Enterprise-architecture, business-architecture and business in general:

• tetradian: <post> ‘And more ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps’ (’beyond-Cynefin’ series) http://bit.ly/bakmLF #entarch #itarch #km
• SAlhir: Symbiosis, “mutually beneficial association of two different organisms”, fosters win-win interdependence #tlcc // agreement = mutual understanding; alignment = mutual orientation (toward something else, perhaps a broader cause) #tlcc
• bartleeten: RT @aleksb6: Business/IT Alignment Anti-Patterns:  Is Business/IT Unity a Myth?   http://bit.ly/90ZLge #cio #ceo #entarch
• josvanoosten: RT @dhinchcliffe: RT @rossdawson Wired cover story: The Future of Money: It’s Flexible, Frictionless and (Almost) Free http://bit.ly/9Ltq8x <assumes money-based transactions will continue to exist, in almost exactly the same form – very ‘inside the box’ thinking…
• SAlhir: Art-Advantage (Taoist vs. Western view) [Kaihan Krippendorff]: Mental model for “change” has a powerful impact on our actions. // Dissecting/modifying mental models for “change” impacts competitiveness.// Present events are determined by other present events (not past events). // Time is cyclical (not linear). // Change occurs continuously (not between events) // A reasonable planning time frame is up to 100 years (not up to 10 years). // Objective is to win as many as possible “wars” (not this “war”)
• oscarberg: Trust is the fuel for any enterprise. Trust in your purpose, trust in your peers, trust in yourself. <central to #entarch
• tetradian: Kevin Smith’s Pragmatic EA Framework v2 has been released http://www.pragmaticea.com/ – non-IT-centric view of #entarch
• unorder: Strategy’s dirty little secret. There’s a tenuous link between a great strategy and top performance. Better to have a good strategy well executed
• oscarberg: Blogged: Control is waste & trust drives value creation http://goo.gl/fb/pYHf <agree – crucial for #entarch #bizarch
• tetradian: <post> ‘More on meta-methodology’ (for @Cybersal @pauljansen) http://bit.ly/c55fiU #entarch #bizarch #skills #quality
• rettema: Information has gone from scarce to superabundant. Article in the Economist http://ow.ly/1cEV9 <implications for #entarch?
• davidcushman: Time to end the failed experiment of advertising http://bit.ly/9a9XP9 <useful presentation on new media and the increasing failure of classic advertising model
• greblhad: Nice read on architecture and design http://bit.ly/bGvabh (PDF)
• greblhad: Developing enterprises are like raising children a method successful at one instance may be recipe for disaster at the next
• modera6072: Thanks @SeanToohey – Facebook Strategy: Move Fast And Break Things! – http://bit.ly/aprmKd – you never make great things using best practice <another ‘business anarchist’ theme
• SAlhir: (via @jorgebarba @ralph_ohr) Practice of Breakthrough Strategies by Design (PDF) http://bit.ly/cgCZEx #designthinking #strategy
• toddbiske: EA is not the Center of the Universe http://bit.ly/dcVcVG #burtongroup <interesting and useful definition of EA by Mike Rollings – “a planning, optimization and design discipline that is fundamentally based on the identification of dependencies, implications and constraints”
