I picked up Cynefin - Weaving Sense-Making into the Fabric of Our World just recently, though it came out last fall as a celebration of (at least) 21 years of the evolution of the Cynefin model. While I was hoping for some more insight into how people have applied the model, I appreciated most of the stories and the connections people made to using the Cynefin concepts in a wide variety of applications.
One nice element of this book is that it gives the reader a sense of how the Cynefin idea and framework has evolved - primarily from the perspective given by Dave Snowden in his chapter, but you also get a sense of the development from the other contributors.
Otherwise, I am having a difficult time in writing a review. This isn’t a “how to” book, nor is it one story. It is a collection of small stories, all centered around the many people and ideas wrapped up in Cynefin. If you have been following the concepts for a while, there are some nice examples and stories. If you are looking for an implementation guide, this is not the place. That said, it was a good trip both down memory lane as well as looking forward - what might come next from this community?
Update 27 Sep 2021.
Thinking further about the book, one of the highlights of the book is the wide range of application areas that are described - specific ways that Cynefin has been used, and adjacent areas of thinking which can be enhanced with the Cynefin concepts. Here are some of those.
An early chapter by Sonja Blignaut describes the organizing principles of Cynefin that I hadn’t seen articulated before. Embrace of messy coherence; Self-discovery (enable descriptive self-awareness and self-discovery); Attune to timing and flow. There is a lot of explanation under each of these that would point to many of Dave’s videos over the years, but overall this is a way of seeing the world that reminds me strongly of the “four pillars” of Theory of Constraints. Most of the other how-cynefin-applies have a lot to do with this new way of thinking that Cynefin opens.
Of course, there has to be a connection between Cynefin and knowledge management, as that was where Dave had a lot of attention in the early developments of Cynefin. (Or I should say KM is the domain from which I first learned of Dave Snowden.) His thinking got me to realize that what KM practitioners were trying to do had a lot to do with boundary-spanning - taking ideas from multiple disciplines about how people work together and how we can facilitate “knowledge” sharing. It’s has been a central point of this blog for many years.
The other big topic on this blog has been Theory of Constraints, and there is a chapter here by Steve Holt that does a little compare-and-contrast between ToC and Cynefin. The approaches share some terminology, which sometimes confuses people, but looking under the woreds to the concepts shows a lot more harmony. Steve also happens to be the first person I hheard talking about Cynefin in the context of Theory of Constraints.
Zhen Goh talks about shared connections between Cynefin and daoism. Knowing by not knowing. Yin - Yang.
Several chapters talk about applying Cynefin in the public sector, and in my mind this seems to be the kind of application that Dave talks about the most. Of course “public sector” is many things given what governments do. There are examples from Wales to Singapore to Columbia or more specific to applications with policing or the US Navy.
The other big area of application that Dave discusses - at least where he shows up to give presentations - is in IT / Agile conferences. This has transitioned into many people in that world talking about and applying Cynefin in their environments. And several of those are reflected in the chapters.
I enjoyed Greg Brougham’s chapter on Cynefin and Delivery, where he mentioned the assumption many people make that the environment is fixed and known. In reality, “It is important that [we] acknowledge the context, and if the context changes, policies may need to be reviewed.”
Ecology and the environment seems like an “obvious” fit for Cynefin, as that realm is loaded with complicated and complex relationships. Similarly the world of healthcare and disease (pandemic?) response is a great fit for this way of thinking.
A chapter by Robert Koch describes how Cynefin helps with risk management - assuredly an area where differentiating between Clear, Complicated, Complex and Chaotic becomes quite relevant. There’s a great quote that Cynefin helps us to appreciate that ‘complexity is not simply greater order complicatedness’. Complex systems / situations are different creatures than complicated ones. And another chapter discusses Cynefin in application to safety culture - another domain where context changes, taking people through the Cynefin domains.
Other areas described include Training and development; Teaching with the body - using the physical experience; Workplace and employee well-being; Strategy development; Leadership development; Complex facilitation; live theater rehearsals and productions; … There are many arenas - probably infinite arenas. Human systems inherently show any of these domains, depending on what’s happening.