Session overview

In housing, we are under constant pressure to make services more efficient, more consistent and more personalised. But in practice, those ambitions often collide. Standardisation can strip out the flexibility people need, while personalisation can become difficult to sustain at scale. Too often, organisations end up stuck in a loop of optimising for efficiency, only to find that when things go wrong it is tenants, residents and frontline staff who feel the impact most sharply.

This webinar brings together Prof Dave Snowden and Paul Taylor to explore that tension in a more honest and practical way. Both have written extensively about the limits of standardisation and personalisation in a complex world, and how organisations can make better decisions when the reality on the ground is messy, uncertain and constantly changing.

Together, they will explore what housing can learn from complexity thinking, how we can move beyond false choices and over-simplified models, and what it takes to design services and decision-making approaches that are more adaptive, humane and effective in practice.

Key takeaways

By attending this session, participants will:

• Explore why the tension between standardisation and complexity is so difficult to resolve in housing
• Understand how complexity thinking can help organisations make better decisions in uncertain environments
• Reflect on the risks of over-optimising for efficiency at the expense of residents and frontline colleagues
• Gain insight into how housing providers can create services that are more adaptive, resilient and human
• Consider what a more practical and realistic approach to service design and decision-making could look like

About Speakers

Dave Snowden is the creator of the Cynefin Framework and the originator of SenseMaker®, the world’s first distributed ethnography tool. He is founder and Chief Scientific Officer of The Cynefin Company and founder and Director of the Cynefin Centre. Internationally recognised for his work on complexity, strategy and organisational decision-making, Dave has helped leaders across government and industry make better decisions in uncertain environments. He is known for his pragmatic, provocative style and for pioneering a science-based approach to organisations drawing on anthropology, neuroscience and complex adaptive systems theory.

Paul Taylor is the Innovation Coach at Bromford Flagship, where he helps drive strategy for one of the UK’s largest housing associations. A recognised pioneer in the sector, he is best known for giving up a “proper job” in 2014 to launch the social housing sector’s first dedicated Innovation Lab — a move that fundamentally changed how housing providers approach problem-solving and service design.

Paul has become one of the sector’s best-known voices on innovation, experimentation and learning, helping housing organisations think differently about how they respond to complexity, challenge assumptions and design better services in the real world.

Who should attend?

This session will be particularly relevant for:

• Chief executives, directors and senior leaders
• Customer, housing and operations leaders
• Transformation, innovation and service design teams
• Strategy, insight and organisational development professionals
• Anyone grappling with how to deliver better services in a complex and fast-changing environment