Fresh from Cognitive Edge accreditation workshops Nancy White and me did an Open Space session to share with the participants of KM4Dev workshop some of the things we had learned about the Cynefin framework.

The Cynefin(pronounced /?k?n?v?n/) framework is a model used to describe problems, situations and systems. The model provides a taxonomy that guides what sort of explanations and/or solutions may apply. It was developed by David Snowden and his collaborators. Cynefin is a Welsh word, which is commonly translated into English as ‘habitat’ or ‘place’, although this fails to convey its full meaning.

We didn’t have that much time for the session, so we started from introducing complex systems, the Cynefin framework, safe-fail probes as an approach to deal with complex domains, and then did an exercise, mapping the issues that come from the evaluation of KM4Dev workshop to the framework.

While I really like Dave Snowden‘s style of introducing the concepts, there is something in it that makes it more difficult to explain them in my own way. Probably the engagement of the stories that turns them into a memorable experience difficult to override… I still have to invent my own examples to talk about complex systems, so I took the birthday party story that Dave tells and turned it into a three-years old birthday party story, thinking of Alexander’s last birthday as I talked :)

If you want to dive deeper into what have been discussed you might want to check:

• Wikipedia on Cynefin framework
• Video A simple explanation of the Cynefin Framework by Shawn Callahan
• Publications (those two I find particularly useful, but they are not free; for more options see list of articles by Dave Snowden)
  • Snowden, D.J. & Boone, M. (2007). A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making. Harvard Business Review, November 2007, pp. 69-76. [free .pdf that is probably not supposed to be there]
  • Kurtz, C. F. & Snowden, D. J. (2003). The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world, IBM Systems Journal, 42 (3), p. 462.

If you are thinking about using the Cynefin framework in a group process it might be useful to start from reading descriptions of two methods – Butterfly Stamping and Cynefin contextualisation: Four tables. The last one also provides a list of forms that help to think of actions to address items in four domains:

• Action form for Simple domain
• Action form for Complicated domain
• Action form for Complex domain (see also Safe Fail Probes and Safe-fail probes and diffusion of innovations)
• Action form for Chaos domain

When we discussed safe-fail probes at CE accreditation course I was struck by the parallels between those and Roger’s characteristics of innovations that influence it’s adoption [from Wikipedia on diffision of innovations]:

Rogers defines several intrinsic characteristics of innovations that influence an individual’s decision to adopt or reject an innovation. The relative advantage is how improved an innovation is over the previous generation. Compatibility is the second characteristic, the level of compatibility that an innovation has to be assimilated into an individual’s life. The complexity of an innovation is a significant factor in whether it is adopted by an individual. If the innovation is too difficult to use an individual will not likely adopt it. The fourth characteristic, trialability, determines how easily an innovation may be experimented with as it is being adopted. If a user has a hard time using and trying an innovation this individual will be less likely to adopt it. The final characteristic, observability, is the extent that an innovation is visible to others. An innovation that is more visible will drive communication among the individual’s peers and personal networks and will in turn create more positive or negative reactions.

Now to safe-fail probes. Dave Snowden describes them as strategies for dealing with complex systems to explore what actually works in a situation where predictions do not work. Dave suggest the following stages for using the approach (bold is mine):

Before opinions harden you create a very simple decision rule. Everyone with an idea that has even the remotest possibility of being true or useful creates a safe fail experiment based on the idea. Critically this does not have to be one that would prove the issue, just consistent with the position adopted.

Next each proposal is fleshed out, costed and subject to challenge and review, but nothing is ruled out unless rationing of resource is required. This is rarely the case by the way as you keep the experiments small, designed for fast feedback/evolution.

For each experiment to be valid its outcome must be observable, not to measure necessarily but to allow the simple rule of amplification or dampening of good or bad patterns to be put into operation. There is no point in an experiment where you can not observe what is happening.

The experiments are then reviewed for common elements and resourced along with set up of monitoring and review processes.

In addition to these there is a practice criteria that suggests that the ideas for the experiment should be comparable with the current practice (bold is mine):

Note that in validating an experiment it is not necessary to prove that it will work, but ”it is” necessary to show that it is consistent with a view of what has happened and what could happen in the future.

So, if you compare the quotes (and stretch a bit ;) then there are a lot of similarities. I would think of Roger’s successfully adopted innovations are safe-fail probes that worked and became amplified…

And then the question that is bothering me is that safe-fail probes that didn’t work also show those characteristics of successful innovations :)

Full from all kinds of follow-up thinking from the Cognitive Edge accreditation and SenseMaker workshop last week, so unloading it here…

I came across Dave Snowden‘s work on complexity and sense-making a while ago, played with some ideas, but didn’t have time to get into it properly. Doing the workshop was one of my post-PhD treats: while there are a lot of the materials online I wanted to have guided introduction to the theory and methods (and, of course, I also wanted to meet new people and to talk about something non-PhD related :)

Random comments about the experience (coloured by my experiences of living in the blogoshpere and doing qualitative research :)

• Overall I’m happy: working through the exercises resulted in concepts and principles sinking deep enough to start using them as a frame to think about the world. Working through the methods was extremely useful, although personally I’d prefer them to be applied on a slightly different selection of themes and cases.

