Cynefin Framework: Managing in Complexity
In the scope of designing for social innovation, we are consistently grappling with complex issues that are greater than our solutionist way of thinking. In Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework he helps differentiate between systems in order to understand how to work within, around, and outside of them. For Snowden, there are predictable and unpredictable worlds. And within these two worlds, there lie four types of systems: simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic systems.
In a predictable world, things happen again and again, so there is a recognizable pattern. This predictable world can be further divided into simple space and complicated space. The simple space has a clear cause and effect, and therefore the needed response is known. This space has best practices, and if you were to adhere to the best practices, you should theoretically get the same result. For instance, if I follow a recipe for making apple pie and I adhere to the best practices given, I should expect to create the apple pie from the recipe.
The complicated space also has cause and effect but it’s much more unclear and requires experts who have been observing and researching these repeated patterns for some time in order to link cause and effect. And with complicated spaces, there aren’t best practices because experts will not all agree on the correct approach/solution. Instead, this space has good practices that have overall similar goals/points but differ in ways of getting there.
In the unpredictable domain, there is a lack of predictability. There is no way of knowing what will happen next just because the event took place once. This domain is divided into the complex space and the chaotic space. In the chaotic space, there is no connection between cause and effect, and the main goal of a leader in this space should be to just stabilize the system.
The complex domain requires the use of probes, innovation, and safe-to-fail experiments in order to determine how to shift the existing system in a different direction. I find this space to be the most exciting because through these little experiments we have the opportunity to better understand how to shift existing systems.
This reminds me of Esther Duflo’s belief in social experiments to fight poverty. Duflo is the cofounder and director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. Duflo has studied how much time we dedicate to experimenting with new technology and getting the cheapest minimum viable products, and she asks the question, “Why aren’t we doing that with social policy?” So she advocates for small safe-to-fail experiments and the testing of new social programs using randomized control trials in order to “answer critical questions in the fight against poverty.”
It’s important to recognize which of these four spaces (Snowden calls them “domains”) our problem is nested in, so that we can better understand how to tackle it. Additionally, it is important for us to break away from using the same reflex-like strategies to tackling questions nested in very different systems that range from the predictable and simple to the unpredictable and chaotic. I have personally found comfort in seeing problems categorized within these tangible systems. I think it’s just human nature to want to make sense of chaos (quite literally in the Cynefin framework) and creating these categories allows us to better understand our world and these larger questions that we’re grappling with.
However a big downside for me is that this framework fails to take into account power struggles and historical context. The Cynefin framework looks at these predictable and unpredictable worlds based on process expertise and an understanding of patterns taking place. But it can be unaware of the actual individuals that comprise these systems and the underlying systemic and historical forces that are affecting that system. I hope to find my own way of making sense of the chaos while always applying a social justice lens that never forgets the systemic, racial, and historical forces at play.