• jdevoo: Applying memetics in the context of #VSM S3 http://bit.ly/aAcPR6 – are there other examples of applying SDi in S2? <points to a long, detailed and somewhat technical article by my former colleague Peter Hayward, cross-linking Beer’s VSM to Spiral Dynamics
• jdevoo: RT @designthinkers: which comes first? culture or business model http://tinyurl.com/yky34o8 me [JdV]: business model, people, culture and iterate. <”culture=strategy” #entarch #bizarch
• tetradian: <post> ‘tinc – a Temporary Inconvenience’ http://bit.ly/9HYLAF <about a name for a framework that isn’t a framework that I’m not allowed to name
• oscarberg: Governance always seems to be about control, but the other side of governance is about empowering people to make decisions
• tetradian: .oscarberg: “Governance about control .. [vs] .. empowering people to make decisions” – also trade-off b/w risk-mgmt vs opportunity-mgmt
• joyce_hostyn: Patagonia is driven by #storytelling – the anecdote to logic http://bit.ly/cNcMMK <good summary of its high-level #entarch
• thoughttrans: RT @flyingspatula: Embrace change – it’s coming whether you like it or not. Participate in change or get swept up in it. <a nice ‘business-anarchist’ sentiment!
• tetradian: <post> ‘Two Cryptic conversations’ (with thanks to @chrisdpotts @Cybersal) http://bit.ly/d5ULIY #entarch #bizarch
• chrisdpotts: A tactical challenge for go-ahead Enterprise Architects: a corp strategy review by external orgn that’s off the pace with EA evolution // Reminded of a CIO I worked with to re-educate a corp strategy firm who were proposing a Gen 1 strategy for IT to a Gen 3 enterprise
• (via oscarberg): RT @elsua: When Command and Control needs to become Engage and Support http://www.elsua.net/2010/03/03/when-command-and-control-needs-to-become-engage-and-support/
• business_design: RT @sgblank: Perfection By Subtraction – The Minimum Feature Set: http://wp.me/prGQZ-1ki <applies to orgs too #entarch
• SAlhir: RT @ViRAms: Why complex systems do better without us [NewScientist 2008] http://bit.ly/cGSX4P <finding simple ‘rules’ that underpin complex-system behaviours
• tetradian: <post> ‘Notes on ‘The Business Anarchist” http://bit.ly/cMOYoM #entarch #bizarch (for @adrianrcampbell @kdierc @AussiMike @thoughttrans )
• JohnPolgreen: RT @mcgoverntheory Human communities are based on discourse – human speech about human concerns <v imp for #entarch #TOGAF
• JohnPolgreen: RT @mcgoverntheory Tell a Story, connect a Tribe, Lead a Movement and Make Change. #EntArch does first 2 while ignoring latter. < So true!
• modera6072: When customers pay for intangibles like ‘peace of mind’ the perceived value is perishable if: its a hassle, there are errors, or trust lost!
• tetradian: <post> ‘Non-functional elements in enterprise-architecture’ http://bit.ly/cwqava #entarch #bizarch #in (for @krismeukens)
• aojensen: Whitehouse.gov/OMB links directly to (F)EA: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/e-gov/fea/ #entarch
• business_design: RT @HastingsCJ: @business_design talk on designing business for ‘base of the pyramid’ w/ your work http://bit.ly/bLYmCe
• thoughttrans: RT @mcgoverntheory: Customers don’t care what department you’re in they just want their problem fixed. How many EAs have ever supported a customer? #entarch
• 5Di: 5Di Limited opens it’s doors for business on Monday 8th March 2010 – please come and see us here: http://bit.ly/cQUefl <new venture for VPEC-T originator Nigel Green

