St David’s 2024: 3/5 Estuarine

The basic Estuarine Framework has not changed significantly since last year’s publication; the vulnerable zone has been renamed volatile, but that is it for the base framework, which is a testament to its utility. What has changed are the options to generate items for the framework, the action types have extended, and the need to look at dark actants or unattributable phenomena is growing.  All of that is Estuarine Mapping, which uses the Framework.  Significant developments will take place around the idea of constructors later in the year, which is one of the reasons for insisting that, where possible, they are retained as inputs.  That will make life a lot easier downstream.  Some things have become more evident; the value of negative energy, for example, is used more often than ignored.  It seems to cover things that are already changing at speed.  Liminal is more a zone than a line.  So, going back to last year’s post, stages two, three and five are more or less unchanged.  Stage four is better structured and expanded.  The significant changes are in stage one.

If you are unfamiliar with Esturarine Mapping, reading through last year’s two-part blog post before proceeding will help. The second also has links to updates made during the year. At some point this year, once I have completed the Cynefin Field Guide, I will create one for Estuarine Mapping, which will consolidate everything into one place and bring it under more formal version control. Cynefin took over a decade to get to the same point. 

I’d also comment on this method development stage: as you move out of the theory, it is essential not to allow too much variation while stabilising the core.  Once that is achieved, you can start to play with variations.  We did this one in the open, and consequently, some of those variations took place prematurely before the core was stable.   As I’ve said, this is all learning. Still, while I am not apologising for being stroppy about those variations, I am explaining why it is essential and making a note to myself to be much more explicit about expectations and commitments next time.

I should also say there is a Big Scary Diagram (BSD) at the bottom of this post. It doesn’t pass Serviettenrückseitentest (much more impressive than ‘back of a table napkin’), but it is designed to visualise the whole process and options. It builds on yesterday’s post; I will refer to it as I elaborate on the process.

What is Estuarine all about?

One of the principles of managing a complex system is starting journeys with a general sense of direction rather than having specific goals.   A complex system is so deeply entangled that the same thing is unlikely to happen the same way twice other than by accident.   Setting specific outcome-based targets creates perverse incentives; think of Stratherns variation on Goodhart’s Law: the minute a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a measure.   Too many change initiatives start with senior executives locked away in a room with some expensive consultants and a flip chart or two, and they create a shared vision of a desired future state.  The subsequent change initiatives then seem to use that vision as a North Star or similar goal for the organisation and seek to close the gap.  

In contrast, complexity approaches start by describing the present and then identifying where we can go next, with the constraint of a general idea of the general direction of travel.  This approach, doing the next right thing (to quote Frozen II) and looking again, is more pragmatic and adaptive.  Starting journies opens you to novelty, while hyper-focus on goals means you blind yourself to opportunities that, if you had known about them, could be more desirable.  Visionary targets also tend to fall into the Estuarine Framework’s counter-factual zone, where change is realistically too hard.   An alternative name for the Estuarine Framework is an Affordance Map, designed to show you what opportunities are afforded to the organisation by the current situation.  It also creates a map of the evolutionary potential of the present that is as accurate as possible.  It goes back to the architectural distinction between construction on green or brownfield sites.  The reality is in any complex system, it’s always brown.

The intervention or action stage of Esuraine Mapping is designed to change the dispositional nature of the current situation so that the things you want to achieve will take less time or energy: we want the energy cost of virtue to be less than that of sin.  We also want the current state assessment to be objective and non-controversial as far as possible, and the process is designed to try and achieve that as far as possible: see the section on granularity below in particular. 

A great entry project to get people into complexity and sense-making

Estuarine mapping creates an affordance map and can thus derisk any conventional change programme or project. It tells you where you are and what you can’t change. It helps to understand the viability of change; if you want a metaphor, it is preparing the ground before you plant the crops. As such, it can be sold as a pre-process.  Once familiar, it can be combined with assemblage mapping to create a radical new approach that combines grand strategy with tactics in a single framework and set of processes.  But don’t start with that.  

We have found the best way to do Estuarine Mapping is two half days separated by an overnight.  On day one, you get the map out, and people can assimilate the learning and novelty overnight before we get into action planning the following day.  So, it is not a significant commitment; it offers the prospect of making the more conventional approach more acceptable.  Once people engage, they are likelier to understand the broader approach and buy into something more radical.

