Posts by Scott Hutcheson
We Don’t Care What It Says On Your Business Card
Picture this scene. There’s a wicked problem that needs addressing and you’ve been invited to a meeting to consider a set of responses. As everyone gets settled, the organizer requests,…
Read MoreThinking Sideways
We’ve been reading about the Extended Mind Theory, first introduced by philosopher Andy Clark and cognitive scientist David Chalmers. According to the theory, a person’s mind, and cognitive processing, are not…
Read MoreWhat If Strategy Was Everyone’s Job…for One Hour per Month?
One hour a month, that’s all we ask. In a given month, most people work 160 hours, give or take. So, 1/160th is our rule-of-thumb for a commitment to strategy.…
Read MoreReminiscing Forward: Guiding Others Toward a Future They Cannot Quite See Yet
“Daddy, I like thinking about our family at Christmas time. It makes me feel all warm inside.” My son Oliver came to me with this observation when he was about…
Read MoreTeaching Young People the Art and Science of Collaboration
We are so excited about our partnership with novelist Noah Knox Marshall! Together we’ve created a set of curricular resources to help K-12 students learn the deep skills of collaboration…
Read MoreWayfinding
We’ve been looking into the research related to “wayfinding,” the navigational symbols and language used to help people navigate unfamiliar places like city centers, airports, and hospitals. FYI, many European…
Read MoreWant Your Organization to be a “Virtuoso” Performer?
At the Purdue Agile Strategy Lab we are working with virtuoso cellist Yo-Yo Ma; and doing so is helping us better understand agility. In fact, Yo-Yo has written the forward to our new…
Read MoreA Matter of Trust
We’ve been looking at the research on trust and the role it plays we are dealing with complex challenges. Here is a little nugget that we thought was particularly interesting.…
Read MoreComplex or Complicated?
Complex or complicated? Which term better describes what you and your community or organization is facing? Rocket science is complicated. Addressing the opioid crisis is complex. Reducing vehicle emissions by…
Read MoreStrategy: More like an Algorithm than a Roadmap
Perhaps you’ve seen the video of Boston Dynamics’ robot Atlas exiting their building for a walk in a snow-covered forest, “going to work” stacking boxes in a warehouse, getting up after being toppled…
Read MoreStrategy Is a Team Sport
One of the theories embedded within our approach to strategy at the Purdue Agile Strategy Lab is the Law of Requisite Variety introduced by W. Ross Ashby. The idea is that a complex challenge…
Read MoreBirds of a Feather…
We watched this video today with our undergrad students to help them better understand the power of simple rules in complex systems. These birds are following three simple rules: (1)…
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