Complex or complicated?
seths.blog
Complex or complicated?
Complex problems and complicated problems
Simple or tame problems are clear – they have a solution which may be difficult to find, but it exists. Complicated problems are those with many variables which potentially have more than one right answer, but technically and with enough computing power, you could probably solve these too.
Patricia Lustig • Strategic Foresight
To keep you focused on the big picture, Peter Senge and Otto Scharmer describe problems as embodying three types of complexity:
- Dynamic Complexity. Where cause and effect are distant in time and space. When it is high, you need to take a systems approach that deals with all the interdependencies. When it is low, you can do a piece by piece
Jeff Mohr • What is complexity?
One may illustrate why by (building on Gershenson) sorting kinds of problems along two dimensions: their difficulty and their state of change.
If there is no change and no difficulty (or very low change and very low difficulty), there is no real problem to be solved. Rather, it is part of the everyday routine.
If there is no (or very low) change but