Narrative-knowledge, knowledge-management and in-person collaboration:

• unorder: Anecdote: For job hunters—finding and telling better stories http://retwt.me/1wNgK <useful – see also comments at end #story
• bartleeten: Consulting doesn’t work any more. We need to reinvent it. http://icio.us/mezrvz <great insight from @pevansgreenwood
• DavidGurteen: Show me the change http://bit.ly/dnUYrF <see the slidedeck at end – v.good summary of conditions for engagement in change
• oscarberg: RT @radinclusion: Lack of collaboration in a complex organization as a root course for Toyota’s recent crisis http://bit.ly/bpTVlp (via @DrAlisonEyring)
• oscarberg: RT @deb_lavoy: my blog – is collaboration enough to connect the dots? http://bit.ly/bPt4ix > great post, very concrete
• oscarberg: RT @EskoKilpi: A new post on bridging the gap between knowing and acting http://bit.ly/7M3K2J > another excellent post

Social-media, ‘Enterprise 2.0’ and on-line collaboration:

• enterprisearchs: RT @Manoj_Pawar: Not Your Old-School Systems Thinking: Using New Media to Learn by Play http://j.mp/c7g5Ti /via @janicemolloy <education -cross-disciplinary thinking #lenscraft
• davidcushman: RT @stoweboyd: Privacy Is Old http://sto.ly/cX6Ce7 and doesn’t work <questionable but interesting
• oscarberg: The greatest obstacle to creating value with #e20 is that it requires radical changes to how many businesses are managed // If #e20 is to succeed, we must show that it is as easy to build trust in people as it is to control them <same for #entarch
• oscarberg: Enterprise 2.0 : the end of office politics? by @ceciiil http://kuex.us/826f
• oscarberg: RT @lindegaard: Why A Networking Culture Matters: http://bit.ly/aKN6Lx – open innovation requires strong networking culture
• Cybersal: reading e-skills manifesto  http://bit.ly/b2gLug (via @PaulCoby)
• oscarberg: RT @ITSinsider: collecting fresh data from members: lower costs are still not a driver for #e20. http://yfrog.com/5mudkp <i.e. ‘efficiency’ alone is not significant – overall effectiveness is the goal here
• oscarberg: RT @aponcier: How to Make Remote Team Collaboration Work http://bit.ly/9K3sXI via @dhinchcliffe > Great practical advice <nice first-hand worked-example

Miscellaneous technical-architecture stuff:

• BillIves: IBM’s Data-Sifting Shortcut http://bit.ly/bJ91Y6 Forbes <using a complexity approach to simplify massive complication (can reduce compute-time for huge data-sets by a factor of 100 or more)
• rettema: Symbol that signifies authentic trust relationships between the producers and adopters of open-system components http://twurl.nl/00ntof
• MBoskovic: Model driven! Yeah right! Stuck with merging hundreds of different configurations – Where’s too much freedom, chaos might prevail! <perils of detail-level #itarch
• (via tebbo) Bill Buxton: ‘Multi-Touch Systems that I Have Known and Loved’ http://bit.ly/t1JFb – great historical summary back to pre-1972
• joyce_hostyn: improve service experiences through design – Brief Guide to Service Design http://bit.ly/c8csWz via @IATV

Miscellaneous general-tech stuff:

• adelyannis: RT @dromescu Looking at Pivotal Tracker, a “simple story-based project planning tool” http://is.gd/9mQp6 Very interesting /v @IATV <free online collaborative tool
• davidriveroll: Track down your stolen (or lost) laptop – Prey http://bit.ly/F2UH4 <opensource, free – any comments on this? http://preyproject.com/
• unorder: Etherpad is my favourite realtime collaborative writing tool http://etherpad.com/ <very nice, but EtherPad has just been bought by Google, with serious doubts to its future: alternatives include http://collabedit.com/ and http://writeboard.com/ (the latter possibly quite a bit better, given 37signals’ track-record)
• jdevoo: RT @MobBase: @jdevoo have you checked out http://mobbase.com to make your iPhone app? <interesting – would presumably work with iPad too (demo is aimed at music-bands, but would apply easily to other ‘fan-base’ contexts such as writers and presenters)

Society, culture, business-social-responsibility and cultural matters generally:

• ChristineArena: What are most companies doing sustainability-wise? @gfriend says: “not enough.” http://3blmedia.com/CSRreport/5185 #csr <also describes detailed business-case for sustainability
• jdevoo: Interesting deck covering GRI and ISO26000 with high-level mapping <pdf> http://bit.ly/bnxX6Y #csr
• thoughttrans: Article: Promises and Commitments #in http://is.gd/6FLNi How are you remembered? #parrotology <what engagement looks like – useful checklist
• business_design: Perspectives RT @jnovogratz: Wonderful, thoughtful read by @AlanMWebber on change happening beneath the surface in the US http://ow.ly/1e8HO
• noreenahertz: Call for women to connect on cyberspace.Together we can address power, economic & domestic imbalances <”oh no, not again…” – when will women finally ‘get it’ that such female-centric assumptions are rampant sexism?
• jdevoo: RT @davidcoethica: Great idea! RT @adamwerbach: Brazil’s Vending machines for good.[video] http://bit.ly/df90kZ #csr
• ChristineArena: Nice book review [of CA's 'High Purpose Company'] http://3bl.me/yfzswg

A nice place to gather together all the stuff that doesn’t really go elsewhere:

