User talk:IainPhillips/naturalising sense-making approach

Issues & points

• Field guide has a lovely example of symbols and stories - what do we do when we're needing to do this at scale.
• If we map at individual story level, how do we de-duplicate and filter - too much analysis needed and there will not be the capability or time to do this.
• Wardley map is probably a good way to bring in the wider landscape of the market.
• Building a map using constraints in a context and the wider landscape using symbology, Cartography is hard.

Establishing the need for and situating a Constraint mapping approach

Theory informed comments

• A starting point for me was about constraint mapping as a response to methodological individualism (Strategy Without Design by Chia & Holt). Percept, Concept, Analysis, Direct Action is flawed.
• Then outline the issues relating to flawed individual perception.:

The above then establishes how maps are representative of the wider landscape Vs sub-components (boundaries) and why collective indirect methods are more appropriate in complexity Vs evaluation and direct action by individuals.

Iain I think this is more an argument for complexity informed approach than for mapping per say and touches on anthro complexity, mapping and constraints

Gregb Agree with this assessment, will look to tidy up, see what's on the Anthro-complexity part of the wiki and add there. Iain_P (talk) 12:35, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Now removed the points, which are a repetition of content on the main page. ---- Iain_P (talk) 07:13, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

As indirect action requires an alternative to evaluative methods (as Dave prompted) ie. descriptive methods or complex facilitation methods which increasing cognitive load. So that gets us (or me anyway) to Future Backwards and 4 points.

Practice informed comments Asking directly about constraints, whilst abstracted using a typology of constraints, if this is done or asked without a context I think people could:

1. struggle to come up with the list - Q. 'How is it around here?' - A. 'In what respect or with regards to what?' (This view in informed by my point of view of a Business Analyst - the day job - where I seek to understand constraints on me, on the project, within the business, on the business, as an ordinary, day to day, part of helping businesses deliver software and org change - within a commercially driven, budget and time pressured environment. Ie. Without the potential to philosophise about the whys and the wherefores)
2. or come up with a very long and unusable list,
3. or come up with a random list of the first things that just happened to come to mind i.e. grievances, petty side issues or projects, local problems, or the 'Constraints Du Jour'. Then we have to get lots of these random constraints to get some resemblance of coverage, which leads us back to the second bullet.

Taking down constraints without context feels like it's not helpful either when we come to mapping and design of the portfolio. Sensemaker will be useful here clearly, but I'm not looking to build a hard dependency on this. I think the approach needs to also work standalone.

Detailed reasoning behind constraint mapping approach suggested

So the end I'm moving towards is constraint mapping as an assembly.

• Future backwards to identify the for key turning points, 'How did we get to where we are'. These being the major landmarks on the map. The more salient use of the turning points here being, to identify the influences on the major turning points (ie. constraints). A further point here being that these influences on the major turning points is a way to identify or prioritise 'important' constraints, the material ones from background noise.

the key being this is a narrative-based approach so anecdote circles is another method --Gregb^talk 11:17, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Gregb would have to revisit future backwards to comment properly, the key parts of this element for me are linking context to movement over time and having understanding of how a system got to where it is. this movement, key turning points then being a way to say 'what influenced our previous important junctures'. So it's the prioritisation, even if that's just heuristics. I think my hesitation on anecdote circles is on separating signals from noise - but if we did this via Sensemaker and have a narrative landscape then I definitely agree this is a valid and useful first step. Iain_P (talk) 12:35, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

I think either can achieve this but future backwards requires less overhead --Gregb^talk 13:27, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Gregb Agreed.

• Do the 4 points exercise with multiple groups (that know Cynefin) using the turning points as the context of the exercise, to unpack the different aspects / influences on the turning points, using the constraint Typology as prompts. This will need to include Dark constraints. These influences (constraints) being the 'features' to map on the landscape.

or 3-points --Gregb^talk 11:17, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Gregb the reason I wasn't thinking 3-points is in my head, from my comments in 3-points study group, this is a method to use with people who have no awareness of the Cynefin Framework. So I was thinking that doing constraint mapping the ideal would be we do this with people that know why we're doing Constraint mapping, in this ideal case we therefore use 4-points. In an engagement with a client that doesn't know anything about an anthro-complexity approach I think there is pre-work before you get to constraint mapping. However, I absolutely agree that in principle, if the audience for this step don't know Cynefin, then it's the 3-points used in this step. Iain_P (talk) 12:35, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

You can use either and I have used 4-points without any formal introduction - I think we can leave this open in the assemblage --Gregb^talk 13:27, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Gregb Agreed.

• Wider landscape - I'm talking here about the influences outside of the boundary of the system being worked in. I think I could be missing a method step here, of how to unpack influences / constraints from external to the focus of the exercise. Unless.. the 4 points groups are split up in the exercise to represent different perspectives. i.e. Group 1 runs 4 points from an internal perspective. Group 2 runs it from an external perspective (the same as the Butterfly Stamped method says to concentrate / accentuate group think).
• Map the landscape. This needs a mapping style, semiotics of constraints..
• Design the portfolio of constraint interventions

development of the existing approach - Dave did mention a new approach in passing --Gregb^talk 11:17, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Gregb Where did he mention this in passing? Iain_P (talk) 12:35, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Dave mentioned this is passing on one of the calls in the first week --Gregb^talk 13:27, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

• Ritual failure - improve the portfolio but also to include exposure of interventions to external Influences.. --Iain_P (talk) 23:10, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

use ritual dissent(?) to help shape and develop the initiatives

Gregb I'm sure I've heard Dave use the phrase Ritual Failure, very happy to be corrected on this. My thought process is - design an experiment, using the templates provided in Cynefin Foundations face-to-face for example. These then go through rounds of being attacked by another group on why the experiment would fail, this helps to then iterate the experiment. Iain_P (talk) 12:35, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Iain you are describing Ritual dissent & and only have the earlier templates --Gregb^talk 13:23, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Gregb I've had a look at the page I think there will just need to be instructions on the modification, and the portfolio design. Iain_P (talk) 18:18, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Iain there is this as a starter for 10 - https://www.infoq.com/articles/cynefin-portofolio-management/

I think we then need a cheat sheet to help quantity the type of constraints in play, going back to future backwards exercise --Gregb^talk 11:17, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Gregb to help 'quantify'? If I understand you correctly, Davina and Corina (don't know how to add their user names into this thread - added User:Davina & User:Corinalupu) were keen on this, and I absolutely agree that having examples is needed. 'Fixed looks like this [example]' Governing looks like this [example]. I think the problem, if this is what you're meaning, is with anchoring and resolving too soon the tension in the exercise (collapsing complex space or complex facilitation into complicated) Iain_P (talk) 12:35, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Iain I think this is something we'll need to play with and the analogy I would use is the concept of exemplar sets where we use them to identify similar terms in the current context - the fact that we are mapping implies an element of 'encoding' to a defined set of semiotics --Gregb^talk 13:23, 21 March 2021 (UTC)