In yesterday’s post I reminded readers of three key aspects of a complex adaptive system: (i) it is necessary, but not sufficient, for there to be many elements; (ii) rich, short-range interactions between those elements are necessary and probably sufficient; (iii) the elements are not aware of the whole, necessary but not sufficient. That […]
Over the last month or so I have been emphasising the need for lots of small projects, either focused on resolving immediate issues or changing the substrate, or energy gradient of the system. I’ve also been reminding people of Nonaka’s famous dictum of change needing to be middle-bottom-up. Indeed the last thing you want to be […]
Abduction is the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis. It is the only logical operation which introduces any new idea; for induction does nothing but determine a value and deduction merely evolves the necessary consequences of a pure hypothesis (Peirce, 1998, p. 216) What seems to be the case is that there are, in nature […]
This is going to be a rambling ride, so strap in. There was once a little TV show about vampires called True Blood. It run for several seasons, and I abandoned it around Season 4. Season 1 was interesting, 3 was deliciously campy, but season 2 contained seeds of wisdom. In Season 2, a maenad […]
For the last two years we have been working with our network members and clients in the NHS, the Royal College of Nursing and beyond to try to make sense of the pandemic and how its impacting healthcare professionals, leaders and patients and their families/carers. As Covid cases begin to rise once more and various […]
New uses for sensors are being created all the time; from marinas using them to increase safety by guiding yachts boats into place to monitoring the flow of taps in public toilets. Animals are also being used as sensors. There’s a type of bird whose migration pattern can predict when hurricanes will hit months in […]
I’m going to assume that everyone who frequents this blog and is a regular reader of Dave’s work is very familiar with general concepts of evolution, both as a biological fact and as a metaphor. In the Cynefin framework, evolution appears most prominently in exaptive practice, associated with the complex domain. Exaptation in that context […]
After a couple of weeks of hiatus (early spring is definitely Bank Holiday season here in Cyprus), this blog series returns for its final look back at the Acorn Study. To extend the metaphor, it is time to look at the forest floor and examine the new growth. Before we do that, I would like […]
I first used the illustration to the left last November when I was updating the whole Flexuous Curves Framework (FCF). I don’t intend to repeat the material of that earlier post or to be completely consistent with it, but I recommend a quick skim before proceeding. This used to be known as the Apex Predator […]
The Cynefin Company (formerly known as Cognitive Edge) was founded in 2005 by Dave Snowden. We believe in praxis and focus on building methods, tools and capability that apply the wisdom from Complex Adaptive Systems theory and other scientific disciplines in social systems. We are the world leader in developing management approaches (in society, government and industry) that empower organisations to absorb uncertainty, detect weak signals to enable sense-making in complex systems, act on the rich data, create resilience and, ultimately, thrive in a complex world.
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