Navigate Complexity with the Cynefin Framework
Ah, the Cynefin (pronounced ki-NEH-vin) — the most polarizing problem framing activity that we use. It’s a powerful tool for sensing the relative complexity of a set of business problems you’re considering working on.
Choosing the right level of complexity is important for a couple of reasons:
First, you want to match the complexity with the team’s capabilities. For example, if you bring together deep experts and innovators to solve a simple problem, that’ll be a big waste of everyone’s time, talents, and the company’s money. Vice versa, if a junior team attempts to tackle a gnarly problem requiring subject matter expertise, the team will spectacularly fail.
Second, you want the team to attack problems that align with the objectives of the business. For example, if the business needs to generate revenue or save costs quickly, you’ll want to choose simpler problems that are faster to solve. Vice versa, if one of your OKRs is to diversify revenue with innovative new products in a new market, those kinds of opportunities often come from solving complicated or complex problems.
In the end, choosing the right problem at the right level of complexity will minimize the threat of leadership changing your priorities and causing whiplash for the team.
The problem with the Cynefin? It comes with a learning curve. This article aims to help you understand what the Cynefin is, how it works, and an example of what good looks like when using it.
Cynefin Overview
The Cynefin’s sense-making model breaks problems down into 5 domains:
Let’s break down each domain.
Simple: This is the domain of best practice, where you’re predominantly operating with known knowns. When you call customer support because your computer isn’t working, the first thing they ask is if it’s plugged in. That’s because best practice tells us that in many of the cases, the computer didn’t have any power.
Simple problems call for us to sense the problem, quickly categorize it, and respond.
Complicated: This is the domain of expert practice, where you’re predominantly operating with known unknowns. When your engine light goes on, you may not know how to fix it, but an expert mechanic will. That’s because they’ve built domain expertise to sense the problem, analyze it, and respond.
Complex: This is the domain of emergent practice, where you’re predominantly operating with unknown unknowns. When you try implement country-wide recycling programs, there are many obstacles and moving parts that are out of your control - and many still that you won’t know about until after you get started.
Solving complex problems calls for you to probe around - often in the dark - so that you can then sense and respond.
Complex problems are often the most fitting for solving in new domains, new product development, R&D, and innovation, where the team needs to create prototypes to learn and iterate completely new solutions to new problems.
Chaotic: This is the domain of rapid response, where you’re predominantly operating with unknowable unknowns. When your technology infrastructure goes down due to an attack, there’s no time to build a project plan or roadmap. Your team needs to act first, and then sense the second order damage and begin to respond as appropriate.
Disorder: This domain exists for the many teams that don’t take the time to understand which domain they’re operating within. That might look like a team of experts using simple methods to solve complex problems. Or a team of newly onboarded customer success reps trying to build a sophisticated tool to solve complex customer problems.
There’s a mismatch in terms of team knowledge, problem complexity, and/or the approach you’re taking to solve those problems. That often leads to teams investing lots of time and money to create solutions that don’t work and create low-ROI for the business. Sound familiar?
The Cynefin exists to help teams avoid landing in disorder.
The Cynefin is part of our Problem Prioritization Toolkit — if you’ve got a team that collaborates well already, is good at making decisions together, and needs to break through inertia to navigate unknowns, try it.
As you’ll see within the toolkit, we recommend completing the Cynefin between the Smart Sailboat and Impact vs Effort activities.
How to Run a Cynefin Workshop
Start with a collection of stickies that detail customer problems. You can generate these with an activity like the Smart Sailboat, or with guided prompts and silent ideation.
Take turns reading stickies aloud to the team. Group similar stickies.
Each team member moves 1 sticky at a time to the area within the Cynefin (Simple, Complicated, Complex, or Chaotic) they believe it belongs.
A Facilitator quickly reads out each of the stickies, asking the team to silently note any questions or ideas they have about its placement.
The Facilitator asks the team if any of the stickies need to be shifted - a good prompt to use is, “If problem X is complicated, what do we think about problem Y?”
As a team, consider the business objectives driving this workshop, your timelines and budgets, and then decide which area within the Cynefin aligns with the type of problems you’ve come together to work on.
The most common domains that product teams move forward with are Complicated and/or Complex.
Problems from the Simple domain tend to be moved to the product backlog to be worked on by delivery teams.
As a result of this activity, the team better understands each problem generated during the Smart Sailboat. Additionally, since you’re only using 1 or 2 domains, you’ve eliminated problems from the other domains. This will make subsequent prioritization activities like Impact vs Effort more focused and efficient.
Example: Cynefin in Action
Let's look at an example of how a team would use the Cynefin framework while working on a project aimed at increasing families' recycling habits.
The team starts by collecting sticky notes with customer problems related to recycling habits. They might include issues like lack of recycling awareness, insufficient recycling facilities, or confusion about what materials can be recycled.
The team then groups similar sticky notes together and begins placing each sticky note into the appropriate domain within the Cynefin framework (Simple, Complicated, Complex, or Chaotic).
For instance, they might place "providing more recycling bins in public areas" in the Simple domain, "creating an app to educate families on recycling rules" in the Complicated domain, "incentivizing recycling through reward systems" in the Complex domain, and "addressing a sudden recycling crisis due to contamination" in the Chaotic domain.
The facilitator then leads a discussion, allowing team members to ask questions or propose changes to the placement of sticky notes within the Cynefin domains.
Taking into account the project's business objectives, timelines, and budgets, the team decides which domain(s) to focus on. In this case, they might choose to work on problems in the Complicated and Complex domains, as these provide the most potential for innovative solutions that can increase families' recycling habits.
The team proceeds with prioritization activities, such as Impact vs Effort, to further refine their chosen problem statements and develop a clear action plan for tackling the selected recycling challenges.
Wrapping Up
In summary, the Cynefin framework is a powerful tool that helps teams navigate the complexity of various problems, ensuring they focus on challenges that align with their capabilities and business objectives. By breaking down problems into the four domains of Simple, Complicated, Complex, and Chaotic, teams can identify the appropriate level of complexity for their project and avoid wasting time, talent, and resources.
Using the Cynefin framework in a workshop setting helps teams collaboratively identify, categorize, and prioritize problems, resulting in a focused approach to solving issues that will have the most significant impact on the company and their customers.
By understanding the various domains of complexity, teams can avoid disorder and work together more efficiently and effectively on the problems that matter most.
