Making Sense of Complexity

9 min readMay 10, 2023

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Discover the 4 Patterns of Decision-Making Frameworks

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina 🇺🇦 on Unsplash

Humans are good with quantifiable concepts like budgets or timelines — they’re easy to put into categories, sort, and arrange. But we struggle with abstract concepts like problem-solving, decision-making, or anticipating the future. There’s simply too much information to simultaneously hold in our head. We need frameworks to offload the information into the world.

Frameworks help tame complexity because they enable us to hold, organize, and clarify our thoughts. A simplified, visual representation of a concept establishes a shared language and promotes a joint problem-solving process with others.

My love for frameworks started 20 years ago, while studying to become a teacher. One day, all teacher candidates received a binder with a collection of teaching frameworks. I remember consulting it for every practicum in my last year, as an inspiration for practicing different methods. I was hooked.

Fast forward ten years, I built an entire deck of frameworks for my change management course while completing my MBA. It included everything from McKinsey’s 7S framework to Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model to Kotter’s Change Model to Kaplan & Norton’s Balanced Scorecard. I even focused my master thesis on the creation of visual frameworks.

Since then, I’ve worked with some of the world’s top business thinkers to distill complex information into frameworks that help learners inquire more easily into specific business problems. It gives me deep satisfaction to take apart a complex topic and put it together again in a way that facilitates better understanding.

What is a Framework?

Though I use the term ‘framework’, others might call them concept models, canvases, tools, templates or something entirely else.

My definition: A framework is a heuristic device, or mental shortcut, that helps us better process complex information and act on it. In that sense, frameworks help us improve decision-making and problem-solving by reducing the burden on our memory and attention.

A Taxonomy of Frameworks

Something that all frameworks have in common is that they arrange information in order to reveal patterns that would otherwise go unnoticed. There are four key patterns I’ve noticed in frameworks, arranged from simple to more complex¹:

Category
Sequence
Matrix
System

I’ve arranged the four shapes into a taxonomy:

1. Category

To tame complexity, one of the easiest things we can do is to put some application rules to information — in other words, categorize it. It’s an activity our brains are naturally good at because it speeds up decision-making and thus helps preserve energy.

(The downside is, of course, that categories warp our perception of the world. This polarity between simplification/ speed and complexity/ rigor is a topic for another post).

We can categorize information to the manner of context in which it will be used. Take De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. The hats represent six different thinking styles that enable us to explore a problem from various perspectives.

To encourage knowledge retention, some frameworks sum up categories as an acronym. Take SMART goals, the SCAMPER technique, or the MoSCoW prioritization model.

What these frameworks have in common is that besides a shared purpose, there is no other apparent relationship between the different elements. There isn’t an order to the Six Thinking Hats and we could also have TRAMS goals.

As such, it makes sense to visualize categories as lists — like a checklist — using color, icons, or acronyms as a way to differentiate and memorize.

2. Sequence

Next level up is to organize the categories into a sequence. In what order are these categories? What causes one thing in another?

The organizing principle is again related to the context in which the framework will be used: it could be relative importance (high, medium, low), difficulty (easy, moderate, difficult), time (beginning, middle, end), or some other organizing principle.

Frameworks that visualize information sequentially are well suited for problems that can be solved in a well-structured, rational way. We like sequences because they’re like an algorithm: A repeatable, consistent formula for problem-solving.

Most frameworks follow one of the following sequence shapes: linear process, cycle, or hierarchy.

Linear process

A process is a step-by-step, linear sequence with a beginning and end point, where each element is directly linked o the previous one.

Take Kanban boards with columns for To Do, Doing, Done; flow charts that visualize cause and effect; the Test Card with four steps to designing experiments, or waterfall roadmaps.

Cycles

Roadmaps that use an agile methodology, introduce a second sequence shape: cycles. This shape indicates that a process repeats itself, or that a loop is necessary for the framework to be successful.

Think of Nir Eyal’s Hooked Model. It has four distinct steps that repeat in a continuous motion. The last phase ‘investment’ indicates an action customers take that improves the service for the next go-around. With every pass customers take through the Hooked Model, the product becomes more engaging.

