Discontinuities

Having identified a number of significant factors, it is common in strategic planning circles then to monitor trends in each of these areas. This approach can lead to false comfort since it may miss:

exponential change: we tend to assume trends are linear and incremental and so miss changes that start small but grow exponentially;
discontinuity: by the same token we tend not to expect tipping points and discontinuous change, where a very small change in a single variable can trigger step change in the system overall;
complexity: the coincidence of small, or incremental, changes in a number of different factors can lead to dramatic or even catastrophic shift in a system where the factors are tightly coupled.

Hence the IFF World Model explicitly scans not only for trends in each of twelve areas, but also for possible exponentials, discontinuities, tipping points and chaos points that might otherwise surprise us. The model framework itself focuses attention on complexity, the second order effects that occur when different trends interact, and the potential ‘synchronous failures’ where simultaneous changes in a variety of dimensions might lead to catastrophic change.

World Model