![A Specimen Cynefin Diagram (not the newest, not the oldest). Simple / Obvious: The simple/obvious domain represents the 'known knowns'. This means that there are rules in place (or best practice), the situation is stable, and the relationship between cause and effect is clear. Complicated: The complicated domain consists of the 'known unknowns'. The relationship between cause and effect requires analysis or expertise; there are a range of right answers. The framework recommends 'sense–analyze–respond': assess the facts, analyze, and apply the appropriate good operating practice. Complex: The complex domain represents the 'unknown unknowns'. Cause and effect can only be deduced in retrospect, and there are no right answers. 'Instructive patterns ... can emerge,' write Snowden and Boone, 'if the leader conducts experiments that are safe to fail.' Cynefin calls this process 'probe–sense–respond'. Chaotic: In the chaotic domain, cause and effect are unclear.[e] Events in this domain are 'too confusing to wait for a knowledge-based response'. managers 'act–sense–respond': act to establish order; sense where stability lies; respond to turn the chaotic into the complex. Disorder / Confusion: The dark disorder domain in the centre represents situations where there is no clarity about which of the other domains apply.](https://i0.wp.com/changestrategy.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Cynefin.png?resize=584%2C602&ssl=1)
- Cynefin Framework Introduction
- About Sensemaker
- Children’s party
- Basic Methods
- The Shallow Dive into Chaos
- On Epiphany and Apophany
Cynefin is a body of knowledge and tools to assist in changing CAS, among other things. Cynefin, as an enterprise intervention, also has developed a “narrative access and analysis tool” called SenseMaker™. Sensemaker allows the intervenors to accurately access raw views by the participants as short narratives without groupthink or homogenization. It is this ability that allows for the detection of weak signals.
Because SenseMaker has developed an app, it is possible for its users to engage huge numbers of people in a very short time. The example that had the most impact on my understanding of its capacities was an effort to work around the unwillingness of local citizens to say what they actually thought to US civil and military personnel in SE Asia.
The system was used to ask children to relate a story from their grandparents about the most important lesson that the grandparents had learned in their lives. Then the children sent the stories using the SenseMaker app. This project got 50,000 stories in four days. There is simply nothing else that supports authentic narrative by real participants with the speed of SenseMaker.
Unfortunately for our community, SenseMaker is an enterprise tool and is priced that way. I have been exploring ways we might be able to use this system in our community, but I am some distance from a genuine solution.
That doesn’t mean that we can’t make use of the idea if we can come up with ways to assure fidelity to SenseMaker’s ability to easily access real raw narratives from participants.
I’ll discuss some ideas for using this general framework to get meaningful narratives in our community in later posts. For now, I hope you can see the importance of weak signals in the development and use of our FutureStrategy.
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