I think it is a common misconception that chaos can only be a negative state. In my experience, most innovative ideas are born in such a state. Frequently, chaos is also associated with “creativity”. What I think is relevant is how long one persists in a chaotic state. I assume there is always an intention - or at least a “natural” willingness - to navigate back to a less chaotic state. To some extent, I think this can also be described by entropy, to which I very quickly hinted in the post "System dynamics and the strive for harmonious balance". The entropy - or state of disorder - remains stable only in a closed (isolated?) system, where no energy is exchanged across its boundaries ("human systems are open"). This concept alone could be further expanded but I will leave it here for the moment.
Part of this discussion can be certainly framed within the Cynefin framework. In (one of) its latest versions, the framework explicitly differentiates a state of “confusion & aporia”. If the persistence in a state of chaos is to be carefully evaluated, this is even more the case in a state of confusion.
Although there might not be a framework (at least that I am aware of) for decision-making in a state of confusion, in my experience “brain dumping” is a valuable tool. This is true, regardless of the situation. However, some considerations need to be made:
It is beneficial to already have a process in place for retrieving “brain dumps” if they were made in the past and they need to be re-accessed or re-evaluated;
It is beneficial to decide at least on the “reach” of the “brain dump”; to be noted that the sooner it is shared the earlier feedback loops are potentially triggered and this can affect the speed of a change process;
If a complex system is already in a state of confusion, adding “brain dumps” might not drive the system out of this state unless enough "high" awareness is present in (at least some?) parts of the system so that there is a clear understanding as to the boundaries of “brain dumps” that can be further made.
On a closing note. I am Italian and even trying to come up with a title for this brain dump has been an interesting experience, since it seems that in Italian there are no different words for speed (the scalar) and velocity (the vector). I think this is, yet another, example of why at some point language is not beneficial anymore (too much time would be invested in debating the language itself) and diagrams or images are better and necessary: a vector is represented differently from a scalar because the vector is a bi-dimensional construct. Everyone is certainly aware of the saying “A picture is worth a thousand words“.
Picture created by the author using GenAI