<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Harold,<br>
<br>
Yes, and more and more work is actually tipping into the
complex/chaotic state as depicted on the Cynefin diagram. I suspect
this trend is being powered by increases in the rate of change in
the society, driven primarily by technology. <br>
<br>
Every day, more and more work is complex and chaotic. Loads of
change, all day, every day. <br>
<br>
Maybe the Cynefin diagram needs to allocate more space to complex
and chaotic work, to depict it more accurately:<br>
<br>
Diagram:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Cynefin_framework_Feb_2011.jpeg">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Cynefin_framework_Feb_2011.jpeg</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Fewer and fewer projects are qualifying for the traditional ABC
management approach. More and more complex & chaotic work tends
to favor empirical approaches and may explain the popularity of
Agile. It also might explain the rise of Open Space as a legitimate
tool for manifesting high performance in business. "Management" as
important as ever, is a function of the self-organizing system. It
is not a role.<br>
<br>
This link explains how Microsoft is laying off 18000 people and
beginning what appears to be a forced march to Agile:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tgdaily.com/enterprise/120066-is-microsoft-adopting-a-more-agile-approach">http://www.tgdaily.com/enterprise/120066-is-microsoft-adopting-a-more-agile-approach</a><br>
<br>
...this, from what was once a very, very successful software vendor.
<br>
<br>
Ouch.<br>
<br>
Are we all being swept along by a tide of relentless change? I see
some crazy-looking folks way out there, in the water, wearing wet
suits, on surfboards. They appear to be greatly enjoying themselves.<br>
<br>
Daniel<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 7/24/14 6:15 AM, Harold Shinsato
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:53D0DCDB.5030009@shinsato.com" type="cite">
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Chris,<br>
<br>
Thank you for bringing in the Cynefin framework! After hearing
about Snowden's framework at an agile software conference, it
quickly spread through the Agile community. Agile is even
referenced in the wikipedia article about Cynefin. I'd recommend
that folks take a look at the article at least for the simple
graphic that helps understand the model: <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin</a><br>
<br>
It's interesting that although Snowden's article was published
in 2007 in HBR, a good chunk of the useful ideas had been worked
on by Brenda Zimmerman and others starting in 1998 after being
inspired by the study of chaos theory.<br>
<br>
Simple (or obvious) is like baking a cake. (Maybe things don't
always go to plan, but following a simple recipe at sea level
with good tools and ingredients will usually work).<br>
<br>
Complicated is like sending a rocket to the moon. Yes, many
moving parts in mission control. Many things can go wrong. But
working the plan does most of the work.<br>
<br>
Complex is like parenting a child. What you learn raising a
child from birth to age six does not give the answers for the
next six years, let alone for raising the next one.<br>
<br>
Snowden also adds a Chaotic and Disorder domain, and interesting
boundaries and relationships between the five domains. What's
also interesting about Cynefin is that the focus is on our
knowledge or understanding of a system - not really a
description of the Universe or piece thereof.<br>
<br>
It's a mistake to dismiss the utility of Cynefin as a lens
simply by stating that the universe is self-organizing. If
anything, this model's utility is mostly in showing how
traditional management processes (i.e. command and control) are
mostly inadequate for most issues especially in today's
environment. Cynefin has been used a great deal to help promote
agile practices in organizations, and surely can also be used to
promote OST.<br>
<br>
Harold<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 7/22/14 12:57 PM, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:chris.corrigan@gmail.com">chris.corrigan@gmail.com</a>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:02C678FA-8E4A-4D11-85F4-D95965185291@gmail.com"
type="cite">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=ISO-8859-1">
I seek simplicity in trying to describe where and how Open Space
does it’s magic.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>One of the ways I have had excellent success over the years
in describing this work is derived from David Snowden’s work
on the Cynefin framework. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The short story is this:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We are faced all the time with problems that are basically
knowable, and problems that aren’t. Knowable problems mean
that with the right knowledge and expertise, they can be
fixed. A technical team can come together and analyse the
causes, work with what’s available and craft a solution. Then
they can get an implementation plan in place and go ahead and
do it. These kinds of problems have a start line and a finish
line. When you are done, you are done. Building a bridge is
one of those kinds of problems. You build it and there is no
tolerance for failure. It needs to be failsafe.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Open Space doesn’t work well for those kinds of problems
because the solution is basically already known, or at least
knowable. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Then there are problems for which no know solution exists,
and even if you did get a solution, you can’t really “solve”
the problem because the problem is due to a myriad of causes
and is itself emergent. For example, racism. Look around and
you will find very few people that identify themselves as
racists, but look at the stats for Canadian society for
example and you see that non-white people are trailing in
every indicator of societal success. Essentially you are
seeing the results of a racist society but no racists
anywhere. This is an emergent problem. Racism itself is a
self-organizing phenomenon, notwithstanding the few people
that actively engineer racist environments. Such a problem
didn’t really start anywhere and it can’t really end either.