Phenomena,  attribution and Dark Actants

This was implicit in the first release, and various experiments took place, some directly, some I have heard about.  Given that Estuarine is a complexity framework (Cynefin is a decision framework that recognises complexity), it is essential to avoid anything that implies cause and effect even at a macro level, even though it will exist in some contexts.  We tried brainstorming effects and then sought to attribute those to constraints or constructors, but that confused people and over-complicated a simple, easy-to-use concept.  Then we got the shift to Actants and used a triad to represent the three types, and things became more manageable.    There is a fundamental principle here: if something happens in the world, it is influenced by some action or inaction on behalf of an Actant.  So, if we see a particular behaviour, we should be able to attribute it either to one type or a balance between the three.  If we can do that, it brings it into sharper focus, and we can map it onto the framework and subsequently make decisions about what we do with it to improve the dispositional state overall.  If we can’t attribute it or we can only partially attribute it.;  it falls outside or may span the boundary of the triad and is opaque.   I’ve tried to show this in the BSD by making that area more opaque.  The background image is one of a fractal, by the way.  Anything that falls outside or only partially intrudes onto the triad is then evidence of the presence of a Dark Actant and triggers the process described below.

Also useful here (and quoting Merrian-Webser): Affect is usually a verb meaning “to produce an effect upon,” as in “the weather affected his mood.” Effect is usually a noun meaning “a change that results when something is done or happens,” as in “computers have had a huge effect on our lives.”  Actants affect with resulting effects.

Changes to stage one – ACTANT

There are a series of changes from a year ago when we only looked at constraints and constructors as the things to be mapped.   The last post in this St David’s Day series described the change to actants and the three types: actors, constructors and constraints.   There will be things that fit into the three categories, but often, they are mixed, at least on the first pass.  The goal is to get people to identify things that can be managed, and the typologies are a means to that end, not an end in themselves.  However, the Actant framing is the most useful in the broader field of complexity, of which Estuarine Mapping is a part.

As a reminder of the three types:

• Actors can be roles (which can  include experts as well as organisational roles), a collective such as a team. or (rarely) an individual
• Constructors transport by passage (such as a ritual or a process), by contagion or simply by their presence (this includes a panopticon effect)
• Constraints can connect or contain and be resilient or robust. Three resilient constraint types are permeable, phase shift, and dark. Three robust types are rigid, elastic, and tether. These are all fully documented in the original release, and the two trios can be used for brainstorming purposes.

The idea of constructors is the more difficult thing to grasp, and if needed, we can use examples, and if needed that can be expanded into this extended list:

• Catalyst
  Something which triggers and accelerates a change without itself undergoing significant change
• Process 

  A defined pathway which can be measured and for which compliance can be enforced
• Ritual
  
“The process whereby some behaviour became progressively modified and specialised for its communicative function” More details can be found here
• Habit
  
In this context, more  “Liberating force” than a “rut we get stuck in” explored in three posts starting here
• Custom & practice
  
The way we’ve always done things, more fully elaborated  here
• Machine 

  This is probably the most obvious example, and I am using it here in the sense of something designed for a purpose.
• Artefact 
 (this also feeds into the ASHEN alternative
  All machines are artefacts, but I am using it here in the sense of material engagement theory with the idea that there is some agency involved
• Rules 

  Although they might be seen as a restraint, rules are a form of formalised habit, defined as a liberating force per the above.
• Collage 

  The elements of a collage have meaning in their own right, but when they are put together, there is a whole new level of meaning.
• Mosaic 

  Here, the components have no particular meaning per se, but when assembled by a skilled artisan, they create a work of art. 

Changes to stage one – OTHER 

We then have three new approaches, which can be run in parallel with the ACTANT mapping described above:

1. Use ASHEN to generate data; the overlay with the Actant triad is helpful but not necessary if it confuses things.
2. We can take the output of what keeps executives awake at night, which is a part of the broader knowledge mapping assembly.  That combines ASHEN with the awake-at-night material in a grid from which actions are generated.   Estuarine and the knowledge map can thus be created from the same source material, and the consequent actions can be combined.  These are shown in Yellow under Generative Methods.
3. Issue mapping is a method in its own right and may, over time, develop into an entire framework, so I have described it below.
4. Various other methods can also apply, and I have listed some in the BSD.  Our work with situational and persona archetypes is a powerful way to displace a conversation away from immediate politics and increase disclosure.  The various types of Aporia, in a workshop or before, can generate material that would not otherwise emerge.  Anecdote circles remain popular and are an excellent basic workshop technique.  Then there is MassSense, for which we have an Esturaine-specific capture version for those who want it.   The open-source wiki has many other suggestions with Hexi kits, so more novel solutions and combinations are bound to emerge, as well as industry and application-specific solutions.
5. If there is no alternative, look at the stereotyped consultancy languages, such as enablers and blockers.

Don’t get precious; if something works and engages people and generates diverse data, then go for it. But Remember, Estuarine is all about understanding the nature of the present; it is not about deciding what you do next in the traditional sense of a project.   If anyone says I know what is happening or OK, so now we need to do this because it will produce some defined objection, then you need to pull them back. If they.  haven’t used the typologies then OK, we can live with that. But this is about changing the substrate in which you run projects, not the project itself. Do not brainstorm system-level changes onto the map under any circumstances.  But barriers,  enablers, etc.,  are OK if that is the only thing people will accept. I have also shown other options on the BSD linked to specific methods found in the open-source wiki, all of which are represented on the new Hexi kits.

