Connecting the Dots
Understanding the interconnected nature of risks
Tackling the causes of risks and the drivers of insecurity is complex, time consuming and rarely has an immediate or obvious impact.
- The UK heroin trade: what is the problem? One of the case–studies that we’re looking at in Connecting the Dots is the heroin trade in the UK. Clearly, it’s a problem of immense complexity; many causal factors contribute to heroin misuse, and dealing with one aspect of the problem often impacts, in unintended ways, upon other aspects of the problem. Jake Chapman gave us a particularly illuminating example of this complexity: One central aspect of drugs policy in the UK is ‘supply-side intervention’;... continue reading 3rd December 2008
- Straining for the big picture Paul Seabright, an economist at Toulouse University, has a particularly nice literary reference to highlight the difficulty of seeing the big-picture:"If you read Tolstoy's War and Peace, he has some wonderful descriptions about how battles which look very clear to military historians never seem that way to the people involved in them, that when you're actually in the smoke and the roar of the cannons, you have no idea what's happening. Even the generals have no idea what's... continue reading 7th November 2008
- Beyond wickedness Today we met up with Jake Chapman. He’s an researcher, lecturer and consultant on systems thinking, a Demos associate, the author of the Systems Failure Demos pamphlet (one of our crucial texts for Connecting the Dots), and generally a great guy and brilliant thinker.One of the many helpful things that came out of our discussions with Jake was a more developed understanding of wicked problems... continue reading 5th November 2008
- Resolving wicked problems together, or alone? While wicked problems are, by definition, contested and contentious when it comes to their formulation and resolution, there's a pretty solid consensus around wicked problem-solving methodologies. continue reading 22nd October 2008
- Tackling wicked problems With Connecting the Dots we're looking at new approaches to the management of 'wicked problems'. These are problems that are unbounded in scope, time and resources; the problems can never be solved definitively, but rather can only be managed better or worse. Wicked problems also involve a highly complex interplay between causal factors; a tangled web of feedback loops and interdependencies to grapple with. What's more, wicked problems spill across departmental and agency... continue reading 15th October 2008
- Blogging Just to say we will now start blogging about interesting stuff related to the project. Simon Hampson continue reading 13th October 2008