Cynefin is basically the "The Martian" lesson in management form: when things are known, follow procedure. When they're hard-but-knowable, let experts drive. When they are uncertain, run small experiments. And when it's chaos, stabilize first.
It’s a simple idea, but it clears up a surprising amount of confusion in real projects.
Thank you for sharing these insights. I've been part of many agile vs waterfall discussions as option A option B option C hybrid. I really like the way you lead a rubric on how to select a clear path forward.
I'm usually pro-agile (where it fits) and the intent here wasn't to "rank" agile against other approaches. It's the opposite: I want agile to win where it's meant to win.
The problem is when we apply agile to work that's mostly clear or purely expert-driven. Then teams get ceremony without benefits and people walk away thinking "agile didn't work".
Cynefin is basically a guardrail: it helps you keep agility for complex, uncertain work where feedback and learning are the whole game and use simpler, more reliable approaches when the work is already known.
If you've got a favorite example of a project where the "hybrid" debate got heated, I'd really love to hear it, those are usually disorder in disguise.
That's very good advice. I was not aware of Cynefin, but I will check it out.
Thanks, Uwe. Glad it was useful.
Cynefin is basically the "The Martian" lesson in management form: when things are known, follow procedure. When they're hard-but-knowable, let experts drive. When they are uncertain, run small experiments. And when it's chaos, stabilize first.
It’s a simple idea, but it clears up a surprising amount of confusion in real projects.
Thank you for sharing these insights. I've been part of many agile vs waterfall discussions as option A option B option C hybrid. I really like the way you lead a rubric on how to select a clear path forward.
Thank you so much, Robin. Glad it landed.
I'm usually pro-agile (where it fits) and the intent here wasn't to "rank" agile against other approaches. It's the opposite: I want agile to win where it's meant to win.
The problem is when we apply agile to work that's mostly clear or purely expert-driven. Then teams get ceremony without benefits and people walk away thinking "agile didn't work".
Cynefin is basically a guardrail: it helps you keep agility for complex, uncertain work where feedback and learning are the whole game and use simpler, more reliable approaches when the work is already known.
If you've got a favorite example of a project where the "hybrid" debate got heated, I'd really love to hear it, those are usually disorder in disguise.