• SAlhir: RT @VenessaMiemis: No One Knows What the F*** They’re Doing (or “The 3 Types of Knowledge”) http://ow.ly/177Bl via @superkiy <aka ‘Why it’s better to feel a fraud than pretend you know everything’ – nicely ironic, and accurate
• davidcushman: RT @neilperkin: Dead Fish: ‘Experience vs Memory’ … http://bit.ly/c9Dxfe <points to TED talk on experience-in-the-moment vs memory-of-experience
• oscarberg: RT @jhagel: Don’t confuse passion with obsession http://bit.ly/cYTqXV > interesting reading <insightful – and challenging…
• oscarberg: Old time-mgmt advice still relevant: “Find your creative/thinking time. Defend it ruthlessly, spend it alone, maybe at home”
• agueeva: Popular Science magazine has scanned every issue they’ve ever produced, and posted at their website, at no charge http://bit.ly/9vyCcb

We seem to be iterating steadily towards a full description of what I’ve termed context-space mapping (as a more permanent name than the temporary label ‘tinc‘). For example, there’s been some very useful discussion on the previous post, especially by enterprise-architects Paul Jansen and Sally Bean. Paul Jansen followed this up with another Tweet:

@tetradian May the ‘chaotic approach’ be the key to #tinc? http://bit.ly/amJa1o

In fact this leads to what is probably the fundamental difference between twf and context-space mapping (aka tinc): the role of the Chaotic domain. This particularly applies in terms of the respective views of repeatability within the context.

In the hope of preventing yet more repercussions, I won’t say anything about twf’s approach at this point, other than to express my opinion that, in the terms of context-space mapping, its focus is primarily on the Complex domain, which in turn leads to an emphasis on contexts that are ‘partly-repeatable’ in highly complex ‘unordered’ ways.

Context-space mapping, however, needs to cover all repeatability-types. As twf’s proponent indicates, the Simple domain of presumed-repeatability is covered by Taylorism et al.; the Complicated domain of analysed-repeatability by hard-Systems Thinking and the like; and the Complex by twf and so on. But there’s so far been little or nothing to cover the Chaotic domain of ‘barely-repeatable’ events and processes. So in practice it’s likely that that’s where whole-of-scope techniques such as context-space mapping will have the most impact.

The central theme in the Chaotic domain of practice is low- to zero-repeatability: some part(s) of the practice cannot be repeated, either because the conditions have changed – including the awareness and experience of the person doing the work. Conventional ’scientific-analysis’ approaches (Complicated-domain) rely on repeatability, so they’re actually not all that much use in the Chaotic components of any real-world task – in fact will often be misleading because they provide an illusion of predictability. In a way, the same is true of many Complex-domain techniques: they give us a much more reliable picture of an overall uncertain context, but we can’t reliably apply that in reverse to tell us what to do for a specific ‘market-of-one’, such as a specific medical diagnosis.

Ability to engage appropriately in the Chaotic-domain in this sense is almost a definition of skill. It’s also a key component of almost all knowledge-work – which is why this concern is coming much more to the fore, as knowledge-work becomes an increasingly important part of the overall economy.

At the business-process level, one of the key figures is Sigurd Rinde, whose concept of ‘barely-repeatable processes’ is the focus for his Thingamy business-process-execution software. The whole point of Thingamy is that the processes themselves are made up as they go along, by the people doing the work, expressing and applying their expertise. Underneath this, however, is a consistent Simple structure that records every decision, every artefact, every transfer of responsibility – which makes it possible to create any required reports from the process, including conventional statistical analysis. The result is nicely summarised on Sig’s other website, 30megs.com – so-called from his tag-line “Here’s 30 Megs. Now go run Germany”, which in principle is entirely feasible with this kind of decision-support/decision-tracking software. Sig is not alone in this, of course – for example, Stafford Beer developed something similar that in effect ran the entire economy of Chile for a while, way back in the early 1970s – but Thingamy is probably the best example of a software package available today that is designed for true Chaotic-domain processes.

