The document discusses the complexity of managing organizations and projects. It argues that overly simplistic quick fixes often make problems worse by increasing costs and hurting employee morale. True improvement requires understanding an organization as a complex system and using approaches like Deming's continuous improvement process, not just one-day workshops. Managing complexity successfully means assessing variables like goals, timelines, and an individual's ability to handle complicated projects.

1. & Change
Managing Complexity
Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

2. Quick fixes to organizational problems:
•“New Age…the hierarchy will topple with this new e-
generation”
•Everyone acts “autonomously” doing what is right and
everyone cooperates, without being clear of who is accountable
or for what.
•The walk about and everything will work out
•Be like the Japanese
•Be excellent; go from good to great; all in under a minute;
while looking for your cheese; on your iceberg.
•“We need more leaders and less managers”
We can all agree that it is good to be innovative, creative, and successful.
The question is how to create the conditions to make it possible to be so.
Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

3. Deming to the Editor of Time Magazine 1981;
Dear Sir,
Your article about Japan in TIME for 30 March 1981 is excellent, but the paragraph
concerning my work is ridiculous and can do a lot of harm to American industry at
the very time when they need guidance.
Dr. Deming did not just give a lecture in 1950. He gave 35 lectures in the summer of
1950 to engineers and to top management. Six months later he was there again, and
six months after that yet again. He has made 19 trips to Japan.
One trouble with American industry today is that top management supposes that
one lecture or one day will do it.
“Come, spend a day with us, and do for us what you did for Japan, that we too may
be saved.”
It is not so simple. Few people in top management in America understand their
responsibilities and know that they must serve a life term on quality and productivity
from now on, under competent leadership. (Emphasis added)
Found in The W. Edwards Deming Institute 3rd Quarter 2005 Newsletter
Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

4. Deming and Ackoff’s systems ideas enable us
to manage what we cannot control.
Organizations today are increasingly complex;
they are beyond powers of traditional
hierarchical management. Learning to
manage for improvement of the system has
become urgent in all fields. It pays great
benefits.
Systems thinking enables continual
improvement, something that old-style
management cannot attain. It improves
businesses, hospitals, schools, nations,
families–even ourselves–in this rapidly
changing, increasingly complex and
dangerous world.
Amazingly, systems thinking helps us manage
complexity and at the same time improve the
quality of life for everyone involved.
http://www.managementwisdom.com/syth2.html
Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

5. The application of overly simplified solutions
adds cost in 2 ways:
•First, it leads to continual reorganizations and
changes.
•Second, the repeated changes attack the
morale of your people and increases their
change resistance.
Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

6. Complexity may be identified
in terms of the number of
variables that have to be dealt
with in a given time in a
situation, the clarity and
precision with which they can
be identified, and their rate of
change. (Jaques 1998)
Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

7. Goal
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Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

8. Goal
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Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

9. We all think about complexity
and time differently.
Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

10. How big is your bucket (how complex is the project)?
What is the time-span of the longest goal to be completed?
Who is BEST to fill the bucket (who has the requisite CAC)?
How do you know?
Success will only
move as high as
the ability to
handle complexity
of the individual
managing the
work / staff.
Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

11. Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

12. Complexity Based Upon Time-Span Management
2 to 5 Years
1 to 2 Years
3 Months to 1 Year
1 day to 3 Months
Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

13. Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

14. Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

15. Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

16. Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com

17. Images in order of appearance:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/87913776@N00/5129625865/
http://create-learning.com/blog/manager-training/your-quick-fixes-are-exacerbating-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwl/4743024076/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_Deming
http://create-learning.com/blog/manager-training/complexity-and-achieving-goals-at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidw/2063575447
http://create-learning.com/blog/team-building/5-steps-to-determine-
competency-in-work
http://create-learning.com/blog/manager-training/9-indicators-that-a-
manager-is-not-able-to-handle-the-complexity-of-the-work-some-ideas-
of-what-to-do-about-it
http://create-learning.com/blog/manager-training/the-difference-is-the-
point-of-interaction
http://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Kata-Managing-Improvement-
Adaptiveness/dp/0071635238
Michael Cardus - www.create-learning.com