What is needed is a way of addressing it, moving the system
away from the negative indicators and towards something else.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In other words, this is a complex problem. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The way to solve complex problems is to create many
“strange attractors” around which the system can organize
itself differently. Open Space nis the best method I know of
for creating such strange attractors, as they are born from
the passion and responsibility of those that want to create
change, and they are amplified by people coming together to
work on these things.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It’s “post and host” rather than “command and control.” </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>And because you can’t be sure if things are going to work
out, you have to adopt a particular mindset to your
initiative: one that is “safe to fail.” In other words, if it
doesn’t work, you stop doing it. If it does work, you do more
of it. And all the way along you build in learning, so that
the system can see how change is made and be drawn towards
those initiatives that are currently making a difference.
Certainly this kind of problem solving is not useful for
building a bridge, as you cannot afford a failure there. But
for problems with no known solutions, it is brilliant. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Harrison has spent decades outlining this simplicity in
even less words than I have now and his writing and thinking
is, and continues to be far ahead of it’s time and maybe a
little under appreciated because it is delivered in simple
terms like “don’t work so hard.” But ultimately this is the
best and most important advice for working in complex systems.
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Open Space. Do it. Learn. Do it again. Don’t work so
hard.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>More than that really starts to build in the delusion that
people can possibly know what to do. From that place
solutions will be deluded. That they may work is pure luck.
Open Space offers us a disciplined approach to addressing
complexity in an ongoing way. Don’t be fooled by its
simplicity.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Chris</div>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Harold Shinsato<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:harold@shinsato.com">harold@shinsato.com</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://shinsato.com">http://shinsato.com</a><br>
twitter: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://twitter.com/hajush">@hajush</a></div>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<br>
<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
OSList mailing list
To post send emails to <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:OSList@lists.openspacetech.org">OSList@lists.openspacetech.org</a>
To unsubscribe send an email to <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:OSList-leave@lists.openspacetech.org">OSList-leave@lists.openspacetech.org</a>
To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org">http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=ISO-8859-1">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">
<title></title>
<meta name="Generator" content="Cocoa HTML Writer">
<meta name="CocoaVersion" content="1138">
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; color: #0000ee}
p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; color: #1a37ee}
span.s1 {text-decoration: underline}
span.s2 {color: #000000}
span.s3 {text-decoration: underline ; color: #0000ee}
</style>
<p class="p1">Daniel Mezick, President</p>
<p class="p1">New Technology Solutions Inc.</p>
<p class="p1">(203) 915 7248 (cell)</p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"><a
href="http://newtechusa.net/dan-mezick/">Bio</a></span><span
class="s2">. <a href="http://newtechusa.net/blog/"><span
class="s1">Blog</span></a>. <a
href="http://twitter.com/#%21/danmezick/"><span class="s1">Twitter</span></a>.<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">Examine my new book:<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a
href="http://newtechusa.net/about/the-culture-game-book/"><span
class="s1">The Culture Game </span></a></span><span
class="s1">: Tools for the Agile Manager</span><span
class="s2">.</span></p>
<p class="p1">Explore Agile Team <a
href="http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-training/"><span
class="s3">Training</span></a> and <a
href="http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-coaching/"><span
class="s3">Coaching.</span></a></p>
<p class="p1">Explore the <a
href="http://newtechusa.net//user-groups/ma/"><span class="s3">Agile
Boston </span></a>Community.<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>