xplain what ABIDE is.   It is a mnemonic for the things that can be managed in a complex system.  ASHEN did something similar for knowledge management.   I got increasingly irritated with consultants asking people what they knew when this did knowledge audits.  To my mind that was a meaningless question in a meaningless context.   So I developed one of the first narrative enquiry methods focused on identifying decisions made in an organisation, clustering those decisions and then asking people When you make these types of decisions: What Artifacts did you use?  What Skills are needed?  What Hheuristics are in play?  What Experience is necessary?  What (if any) Natural Talent is needed.   The results where then clustered in to knowledge objects, matched to business needs and used to create a portfolio of knowledge management projects.

description of ABIDE - attractors, boundaries, identity, diversity, environment

Slides from my #LeanStartup talk at #techstarsBoulder for #BSW12 are here: #cynefin #agile #lean

Reflections on Advanced Practitioner course, ABIDE, ASHEN, #cynefin - @mcheveldave blogs

Jean Tabaka discusses using design thinking and complexity theory in order to balance and Agile adoption.

I also made the strong point that complex adaptive systems thinking is not the same thing as systems thinking (at least in terms of the popular meaning of that term, technically systems dynamics). I think this was well illustrated by a session earlier in the day which was advertised as being led by Peter Senge, but in practice his presence was required in Austria so we had a video recording in three parts. My tweet stream (@snowded) of the session I leave to those interested to follow. The critical point here is the difference between a CAS approach and that advocated by Senge. He also creates a false dichotomy between industrial society and a romanticized, nostalgic and inaccurate view of ancient wisdom and its connection with the land. The latter is in my opinion idealistic in the wrong sense of the word. There is far too much attention to language not action in Senge's work and we saw that with quotes from the Communist Party and Unilever. Wonderful words, but the actions ....

After lunch Joseph Pelrine talked about multi-ontolgical sense-making, Stacy's model, the Cynefin model and so on. What stuck with me was: High agreement in the face of high uncertainty is religion, disagreement in the face of certainty (that something has to change) is politics. Assuming uncertainty and that there is no universally applicable solution is science.

presents and futures

Ritual Dissent is meant to simulate the process of delivering new ideas to management or decision-makers, and to open up new thinking to necessary criticism and iterations. The process is meant to enforce listening, without disruption. The criticism that is levered out on the proposed idea is “ritualised” by having the person metaphorically leave the room or put on a mask to indicate their absence. This enables the criticism to be depersonalised - whilst forcing people to listen and accept the criticism on their ideas, without being able to answer back.

@deb_lavoy @bhc3 re: allow criticism - ritual dissent is part of the cognitive edge methods http://t.co/VKE4kOLS #brainstorming #cynefin

Excited at the prospect of @GrahamDOakes integrating #cynefin & #CALMalpha into his work on IT governance cc @snowded http://t.co/ZQfmPZeY

@alanlepo Nothing like starvation to foster innovation. http://t.co/MnSs8g0D #cynefin

Attention Ottawa. Go and see @snowded on Oct 12. http://t.co/fLm9URjT Best 3 hrs you will spend all year. #complexity #cynefin

Attention Ottawa. Go and see @snowded on Oct 12. Best 3 hrs you will spend all year. #complexity #cynefin

From possible to probable to plausible: how does your organization develop anticipatory awareness? #cynefin #complexity

Treating an issue as complex implies that the approach to building an evidentiary base shifts and that an exploritory approach should be engaged. In the literature the point of difference is described as moving from robust approaches (complicated) to resilient and adaptive strategies (complex). The table below distinguishes what would be differences in the way in which the evidence is built.

The mantra of resilience is early detection, fast recovery, rapid exploitation.

Strong networks, systems of engagement & affording the complex to derive emergent value: http://bit.ly/fp4DDT @hjarche @jonhusband #cynefin

Strong networks, systems of engagement & affording the complex to derive emergent value: @hjarche @jonhusband #cynefin

Last week Jerry Mikcalsky’s Yi Tan Technology Community podcast was a discussion with Dave Snowden regarding his Complexity Framework Cynefin may have been the epiphany of the year for me. Jerry’s e-mail announcement provided background information so the conversation would have some depth of understanding needed to frame a good understanding (the email content is on the podcast page).

I think Cynefin is incredibly relevant for the field of software testing as well as software development in general. I hope to be able to learn more about it in the near future.

Citizen Dan is a free, open source system available to any community and its citizens to measure and track indicators of local well being (see further about). It is available for use now, but is also undergoing active development with support from a number of innovative cities.

How to evaluate experts? There are several kinds of criteria we can use.

* SMEs vs journeymen vs laymen. A comparative standard.
* Comparison of SMEs to optimal performance. A normative standard.
* Comparison of SMEs to mechanical devices (e.g., comparing stock brokers to the performance of the S&P 500). An analytical standard.
* Nomination by peers and supervisors. A social standard.
* Success on key decisions. An outcome standard.
* rganizational contribution. An organizational standard.

Cynthia Kurtz on her personal history of sensemaking and cynefin, her confluence model and other frameworks.

Why should we measure story in a new way? Because using story well is our great chance in public media to be the leaders of our time. To help Americans take back their power to control their lives and their communities.

How do we do this?

I'm working on a history of the Cynefin model.

Mark Schenk from Anecdote uses Pecha Kucha format to describe complexity using the Cynefin framework

Cynthia Kurtz's list of narrative and story telling resources.

This is a short clip from a recent lecture I gave at the LSE Complexity Programme, integrating Dave Snowden's Cynefin Framework with Gunderson and Holling's Cycle of Adaptive Change.

This adds the time dimension to Snowden's Framework and adds a strategic knowledge dimension to the Cycle of Adaptive Change. This provides queues for knowledge and action during different kinds of transition, which provides a theory-driven evidence base for strategic action during times of dynamics uncertainty.

When thinking about good times to collaborate, it’s useful to start with a simple model that helps us understand the nature of the types of issues we might encounter in an enterprise. Here I’ve illustrated the Cynefin (pronounced cun-ev-in) framework which categorises organisational activity into four domains [2]:

instances abound where failure is "the [direct] consequence of experts acting like experts."

A complex system is one in which the co-evolutionary process between agents and system (people and government being one manifestation of that) is such that any future state is inherently uncertain, cannot be modelled and defining outcome based targets produced perverted behaviour.

Project management meets cynefin

quick youtube video sketch of cynefin framework