Context-space mapping is part of what needs to happen before we settle on any technique or tool such as Thingamy. It’s about mapping the options available to us, and the decisions that we make within ’solution-space’, as part of an overall process of sensemaking in order to arrive at appropriate actions for the context. One of the key points in this is an awareness that we are part of the context, part of the ’solution’: in the classic Chaotic-domain sense, there is a boundary, and there is no boundary, always in the same moment.

We always start from ‘reality’ – that which in twf is termed the ‘disorder’ domain. (Everything does in fact take place within that domain: any purported subdivisions – such as Simple, Chaotic and suchlike – are sensemaking-abstractions that we place onto that domain, but are not actually ‘real’ as such.) From there, we would move into some kind of recursive OODA loop (Observe/Orient/Decide/Act), where sensemaking itself forms one or more of the earliest iterations. In those terms, context-space mapping would typically proceed as follows:

• Observe: What is ‘the context’ here?
• Orient: How do I make sense of what I’m seeing?
  1. What parts of the context appear to be unique (Chaotic), unordered or ‘wicked-problem’ (Complex), complicated but repeatable (Complicated) or universal (Simple)? Using that categorisation, map out the ‘problem-space’.
  2. Given that categorisation, what cross-maps would be useful for sensemaking?
     Note: There are an infinite number of cross-maps that could be used: some examples shown in this series include:
     • here: repeatability and action-tactics; domains and tetradian asset-dimensions; time versus focus; Jungian domains
     • here: twf tactics and types of practice; timescale versus ‘bindedness’; development of embodied ‘best-practice’
     • here: repeatability and ‘truth’; marketing versus sales; the ‘plan / do / check / act’ cycle
     • here: ISO-9000 quality-model; skill-levels; automated versus manual processes; asset-types; data, information, knowledge, wisdom
     • here: cause/effect relationships; decision-mode, timescale and level of abstraction
     • here: nature of boundaries between domains
     • here: phases of matter
  3. Using the categorisations from the cross-maps, what available tools and techniques are ’situated’ in what regions of the maps’ ’solution-space’? What can we learn from this?
• Decide: Given what I have learned from sensemaking, what should be my ‘action-plan’?
  1. Select from the available tools/techniques.
  2. Decide on a plan as to how, why, when, where, by whom, with what, and in what order each of the selected tools or techniques should be used.
• Act:  What am I doing as I am doing, and what do I see as I am doing?
  1. Enact the desired action.
  2. Apply the same overall OODA-loop to the action taken – recursively, where appropriate – for review, further sensemaking, decision and action.
• Repeat as appropriate.

(Some people might suggest that this kind of OODA-loop fits more within a twf-style Complex-domain mode than Chaotic-domain. True, there are important similarities, such as the shared focus on ‘unorder’ versus the Complicated/Simple notion of ‘order’. But the key distinction is that this acts on a single, individual, specific context rather than a Complex-domain collective – and is often also much closer to real-time than most Complex-domain decision-making.)

The above is a start towards how we would use context-space mapping, anyway. I’ll leave it there for now: any constructive comments, ideas and suggestions would be most welcome, as usual – over to you?

Previous posts in this series:

• Complexity, chaos and enterprise-architecture
• More on chaos and Cynefin
• Alternatives to the ‘Cynefin’ term, please?
• Solution-space: beyond Cynefin?
• On meta-methodology
• Using ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps
• More ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps
• And more ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps
• More on meta-methodology
• ‘tinc’ – a Temporary Inconvenience
• Context-space mapping and enterprise-architecture

Related:

• ‘Two Cryptic conversations‘

I couldn’t agree more with your post last month on “Architecture is non-functional“, and appreciated it very much.

However, the case is most often made for “system” architecture. With the right arguments – as also my experience has proven – that case can be made convincing to business people. But as soon as one tries to translate the same case to the less tangible “enterprise” architecture, I have been experiencing a lot more difficulty, although I am convinced it translates well.

I was wondering if you have any thoughts on this and/or you could help me on this one, which I consider pretty fundamental to enterprise architecture.

There are at least two different ways you could use to tackle this, depending on the context and who you’re talking with.

