Behavioural questions -- Kirsty Bonner

• Tell me about a challenging client-facing situation and how you handled it.
• Provide an example of a time when you personally demonstrated ownership.
• Give me an example of a time when you faced a conflict whilst working on a team. How did you handle that?
• Give me an example of a time when you had to challenge a management decision.
• Tell me about a time when you had to quickly adjust your work priorities to meet changing demands.

Human Centered Design

• Creative approach to problem solving.
• Places customers at the center (a way of working and thinking).
• Design from their perspective.
• Introduces
• Collaboration.
• Empathy.
• Problem re-framing.
• Evidence-based decision making.
• Experimentation.
• Needs these
• Curiosity
• Optimism (See problem as an opportunity)
• Mindset to learn
• Creativity

Complexity Theory in Organisation Theory and Strategy - David L. Levy, Wikipedia (Courtesy)

1. "A System is a group of interacting or interrelated entities that form a unified whole. A system is de-lineated by its spacial and temporal boundaries, surrounded and influenced by its environment."
1. A System may be -- Simple, Complicated, Complex or Chaotic. (Below from noop.nl)
2. Simple -- Easily knowable [A Car key is simple]. Fully predictable.
3. Complicated -- not simple, but still knowable [A Car is complicated]. Fully predictable.
4. Complex -- not fully knowable, but reasonably predictable [Car traffic is complex. "I can travel up and down the same street for twenty years, and things would be different every time. There is no way to fully understand and know what happens around me on the road when I drive, how other drivers operate their vehicles, and how the people in the streets interact. I can make guesses, and I can gain experience in predicting outcomes. But I will never know for sure."]
5. Chaotic -- neither knowable nor predictable [Car traffic in Lagos is chaotic (not even predictable)]

In software, the following can be said of the above:

1. "A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication systems, social and economic organizations (like cities), an ecosystem, a living cell, and ultimately the entire universe."
2. "Complexity characterizes the behavior of a system or a model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules. This means there is no reasonable higher instruction to define the various possible interactions."
3. Complexity Theory and Organizations: also called Complex Adaptive Systems is the use of study of Complex Systems in the field of strategic management and organizational studies.

Characteristics of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS)

=========================

> Self organization

> Complexity

> Emergence

> Interdependence

> Space of possibilities

> Co-evolution

> Chaos

> Self-similarity

CAS has implications on:

• Organisational Management
• Project Management
• and more

How it affects:

> Advocates culture of trust

> learning orgnization

> Promote cooperation

> Embrace new ideas

> Focus on flatter, flexible org (rather than top down or command & control hierarchies)

Components of Complexity Theory includes:
=====================

• Chaos Theory: Chaos theory studies dynamics of turbulence in flow of liquids (Lorentz). Similar problem arises when trying to calculate path of an object pulled by two different objects (as in a planetary body attracted by two or more suns. Simple Newtonian mechanics can predict motion of an object around another, however when the motion is affected by two or more objects, you can no longer predict the path accurately over long intervals. For e.g. when a metal ball suspended over two or more magnets, the ball traces series of patterns that never exactly repeat themselves, yet are not totally random). 

The paradox here is the motion of the metal ball is driven by the same Newtonian equations as well as the understood case of a single gravitational attractor. According to Newtonian mechanics, if we know the location, speed and direction of an object, we should be able to predict the path of an object with reasonable accuracy. However, not in this case. The paradox is that a deterministic system gives rise to unpredictability. Tiny variations in the motion of a ball, over due course of time compound and result in a massive divergence [Butterfly Effect]. The chaotic behavior is a result of this.

• Networks Theory: 

Deterministic System - Wikipedia

In mathematics, computer science and physics, a deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system. A deterministic model will thus always produce the same output from a given starting condition or initial state.

In philosophy, determinism is applied to understand everything that has or will occur in the system,  based on the principles of causality. In a deterministic system, every action, or cause produces a reaction, or effect and every reaction, in turn becomes a cause of subsequent reaction. The totality of these cascading events can theoretically show exactly how the system will exist at any moment in time.