Other examples include the build-measure-learn cycle of the Lean Startup Model, the Flywheel Effect by Jim Collins, or the Double-Loop Learning Model by Argyris & Schön.

Hierarchies

In frameworks that organize concepts hierarchically, each element is connected to a parent or child. The sequence is thus determined by the power, importance, size, or age of an element in relation to another.

A hierarchy is often visualized as a pyramid. Take Dave McClure’s Pirate Metrics. The acronym AARRR (yes, pirates) stands for acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and referral — the five distinct elements users progress in order for a company to extract value from them.

Other examples include Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, or the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Model (which Nathan Shedroff visualized as a spectrum, which I quite like). Or tree diagrams, like the Cognitive Bias Codex, or root cause analysis/ 5 Whys.

3. Matrix

Enter the mother of consulting frameworks: the matrix. A matrix is in essence a comparison of two or more sequences, or dimensions, most commonly taking the form of a 2x2 or chart. As such, the cognitive activity behind a matrix is inherently more complex, because we compare, decide, or identify causalities or differences between two or more parameters. Matrices rarely give a clear-cut answer to a problem but operate in the more nuanced space of polarities.

To the question ‘which project should I do?’ you can apply the Eisenhower Matrix, the BCG Box, the Ansoff Matrix, the Impact/ Effort Matrix, or its more nuanced cousin, the RICE prioritization.

Multi-dimensional matrices are also common in the personal development space. The Ikigai Model uses a Venn diagram to visualize its four overlapping concepts to help people identify their purpose in life. The Uffe Elbaek Model uses a spider or radar visualization to reveal behavioral traits and tendencies.

My favorite framework is the polarity map. Whereas we often look at problems as either/or, polarity mapping promotes both/and-thinking. Check it out! Once you’ve used it yourself, you can’t un-see polarities in the world.

4. Systems

We looked at organizing elements into categories, sequences, and matrices. At the highest, most complex level, there are systems. A system is a group of related elements, categories, sequences, and matrices that function together as a whole. Recursively, the processes within a system are the more linear step-by-step tasks that take you from A to B in order to make any given system work.

In our increasingly complex world, we need tools to tackle the complexity of systems and the problems they cause, or wicked problems. Thus, a sequential process may not be sufficient. We need visualizations that enable the representation of multiple nodes and their relationships.

Enter maps. They break free of the 2-dimensionality of sequences (and comparisons), and use space differently as a way to organize information.

There are too many maps to organize into clear categories but I want to draw attention to a few common elements.

Spatial Arrangement

Maps are easy to scan — how to go from A to B, identifying elevations, weather patterns, or the difficulty of the terrain. As such, the placement and flow of information in maps is crucial. We can learn from cartographers who place information in space in a way that corresponds to the underlying structural relationships of elements within the system. The spatial arrangement of elements, categories, sequences conveys meaning.

Take the Business Model Canvas. At first glance, the placement of its nine building blocks may seem arbitrary. But there is a logic behind it. Overlay the canvas with desirability, feasibility, and viability, and you’ll notice the story behind every successful business: One that addresses the needs of its customers, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for financial success.

Metaphors

A common device of maps is the use of metaphors. Think of the iceberg model or culture as a garden. Metaphors help the brain make associations between different concepts to make meaning from it. They also help provide a common language understood by all.

Take the Viable Systems Model. Stafford Beer used the human brain and nervous system as a source of inspiration to map an organization such as a city or company. He developed 5 subsystems, each with their own role but working closely with each other.

Joint Problem-Solving

The solution to a wicked problem requires the input from various stakeholders to jointly define and explore a problem, and develop and evaluate solutions (based on another framework, the Double Diamond).

Take the Business Model Canvas again. The framework consists of nine building blocks, depicting a firm’s business logic. As such, mapping a business model requires the input of a number of stakeholders. The canvas creates a common ground for stakeholders from different backgrounds to look at their business model and ask themselves the right questions.

It’s a bit meta, but that’s my framework for categorizing frameworks. They all simplify and wrap reality in some way. But, they help us think.

[1] This categorization has been inspired by great thinkers who have written extensively about this topic (in alphabetic order):

Making Sense of Complexity

1. Category

2. Sequence

3. Matrix

4. Systems

Written by Franziska Beeler