Framework For Decision Making
Cynefix Framework
“How hard can that be?”
“It is not that simple”
We said it to others or others said it to us.
Familiar? Read on.
Over time, we develop habits of how we approach things to many things. Often, the way we approach things may have worked in the past and one problem with them is that we tend to forget that how we approach things is not going to be the same as how others think or approach a similar situation. Everybody has their own habit that they attach to and are used to. That differences usually can cause friction, especially when having a discussion to solve problems. It happens because the habit can cause a blind spot from enabling us to approach things pragmatically.
Last Friday at our team learning hour, Andreea (team member) shared a brief introduction to a framework named Cynefin framework.
Cynefin pronounced as kuh-nev-in founded by David Snowden.
What is Cynefin anyway?
It’s a framework to help us to think about ourselves and how we address things with teams. Snowden’s framework makes a big distinction between those things which is predictable and unpredictable.
In the predictable world, you can expect things to repeat time after time and they seem to cycle around. While the unpredictable world though, things are really different.
They don’t necessarily happen again in the way they’ve happened to us before. These two different worlds the is divided into categories :
Predictable World
(i) Obvious; are those things that everybody agrees on. The cause and effect are so connected that it’s so apparent. It’s clear that there’s the best practice around that stuff and there’s the best recipe. Like how you make muffins, for a predictable taste, you use the same recipe to make the same muffin every single time. Usually, in this space, you will have a guide and checklist that is useful to come back to as a reference.
(ii) Complicated; although it is part of the predictable world, complicated is different than obvious. There is connected between cause and effect but it’s kind of fuzzy. You know they're the root cause of the problem but you need experts to figure it out. It may repeat to happen every time but it requires an expert to know which approach to take and solve it. In this space, we may not be able to use “obvious” best practices because experts may disagree with the situation faced. However, the best practice in this space will come with a few alternatives from a solid experience and knowledge where experts would make recommendations for the solution. For example, in a situation where we want to send a person to the moon. Scientists (Experts) may have different ideas on how we can build up different parts to make a machine that is safe to send a person to the moon.
Unpredictable World
In this space, the rules are totally opposite and change.
The actions of the leaders also need to change.
(i) Complex; Over here, you can’t tell what is going to happen next because it might have/ might not happen before. You will need a new approach that is safe to fail experiments to figure out how we can nudge the system in the new direction.
How will it help us in tackling problems? Usually, leading people fall in this space. Human is complex. Culture change is in a complex space. Just because we manage to make a cultural transformation once, doesn’t mean we are going to be able to do it in the same way again.
(ii) Chaotic; There is no pattern of cause and effect in this space. You can’t track the root cause and how is it going to impact further. A leader’s role in this space is to find a way to stabilize a system that’s chaotic here and making experiments to test out the solution. Over time, you will be able to see patterns emerge and you will be able to tackle the problems by moving them to other spaces in the framework. There will be a lot of experiments until there are repetitive patterns that allow you to predict the effect and the issue eventually movable other space in the Cynefin map
What did I learn from the Cynefin framework?
Enabling you to assess the complexity of the problem you have (it's applicable not just for projects, between two persons, and for day-to-day events)
Guide to help you define the cause and effect of the problem you are solving
A practical way to introspect what you perceive to be "difficult to solve" versus the reality of a problem
A quick guide to improving your agility in solving problems and convincing you to take the next step
Other resources :
Leader’s framework for decision making - Harvard Business Review