One is to take the same approach as Richard Veryard describes in his blog-post on ‘So-Called Non-Functional Requirements‘. In IT architecture, the functions are often relatively straightforward, and wouldn’t change all that much between different implementations. But some of the ‘non-functional’ requirements can demand huge differences in system-design, and will themselves demand different supporting-functionality: consider a system for a low-security context (store-directory for a shopping-mall) compared to a high-security-context (funds-transfer in ATM in a shopping-mall), or a low-bandwidth informational system versus high-bandwidth transactional system versus medical-imaging system for use in remote conditions with unreliable power-supplies. As Richard says:

The architect needs to worry about those ['non-functional'] requirements that have major structural implications, and can mostly leave the functional requirements to the business analysts and developers.

So the same applies to an organisation: it’s relatively easy to plug in new functionality or features into organisation-level systems (which is why projects so often suffer from ’scope-creep’ or even rampant ‘feature-itis’), but changes to ‘non-functional’ themes such as safety, quality, environmental management and interpersonal communication may well demand a fundamental re-think right the way through the entire organisation. In effect, the ‘non-functional’ determines much if not most of the ‘functional’ – especially when we take it right up to the whole-of-enterprise level and view the overall vision and values of the extended-enterprise as the foundational ‘non-functional requirements’ for the business as a whole.

Hence the second approach to this, which is to draw a distinction between organisation and enterprise.

The crucial distinction is that an organisation is bounded by rules and responsibilities, whereas an enterprise is bounded by shared commitment – in effect, by principles and values.

Each organisation exists within the scope of a broader ‘extended-enterprise’: its suppliers, partners, customers, prospects, overall environment and so on. (For more on that, see ‘What is an enterprise?‘) Without that relationship between organisation and enterprise, the organisation literally has no purpose: or, to put it the other way round, the enterprise is the organisation’s purpose. Which, in terms of what we’re discussing here, means that the foundational ‘non-functional requirements’ for an organisation are defined by its enclosing enterprise.

We then link that back to Richard Veryard’s point, that the ‘non-functional’ requirements create more fundamental demands than the ‘functional’ ones.

To do this, we first need to note that organisations form natural hierarchies, and likewise enterprises also form their own natural hierarchies. (Enterprises actually form intersecting ‘communities of interest’, or ‘communities of commitment’, and occasionally organisations do so too; but for these purposes it’s easier to think of them as simple nested hierarchies.) For example, ‘the business’ is often viewed as a single ‘the organisation’, encompassing a structure of business-units consisting of departments made up of sub-departments which consist of work-teams and so on, each with their own explicit rules and responsibilities. And sometimes the boundaries of an enterprise will coincide with an organisation-boundary: for example, each of those ’sub-organisations’ is also an enterprise in its own right – a ‘community of commitment’.

Hence the somewhat misleading notion that ‘the organisation’ is also ‘the enterprise’. It’s misleading because of that point above: the foundational requirements for an organisation (whole-organisation, business-unit, department, work-team etc – whatever its level in the business-hierarchy) are defined by the enclosing enterprise for the respective organisation – not by the organisation itself. If ‘the enterprise’ has the same boundaries as ‘the organisation’, the foundational requirements in effect become self-referential – literally detached from the outside world. Which is not a good idea…

[Update: the term 'Step' below may be misleading, especially for some non-native English speakers - my apologies. Here it's not a step within a process, for example, but means a pace or step outward from the boundary of the organisation. If in doubt, use 'Layer' as an alternative to 'Step'.]

In practice the foundational requirements need to be drawn from an enterprise at least three steps larger than the organisation in scope:

• Step 1: partners and suppliers, including outsource and contract relationships
• Step 2: clients and prospects, including ex-clients and anti-clients
• Step 3: non-clients and community, including government and broader environment

Again, these are nested – so for an IT department, for example, Step 1 might include HR, equipment providers and outsourced help-desk, Step 2 would be the business-contacts, project-managers and general users of the department’s services, and Step 3 would include overall business policy and governance. In a production environment, Step 1 is the incoming side of the immediate supply-chain, Step 2 is the outgoing side and the schedulers, and Step 3 is production policy. At the whole-organisation level, the steps are as described above: partners and suppliers, clients and prospects, and non-clients and community.

