• So there's search. But there are various kinds of search, and some of these "kinds" are more unalike than they are similar. That's part of the challenge of searching. Figuring out what you're looking for, and whether the things you turn up are really things-of-a-kind. Or not. But you can't know until you find them, and you wouldn't be searching if you already knew where they were. Am I right, Dude? This is where serendipity comes into it. The happy accident, the stochastic glitch, the cybernetic analog of grace. That changes your direction. Sometimes changes your life. But let's not get too heavy too soon. We're talking about search. And don't worry for now that this is an extended koan. Don't try to understand too hard. Maybe it's just cut-up poetry. What did Freud say? "Evenly-hovering attention." Yeah, that's what we need here. Bear with me. 

A working definition of improvisation may be taken from jazz music, where it entails composing and performing contemporaneously. Within organizations, it can be described as the conception of action as it unfolds -- acting without the benefit of elaborate prior planning. It is generally understood in terms of fortuity, serendipity and the unexpected discovery of solutions, often in times of crisis. Some commonly cited examples include: Honda's success in introducing 50cc bikes into the US market; the actions of crew members to save a ship whose navigation system had broken down; and the rescue of Apollo XIII by NASA scientists working with unfamiliar concepts...
- from: Minimal structures: From jazz improvisation to product innovation by Miguel Pina e Cunha
- source: Organization Studies 1 September 2001

- from CBO, March 03, 2005