The Cynefin Framework

Numerous studies has been done in the field of the Information Systems (IS) and its artifacts because of its diversity and the rapid changes that it have been incurred by the continued evolution.

Examination has also been done in order to establish the suitability of the Cynefin framework, developed for knowledge management, as a suitable tool for sense-making in Information Systems. 

Cynefin is a holistic sense-making framework developed through research and practice of Knowledge Management (KM) by Dave Snowden (2002) when working at IBM. 

Cynefin has the meaning of "Habitat" or "Place". Place of multiple belongings: culture, religious, geographic, tribal, etc. (Snowden, 2002)

Cynefin consists of five domains:

Simple: cause and effect relationship exist, are predictable and are repeatable. As a result in this domain there is a sense-categorize-respond (Best Practice).

Complicated: here there is a cause and effect but is no evident, therefore, managers should sense-analyze-respond (Good Practice) here there are different ways of doing things if managers and or leader have expertise, however it could be dangerous try to make people to adopt one of them.

Complex: which is a system without causality, there are unpredictable and emergent outcomes. Here managers and or leaders probe-sense and respond (Emergent practice). They could do experiments and try to solve problems, however, the results are not unique.

Chaos: Here the decision model is Act-Sense-Respond (Novel Practice). It is an entry to a situation where the problem is not clear, therefore the possible solution is unclear. This could be described as crisis management that requires a creative action.

Disorder: the fifth central domain, which is the destructive state of not knowing what type of causality exists and thus not knowing which way of working is best. While problems may legitimately be allowed to exist in the other four domains if approached with suitable solutions, those in states of disorder are normally harmful and should be guided into one of the other domains.

Another important point here is how the process after making sense of the organisation and its business problems continues. It carries on with an Envisioning (working out what ideal knowledge work would lead to improvement), then Designing (choosing what knowledge agents, knowledge flows and knowledge work), then Exploring ( examining what if any IT is needed to support the emerging KMS) and finally Evolving (managing change in the KMS until some future point when the organization’s needs would require that sense‐making be undertaken to begin the cycle again). this process should be followed by any organisation, any kind of business of any size in the process of decision-making.

In proposing the Cynefin model, initially for KM but increasingly for other areas of investigation, Snowden (2002) makes a point of strongly resisting the existence of a single or idealized model but rather sees the key to survival and growth as coming from the ability to adapt to change through diversity of approach.

Cynefin provides a research tool that spans the increasing breadth of capability of the IS artefact, its support for human activities and its continuing evolution into unanticipated new forms. Cynefin is neither a definitive solution to all IS problems nor a grand theory to explain all things. (Hasan et al, 2009).

References

Aboubakr A. et al (2009). Towards a Practical Guide for Developing Knowledge Management Systems in Small Organizations. London: Midlesex University.

Hasan, H. M. & Kazlauskas, A. (2009). Making sense of IS with the Cynefin framework. Proceedings of the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) (pp. 1-13). Hyderabad, India: Indian School of Business.

Moteleb A.A, Woodman M., and Critten P. (2009). Towards a Practical Guide for Developing Knowledge Management Systems in Small Organizations. Procs. European Conference on Knowledge Management, Vicenza, Italy, September 2009

Snowden, D and  Boone, M (2007) A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making. Harvard Business Review.