Cynefin framework.<\/a><\/p>\nThe short story is this:<\/p>\n
We are faced all the time with problems that are basically knowable, and problems that aren\u2019t. Knowable problems mean that with the right knowledge and expertise, they can be fixed. A technical team can come together and analyse the causes, work with what\u2019s available and craft a solution. Then they can get an implementation plan in place and go ahead and do it. These kinds of problems have a start line and a finish line. When you are done, you are done. Building a bridge is one of those kinds of problems. You build it and there is no tolerance for failure. It needs to be failsafe.<\/p>\n
Open Space doesn\u2019t work well for those kinds of problems because the solution is basically already known, or at least knowable.<\/p>\n
Then there are problems for which no know solution exists, and even if you did get a solution, you can\u2019t really \u201csolve\u201d the problem because the problem is due to a myriad of causes and is itself emergent. For example, racism. Look around and you will find very few people that identify themselves as racists, but look at the stats for Canadian society for example and you see that non-white people are trailing in every indicator of societal success. Essentially you are seeing the results of a racist society but no racists anywhere. This is an emergent problem. Racism itself is a self-organizing phenomenon, notwithstanding the few people that actively engineer racist environments. Such a problem didn\u2019t really start anywhere and it can\u2019t really end either. What is needed is a way of addressing it, moving the system away from the negative indicators and towards something else.<\/p>\n
In other words, this is a complex problem.<\/p>\n
The way to solve complex problems is to create many \u201cstrange attractors\u201d around which the system can organize itself differently. Open Space nis the best method I know of for creating such strange attractors, as they are born from the passion and responsibility of those that want to create change, and they are amplified by people coming together to work on these things.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s \u201cpost and host\u201d rather than \u201ccommand and control.\u201d<\/p>\n
And because you can\u2019t be sure if things are going to work out, you have to adopt a particular mindset to your initiative: one that is \u201csafe to fail.\u201d In other words, if it doesn\u2019t work, you stop doing it. If it does work, you do more of it. And all the way along you build in learning, so that the system can see how change is made and be drawn towards those initiatives that are currently making a difference. Certainly this kind of problem solving is not useful for building a bridge, as you cannot afford a failure there. But for problems with no known solutions, it is brilliant.<\/p>\n
Harrison has spent decades outlining this simplicity in even less words than I have now and his writing and thinking is, and continues to be far ahead of it\u2019s time and maybe a little under appreciated because it is delivered in simple terms like \u201cdon\u2019t work so hard.\u201d But ultimately this is the best and most important advice for working in complex systems.<\/p>\n
Open Space. Do it. Learn. Do it again. Don\u2019t work so hard.<\/p>\n
More than that really starts to build in the delusion that people can possibly know what to do. From that place solutions will be deluded. That they may work is pure luck. Open Space offers us a disciplined approach to addressing complexity in an ongoing way. Don\u2019t be fooled by its simplicity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A post I made to the OSLIST today… I seek simplicity in trying to describe where and how Open Space does it\u2019s magic. One of the ways I have had excellent success over the years in describing this work is derived from David Snowden\u2019s work on the Cynefin framework. The short story is this: We are faced all the time with problems that are basically knowable, and problems that aren\u2019t. Knowable problems mean that with the right knowledge and expertise, they can be fixed. A technical team can come together and analyse the causes, work with what\u2019s available and craft …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-space"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-138","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4039,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038\/revisions\/4039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}