Volatility Uncertainty Complexity Ambiguity  

Level  3,  IBM  Tower  60  City  Rd,  Southbank  VIC  3006  

www.vucaconcepts.com.au  

The  accompanying  slides  show  the  four  domains  of  the  Cynefin  framework.    They  also  borrow  from  the  ‘Lock  &  Key’  metaphor  introduced  recently  by  Dr  Ali  Anani  on  the  LinkedIn  ‘Complexity  in  Organisa7ons’  group.        

As  noted  by  Ali,  many  people  find  it  difficult  to  understand  the  implicaLons  flowing  from  these  four    

problem  arenas.        

I  offer  for  consideraLon  this  extension  of  the  metaphor.  

SIMPLE  CHAOTIC  

COMPLICATED  COMPLEX  

THE  FOUR  CYNEFIN  DOMAINS  

Entry  in  the  company  SOP  Manual  

This  key  can  be  found  hanging  on  the  back  of  the  canteen  door…  

It  opens  the  red  &  black  lock  to  the  

pantry…  

SIMPLE  

I  suggest  that  the  Simple  and  Chao,c  domains,  as  presented  below,  speak  for  themselves.  

CHAOTIC  

“The  building  is  on  fire.  All  these  doors  are  locked  and  we  have  no  

keys.”  

COMPLICATED  

“I’ve  lost  the  key  for  this  lock.  It  was  the  only  key  we  had,  and  the  lock  is  a  technically  very  complicated  mechanism.    What  are  we  going  to  do?”  

Regarding  the  Complicated,  my  explanaLon  is  as  follows:  

“While  none  of  us  present  may  know  how  to  deal  with  the  situa7on  at  hand,  a  professional  locksmith  will  get  it  open.    Let’s  call  one!”  

“Can  someone  please  open  all  these  locks.    The  right  keys  are  somewhere  in  these  four  bunches!”  

COMPLEX   On  the  face  of  it  this  looks  like  a  very  messy  situaLon,  which  it  is  –  certainly  if  we  mulLplied  the  number  of  locks  and  key  bunches  by  an  order,  say,  of  10.  

But,  applying  good  Complexity  Management  prac7ce,  we  ask  the  ques7on:  “Are  there  any  paIerns  discernible  here”?      

On  further  probing,  we  discover  the  following:  1.     There  are  three  different  lock  colours.  2.     Some  of  the  locks  are  hanging  upside  down  (for  whatever  reason).  3.     On  examining  the  four  bunches  of  keys  we  discover  that  each  individual  key  is  numbered.  4.     On  further  inves7ga7on  we  discover  that  all  the  locks  with  numbers  beginning  with  the  digit  1  open  all  the  yellow  locks;  those  beginning  with  3  open  all  the  purple  ones;  those  beginning  with  9  open  the  red-­‐black  locks;  those  beginning  with  the  two  digit-­‐sequence  3-­‐2  open  all  upside  down  locks,  irrespec7ve  of  colour!  

My  explanaVon:  

Discovering  these  paXerns  will  help  us  progressively  tame  the  ‘wickedness’  of  the  complex  problem!  

Volatility Uncertainty Complexity Ambiguity  

Level  3,  IBM  Tower  60  City  Rd,  Southbank  VIC  3006  

www.vucaconcepts.com.au  

HOPE  THESE  THOUGHTS  HELP  YOU  IN  UNRAVELLING  THE  COMPLEXITY  OF    

‘COMPLEXITY’.  

Robert robert.flynn@vucaconcepts.com.au