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<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
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 class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:chris.corrigan@gmail.com">chris.corrigan@gmail.com</a> wrote:<br>
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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>
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<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Harold Shinsato<br>
<a href="mailto:harold@shinsato.com">harold@shinsato.com</a><br>
<a href="http://shinsato.com">http://shinsato.com</a><br>
twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/hajush">@hajush</a></div>
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