As decisions, we are all expected to make decisions all the time. As I have mentioned in my earlier blogs, it always helps to have a model or a framework to help us make sense of all the information that we come across and then decide the course of action.
One such decision making framework is “The Cynefin Framework”. You can listen to Dave Snowden, who created the framework, explain the framework here. This model is a big help in both sense making and decision making.
It is a very short video (about 8 mins) and so I recommend that you watch it in full.
Based on where our situation lies on the model, the model also has recommendations on how to move ahead. It recommends 4 ways –
1. Best Practices (when relationships in the system are clear and well defined).
2. Good Practices (when relationship in the system are defined but need some sort of expertise to understand them).
3. Emergent Practices (when underlying relationships that can’t be understood in advance but only in hindsight with unpredictable outcomes).
4. Novel Practices (when no relationships or cause and effect can be determined).
Conclusion:
Depending on what kind of systems we are working with, for any given decision, we need to develop the agility to sense and respond accordingly.
We need to learn to identify the kind of system we are operating in and therefore, the kind of response we need to decide on. This is one of those things that is simple to know and understand but takes a lifetime of practice to get right.
But as they say, the journey of a 1000 miles starts with the first step. Let’s get going!
