Alternatives to the ‘Cynefin’ term, please?
As may be seen from his comments to my previous posts on ‘Cynefin and chaos’, Dave Snowden has expressed extreme displeasure at my/our usage of the term ‘Cynefin’ to describe the solution-space nominally described by the Cynefin framework.
Anyone have any suggestions for an alternate term that could be used for this purpose, please?
Many thanks.
Just to make it very clear. Cynefin is the name of a model defined in a series of articles and based on five domains defined by their actual and perceived level of constraint and/or the relationship between cause and effect. I have no objection to Tom taking the basic shape of the model, changing the labels and definitions and saying “look here is something better”. I think from what I have seen so far that it isn’t but that really doesn’t matter. However if he does that he should call it something different while acknowledging the ancestry. Cynefin started from Boisot’s I-Space, but I didn’t say it was a better version of the I-Space, it was (and is) something different, with a different name.
Incidentally Tom, Cynefin is an IBM Trademark in software, training and consultancy. OK they haven’t used it since I left but you need to be aware of that. The only use of Cynefin over the past decade has been as the name for the model, and (for an 18 month period) for the Centre I ran in IBM post the IKM. It has never been used for the “solution space”. Organic KM was an original here, social complexity another and currently naturalising sense-making.
The GWYDION framework: Gwydion – (GWID-yon) from Welsh gwyd “knowledge” + -on, divine ending. Gwydion ap Don was a powerful magician in the Mabinogi. In Welsh, Caer Gwydion (Gwydion’s Castle) is the Milky Way.
And then there is also: The ‘Graves Framework’, the ‘SolSpa Framework’ (Sol and Spa are nice and also abbr. for Solution Space); the ‘Holl Framework’ (also short for Hollistic), … but Gwydion would be my first 🙂
I’m looking forward to getting my copy of the GWYDION bible.
Paul – many thanks, and I do like the layering of ‘Gwydion’. Yet under the circumstances, unfortunately, might it not be wiser to avoid Welsh? 🙁 Is there a Belgian/Flemish/Walloon equivalent, for example?
I suggest something authentic to your own culture …
Dave – agreed, understood, and already indicated above.
A practical and non-trivial problem here is that since practitioners in this space hail from just about every nationality and culture across the globe, what would “authentic to your own culture” be?
I’m not sure what practitioners you are talking about. You are creating a model (s) based on your views so I suggest your own culture, Then if people like it and use it, you have a network. Solution Space is your phrase, I’d take it from there in your shoes.
OK, just found another $0,05: How about ‘Vitruvius Framework’? Not only because of the three elements Pollio declared essential to any human organizing/engeneering effort: Utilitas, Firmitas, Venustas (utility, stability, attractivness), but also because it puts the Human at the center of such framework, as the famous drawing of Leonardo da Vinci illustrates, which also combines the flat square (framework) with the ‘sphere’ (circle).
You could also think in the direction of ‘multidimension’…
(Posted on behalf of Roderick Lim Banda, @rlimbanda )
@tetradian “Llenguasidi” a play on language of dynamic systems in Catalan but is based on Peter Senge’s work.