Cynefin principles

As the Cynefin® Framework has evolved, lists of organizing principles or heuristics have also changed. In 2003, thirteen heuristics were roughly grouped into four broad themes. In Cynefin® - Weaving Sense-Making into the Fabric of Our World, Sonja Blignaut reports on a new listing which frames assorted precepts in relation to three over-arching principles.

See the Cynefin® Framework page for background and context.

Embrace messy coherence

Constraints or boundaries create coherence. A sentence makes sense when it exhibits the structure of a particular language (i.e., I am able to determine if it is English or Russian) and roughly follows grammatical rules. However, when these constraints are lacking, it becomes noise, a jumble of words or sounds that make no sense.

— Sonja Blignaut, Cynefin® - Weaving Sense-Making into the Fabric of Our World, Cognitive Edge Pte Ltd.

Playing in tension

Cynefin® employs methods that use inherant tensions generatively to increase diversity, resilience and create space for novelty to emerge. This is done by welcoming tension between coherance and difference.

One form of difference is heterogeneity, which is a dissimilarity between elements that comprise a whole; an example of this would be the diversity of an individual's viewpoints, backgrounds, ways of working within the whole of a society or organisation they are operating within.

This contrasts with coherance, or similarity, which is often driven into an organisations for different purposes. Sometimes as a way to align people around a particular goal, sometimes for other reasons, like to reduce overheads by asking everyone to use the same email platform and laptop design.

Coherance and heterogenity are both useful, so Coherent heterogeneity is a term that would summarise the way in which Cynefin® values both coherence and difference. Playing in tension is the principle of gaining an advantage by deliberately creating tension between the two.

Playing in tensions can be used to address false dichotomies, often portrayed as a binary options (e.g. Agile OR waterfall), when in reality both have value depending upon the context. Instead of binary options, playing in tension is to encourage the replacement of an OR with an AND; Agile AND waterfall, as is most suitable for the application).

Finally, playing in tension can be used to create liminal spaces; which are the transitions in-between two states, where we can suspend judgement and avoid prematurely converging onto one solution.

Descriptive self-awareness & self-discovery

We create a context where voices are heard, and hold up a mirror so that the ‘system can see itself’ in different and potentially possibly transformative ways.

— Sonja Blignaut, Cynefin® - Weaving Sense-Making into the Fabric of Our World, Cognitive Edge Pte Ltd.

Timing and Flow