosystems than predictable machines. In these complex ecosystems, most of the thinking and “best practises” that brought us this far are no longer effective.  Prevailing management paradigms are based on assumptions of linearity, predictability, and certainty, leaving decision makers feeling overwhelmed and ill equipped for this new world of work.

What is becoming increasingly apparent is that organisations that want to become strategically agile and responsive will need to fundamentally shift not only work practises but also how they think, strategize and organise.

In this session, we will explore the nature of complex adaptive systems, the implications of seeing our organisations as such and also answer the practical “so what?” questions in terms of what this means for our work practises.

What do previous participants say?
”I got a lot of energy from the WS. Unconnected ideas, insights, and concepts around working in complexity that I had collected through many years came together in a beautiful way.
It can feel heavy to carry around a lot of ideas without any obvious relationship but when these connections are made everything becomes much lighter and more understandable.”
– Stefan Agnvall

Objectives of the workshop include:

• Gaining a thorough understanding of the difference between complex and ordered (complicated) systems, and how to know what kind of system you are in.
• Managing in uncertainty: understanding constraints and affordances (an introduction of the Waysfinder framework)
• Make sense of, and integrate these new ideas with your own knowledge and unique context.

Who Should Attend the Course?

This training is designed for all practitioners and complex thinkers (Agile practitioners, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Product Managers, Agile coaches, project managers, people managers, architects, designers, developers, DevOps, HR, OD & L&D and anyone else that works in constantly-evolving and dynamic situations)

For those familiar with the work of Dave Snowden, this workshop builds on those ideas with a focus on practical application.