Why Chaotic Systems Matter to My Work

In this week's episode, Ricardo talks about the connection between Chaotic Systems and the behavior of risks in the project. Chaotic systems are highly disordered and unpredictable, where minor changes in initial parameters cause drastic changes in the future. Consider the global shipping crisis. COVID-19 caused some ports worldwide to close during the pandemic, resulting in an insane search for available containers on one side of the globe while thousands of empty containers are filling ports on the other side of the planet. According to some experts, correcting this mismatch can take months, if not years. However, not all chaotic systems are the same. Some chaotic systems just happen, and you have little control over them, such as the weather forecast for the next two or three days. These are chaotic systems of level 1. LLevel 2 systems are the epiphany of chaos. These systems change by the simple fact that you start measuring them. A good example is the stock market. If there were a perfect algorithm that predicted a stock's price would rise tomorrow with 100% certainty, the stock price would not rise tomorrow but today due to increased demand for that stock. Another example we all faced two years ago happened when toilet paper disappeared from the counter of stores in the early days of a pandemic. These events are called a level 2 chaotic system, and no one knows where it began. The more people measure, act or intervene, the more chaotic it becomes... Our challenge today is that everything we do is at level 2 chaos, necessitating a different set of skills and adaptability. Listen to this week's #5minpodcast to learn more.