Solution landscapes, from complexity theory:
- Mount Fuji: there is a clear solution, and it's high above every other peak.
- Rugged landscape: there is one optimal peak, but it's obscured by many other peaks.
- Dancing landscape: the landscape is rugged, and it's dancing.
Conversation
I'd been passively reading around complexity theory, but had somehow missed this metaphor. (Source is apparently Understanding Complexity by Scott Page, but I got turned onto this by Rand Spiro.)
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The problem with business, of course, is that you THINK you're in a rugged landscape, and it's quite messy so you're slowly exploring it, but then just as you figure it out, say after a decade, it starts dancing.
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I like the metaphor, but I don't know if it's more useful than as new vocabulary!
Take from this what you will.