Tagging for impact or other qualities

This is the final part of the process before moving to action forms.  In the Hexi kit, we have transparencies that can be overlaid.  It adds a third dimension and high impact is a red flag in the Vulnerability zone.  As capture software developments using SenseMaker® are released, this will be easier to capture along with additional qualities.

Issue mapping

This new method contrasts impact/strength with verifiability and consequences.  It is under development, but I hope to blog about it soon.  It is included here and on the BSD for reference, but it has not been published yet and is intended as an alternative to Actant and ASHEN mapping. 

Granularity is key

When creating the map, the principle is to keep breaking things down (decomposition, often achieved through contextualisation) until there is agreement. That applies as much to where they are placed as to what they are. This sounds simple, and it is, but it is a significant conflict resolution process. The more accurate the situational assessment, the better, and that means removing rather than resolving conflict.  It also means we get things to the level where actions are much more manageable and less controversial.

It is vital to remember that Estuarine is about changing the substrate in which projects take place; it is not about the project itself. The temptation is to converge prematurely on that project, at which point the granularity will change, and politics will enter. If it happens, it happens, but it is best to avoid it, as much of the value will be lost.

Estuarine requires people to think and act differently; if consultants want a comfortable ride, it is probably not for them.

Dark Actants or the unattributed phenomena process.

This can be omitted if it is a step too far on the first engagement, but it is an integral part of the overall mapping process. The idea of attribution is critical here. If there are phenomena or issues of any type that cannot be attributed in whole or in part to Actant types or ASHEN elements, then they should be placed in a holding bin. This can also include actors and ASHEN elements where there is a lot of confusion or no agreement event after exhaustive decomposition.

These then need to be investigated separately, possibly in a side process. I have been known to remove the most active participants from the main thrust of the workshop to do this, in part to give other participants time to get a word in edgeways. Once that is done, we need to look at the risk associated with the uncertainty—Cynefin and the Uncertainty Matrix have utility here.  Anything that is not trivial regarding impact needs to be further investigated.  MassSense is a prominent tool here, designed in part to discover the unknown knowns and methods such as Entagled Trios and a linked new development Distributed Decision Making & Resource Allocation will come into play.  That final one has no links, as it will go into restricted open engagement shortly – watch out for announcements to Premium Members.

Hopefully, that process will create new things that can be mapped onto the grid or new actions designed to mitigate any risk created.

Action types

Based on a suggestion from Ellie, picked up by Anna and now part of the standard approach, the action types are in three groups to make them easier to understand and remember.  In the facilitation kit, each type has a symbol-based transparency that can be overlaid and, importantly, negotiated onto the material in the basic grid.  Once determined, these will lead to forms for each action type, which will be available for download as a PDF shortly.

Note that we are not talking about clusters of things that can be managed.  I haven’t got a better phrase yet, but I’m thinking about pliable, malleable, and regulable, but all ideas are welcome. For the moment, I will go with malleable items or MIs for short.    

Vector  actions 

• Compass Rose is a micro-intervention that changes energy and time costs,  either to increase or decrease energy or time  for changing any MI 
• Destroy:  interventions to eliminate an MI.
• Stabilise: sometimes, an MI is where we want it to be, and interventions can focus on keeping it there

Signal 

• Conditional: identifying links between items; which changes enable other actions or interventions?  This is the point where Flexuous Curves/Apex as a framework can be linked,
• Monitor:  focus on observation, mainly associated with boundary lines; monitors deep into counterfactual are known as forward scouts.
• Trigger: the conditions for action are present; now, we can and should act

Communication

• Research: investigate, sense-make, extend options
• Request: collaboration, outreach, permission – often in the liminal line
• Transparency: or visibility that stimulates interactions and can create panopticon effects.

Where next

This is an ongoing work programme, potentially with a higher impact than the Cynefin framework.  Developments will be announced in the Haunt, and invitations will be given to participate.  The main areas of development are:

1. An extension into use for personal coaching
2. Contrasting perspectives with human datasets
3. Clustering and automation of allocation
4. More sophisticated visualisation
5. Stronger links into MassSense

If you want to know more about any of these – get involved via the Haunt

Otherwise, I am 80% complete in writing the Cynefin Field Guide. Once that is out, I will put all of this and other material together in the Estuarine Field Guide to create a single source of the original and approved approaches.

The Big Scary Diagram (BSD): Estuarine mapping with options

This is designed to show both the flow and the options.

The banner picture is cropped from an original photograph of a freshwater lagoon and estuary in Spain and is licensed under the Unspalsh+ License.