Previously I wrote about using the concept of Panarchy to analyze complex problems. This concept can assist Project Managers dealing with today's complexities. If you haven't read the previous post, I suggest you catch up on that one, before proceeding. But of course, it's up to you.

Photography by Tinken.

For a long time, firefighters used the wrong strategy to attack forest fires. The approach taken was to extinguish the fire as soon as possible, as small as possible. If a small tree is on fire, put it out immediately. By solving the problem at the "individual tree level" you didn't have the issue on a larger scale, "the forest level".

After decades of using this approach, it had worked overall pretty well, however, when a fire broke out, it seemed almost unstoppable. Once the fire was active on a larger scale, forest or landscape, it went on a rampage. Before the "put out before the tree is on fire"-policy was used, smaller areas burned once in a while. The burning of the smaller forest area made the newly grown trees more fire resistant. It also created more natural open spaces; areas that have no plants or trees, so the fire hits on a barrier.

Two lessons here:

• You can view a system on different scales or levels (leave, tree, forrest, landscape / person, team, project, organization, society), and
• The different levels interact.

If we connect these concepts with the adaptive cycle introduced the previous time, we can see that the larger scales will have slow cycles that can span a large time frame, and the lower levels have short, fast cycles. Although these levels can interact in a lot of ways, Panarchy focuses on "revolt" and "remember" as explained on SustainableScale.org:

Image by SustainableScale.org.

“Revolt" – this occurs when fast, small events overwhelm large, slow ones, as when a small fire in a forest spreads to the crowns of trees, then to another patch, and eventually the entire forest

“Remember" – this occurs when the potential accumulated and stored in the larger, slow levels influences the reorganization. For example, after a forest fire the processes and resources accumulated at a larger level slow the leakage of nutrients, and options for renewal draw from the seed bank, physical structures and surrounding species that form a biotic legacy.

Within a project, one can think about an individual getting demotivated about the procedures used (revolt) and almost sabotaging the process. The organization may oppose a certain set of standard processes to be used by the project at the same time (remember).

There will be more postings on Panarchy. In the meantime, read related postings on resilience, complex adaptive systems, systems view and my own project management model.