• What I didn’t expect, but loved was an intro to complex facilitation (more), through the exercises, explicit discussion of the facilitator roles and multiple examples.

• I would like more theory. I knew that the course was more practice-oriented than before and that Dave wouldn’t be teaching it, but still… Between other things I missed an in-depth discussion on boundaries and attractors (in particularly as a managing tool).

• I glad that I decided to go for the (optional) third day focused on SenseMaker. While it doesn’t address my hopes of finding something that would help to make sense of an emergent space in an emergent way, it might be a pretty useful instrument to make sense of big volumes of qualitative data when modulators could be discovered beforehand (cryptic, I know :)

• And there is something that I can’t articulate quite well, some assumptions behind the stories told that give me some uneasy feelings:
  • it seems that most of the experiences with the methods come from from big organisations (industry and governmental), so translating them to constellations of smaller organisations or networks (e.g. NGO world) requires a bit of a stretch
  • the methods are primarily intended to be used as instruments to serve some “centre” outside of the system, not the actors in the system
  • (SenseMaker specific) bringing primarily “why this approach is better than surveys” argumentation rather than positioning it on the spectrum on qualitative/quantitative methods

• [Update] Almost forgot about the “network” side of the course: next to connecting to the participants there was an opportunity to meet local accredited practitioners and talk about their experiences in applying the methods. What I’m very curious to see now is how the network works beyond the course.

Things to think and follow-up:

• complex facilitation (incl. more on three facilitators approach); using Cynefin for matching facilitation style to the nature of the domain/audience
• abstracting via two-stage emergence
• safe-fail probes and adoption of innovation [blogged]
• tagging as complex vs. chaotic behaviour
• alternative “innovation” trajectories (in particular open source and “bubbling” in weblog ecosystems)
• boundaries and attractors (and more on managing “the cloud”)
• ASHEN model
• SenseMaker boundaries
• social network stimulation and social objects, role of rewards?

While lots of people tend to focus on the positive side of finishing a PhD (which is, of course, a great achievement :) I feel more like the one who is just released from a prison. Finally you are free to make choices, but, after spending for so long in a solitary confinement you don’t really know who you are, what you can do, what is out there to choose from and where to start with.

It seems to play at two levels: identity and routines.

Identity

Working on the dissertation forced convergence and focus, but as a result I find it difficult to find a new professional identity. Who am I (next to being an ex-prisoner someone who just completed a PhD)? Where do I belong (next to academia, where I don’t really belong even if I am a researcher)? What are the issues that I want to work on? I didn’t want to believe others when they said that I wouldn’t want to do anything with the topic of my dissertation. Not that I don’t want to talk about blogging anymore, but I definitely don’t want to talk primarily about blogging and especially being known as “the one who knows something about blogging”. [Mark, you were right, I'm working on finding a new story to tell :)]

What I’m trying to do to deal with with one:

• Do things I left for “after the PhD life”, diving into topics and communities that provide complimentary, but fresh perspective on my professional worldview. Ideally as a more or less structured learning experience (I’m starting from Cognitive Edge accreditation course, CPsquare foundations workshop and KM4Dev workshop).
• Find what makes me happy by doing interesting things with interesting people. On a small scale, without worrying too much how would they fit in a bigger professional picture.
• Ask people I trust where they see my experiences and expertise fit.
• All that trying to make sure that I don’t get into too many commitments of what could fit next to regular things at work and in life.

Routines

This is actually the one that’s more challenging: I’m stuck in unproductive routines, being stressed by the amount artefacts, digital and otherwise, that have accumulated in wrong spaces while I tried to focus on the core activities of getting the PhD done and making sure my family survives in the process. There are backlogs everywhere and reading that “high stress environments can cause the brain to rewire itself in ways that reinforce and contribute to ongoing stress” makes it look like vicious circle.

I don’t have a recipe here, but the things that work for me are much closer to FlyLady approach than to GTD, taking baby steps instead of sorting through everything before establishing new strategies and routines:

Your home did not get dirty in one day and it will not get clean in a day either. You have been living in clutter and CHAOS for many years, you are not going to get your home clean in a day. I do not want you to crash and burn. This is why I teach you to take baby steps. If you try to do this all at once, you are going to be mad at me, because this will be like every other “get-organized” method you have tried. I want you to take your time. As you establish one habit, you will very easily be able to add another one to your routines. – FlyLady

While FlyLady approach is aimed primarily at SHEs (Side Tracked Home Executives :), I am looking how the ideas behind it might work where most of my problems are – in a digital / professional sphere. Let’s see…