Origins

Perceiving a common problem, ...

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During 15 years working for numerous companies in the offshore renewables sector, on projects large and small, and across the wind, tidal and wave sectors, Founding Director James Croftson noticed that all projects tended to suffer from a common problem.

It didn't matter what the technology was, how many devices or structures were involved, or where they were located; it didn't matter if they were small R&D projects or nationally significant mega-projects costing multiple billions of pounds:

'The problems tended to come when different parts of the

overall system came into contact with each other.'

Whether it was mechanical interactions between physical components, or temporal dependencies between separate phases of a project, or indeed a specific requirement for two items never to touch each other - the fundamental problem was that the information that described those relationships seemed to be lacking. 'Lacking' in terms of having a systematic method for proactively identifying those relationships up-front; and - once they had been identified - 'lacking' in terms of having a commonly spoken language and a commonly practiced approach for managing them towards a unified solution in a timely manner: especially when multiple organisations were involved.

'Everyone approached things differently: they did different things, in different ways, and at different times. This meant nearly every project started from scratch in terms of defining the processes and tools they used to relay crucial information between their key organisations.'

Everything is connected

If a single thread of a spiderweb is touched, then most of it moves.

Not all by the same amount, but the effects can usually be seen elsewhere, too:

sometimes across the whole web.

That's the nature of inter-connected things.

Projects behave similarly, especially large and complex infrastructure projects.

If one thing is changed in one part of a project, then it usually doesn't take long for its effects to ripple out in multiple directions, impacting other people working in other parts of the project.

Sometimes these ripple-effects can be seen far, far away,

in areas of the project that would have seemed, at first glance, to be totally unconnected.

Except they're not unconnected, not really:

because projects are inter-connected things.

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Nodal Networks

Many things can be represented by Nodal Networks.

Not just electrical and telecommunications systems, or roads, or railway networks,

but also product supply chains, social friendship groups, and itineraries of 'travelling salesmen'.

Anything that involves dependencies, relationships or paths between different parts of a system

can be represented by a nodal network.

Graph Theory is the branch of mathematics that describes the underlying

principles of this inter-connectivity: the number of ways in which those

mathematical principles can be applied in everyday life is pretty much limitless.

Why a Butterfly?

'A butterfly flaps its wings,

and triggers a tornado half the world away'.

A seemingly

insignificant change

in one place can end

up causing a major

disturbance in another.

Butterfly effects, Domino effects and Ripple effects:

all are seen in our large and complex infrastructure projects.