Complex Adaptive System Elements Employed
| CAS Element | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. A good enough vision | A general department-level direction or aim. A direction that people can act on locally without telling them exactly what to do or creating complicated plans and coordination. It invites people in all their different roles to act creatively and spontaneously on that shared vision—in their own ways and settings. |
| A “good enough” vision is not to be misunderstood as settling on some modest minimally acceptable goal or compromise. | |
| 2. Productive interactions | Routine interactions among those working across the missions that produce valuable, new, and unpredictable actions or capabilities unlikely to emerge from any one of them acting within their own role or mission. The whole is greater than the sum of separate parts and is generative of new connections and actions. |
| 3. A few simple rules | A small number of agreed-upon guides that inform and drive action and choice among alternatives. These are mutually understood by those persons in routine productive interactions across the missions. The simple rules give coherence to action across disparate actors, settings, and situations and provide a shared basis for creative or novel approaches and actions, even without central direction. |
CAS = complex adaptive system.