In this webinar recorded on April 30, 2020, I had a conversation with the creator of Cynefin, Dave Snowden, about what to consider when designing complex adaptive systems.

Designers and decision-makers face increasingly unprecedented levels of volatility and complexity. In this context, practical tools and methods that help us make sense of, and act in complexity are becoming increasingly important.

The Cynefin framework has now been used around the world in contexts as diverse as the boardrooms of international fashion houses, software development teams and SWAT teams on the city streets. Decision-makers have applied it across all levels of organization and in almost every industry.

Beyond the basic framework, Dave has been actively developing Cynefin – did you know that Cynefin has sub-domain models? And, that there are narrative-defined boundaries between domains? Recent developments include thinking about defining domains through constraints, and moving through domains by understanding energy, knowledge and resource flows in an organization, and how “gradients” can be manipulated to manage these flows.