Step 1 largely defines your costs; Step 2 largely defines your income. The relationships between them are relatively simple to model – such as with the Business Model Canvas. Hence many business-planners stop there, because those transactions do make straightforward business sense: but that’s a dangerous mistake, because as you’ll see from each of the examples above, governing policy is primarily derived from the commitments and values of Step 3 – not Steps 1 or 2.

In ISO-9000 terms, policy is derived from ‘vision’ – the guiding commitments, principles and values of the enclosing enterprise. In effect, policy is ‘non-functional requirements’ that determine response to change. And as ISO-9000 explains, it is indeed possible to run an organisation for a while without high-level guiding policy: but as soon as there’s any significant change, you’ll run that organisation straight into the ground – which, again, is not a good idea. So as enterprise architects, we need to understand and model all the way out to Step 3, in order to identify the overall requirements for the ’system’ of any type of ‘organisation’ at any level within the organisational hierarchy.

To summarise in perhaps over-simplified form:

• Step 0 (’the organisation’) is the boundary of the ’system’ in scope
• Step 1 (’partners and suppliers’) describes functional requirements for input-side for that system
• Step 2 (’clients and prospects’) describes functional requirements for output-side for that system
• Step 3 (’non-clients and community’) describes non-functional requirements for overall governance for that system

To paraphrase Richard Veryard again, we can mostly leave the functional requirements in Step 1 and Step 2 to the business analysts and developers; the architect needs to worry most about “those ['non-functional'] requirements that have major structural implications” that arise from Step 3.

So perhaps use this as a way to explain to others the criticality of ‘non-functional’ requirements at “the less tangible ‘enterprise’ level” – in other words, how far out we need to model ‘enterprise’ in order to identify the real requirements for ‘the enterprise’ that is the organisation as a whole.

Hope this is useful, anyway – and as usual, constructive comments / suggestions etc would be gratefully received!

Who or what is a ‘business-anarchist‘? Anyone who works with inherent uncertainty in business in an intentional, disciplined way – working with the uncertainty rather than trying to ‘control’ it. Often it’s not so much a person as part of a business-role – a necessary part of that business-role. (Most of the examples in the book will come from my own field of whole-of- enterprise architecture, but the same principles apply in just about every other type of business-role.)

Why ‘anarchist’? Anarchy is about working without rules, working ‘outside the box’. When ‘business as usual’ breaks down, a disciplined form of anarchy is probably the only way through to something new that works well in the new business context.

‘Kiddies-anarchy’ and real anarchy: Anarchy has had a very bad press in the past, mainly because of what I describe as ‘kiddies-anarchy’ – an overdose of presumed ‘rights’ without responsibilities, especially in terms of causing disruption and destruction without any awareness or respect of the consequences for anyone else. Real anarchy is very different – arguably the most difficult of all political forms, because there are no easy rules to fall back on or to blame. Some entire organisations have been run on anarchic lines – the Quakers have done so for centuries – and even some businesses – such as Ricardo Semler’s Semco Group – but here we’re mainly focussing on an often-unnoticed yet everyday set of roles and responsibilities within an ordinary, everyday type of business.

What kind of business? Any business, and any type of business – for-profit, not-for-profit, government or social – from a huge global conglomerate right down to the local bridge-club or the school parent/teacher association.

Business-analyst and business-anarchist: Business-analysts deal with certainty and predictability: they refine the figures, crunch the numbers, track the trends. When your business world is reasonably stable, you need your analysts to help you optimise efficiency and maximise returns. But when your business world is not certain, not predictable, that’s when you’ll need your anarchists. And you’ll need your anarchists then, too. Your analysts can only tell you how to do more of the same, better – which is good, of course, in its own context, but it doesn’t help when what you really need to do is something different.

What’s different about how business-anarchists work? The quickest one-line answer is that analysts rely on rules and algorithms; anarchists rely on guidelines and principles.

What principles should business-anarchists rely on? Obviously this varies from one context to another, but from my work in whole-of-enterprise architecture the three most important design-principles seem to be these:

• There are no rules;
• There are no rights; and
• Money doesn’t matter.

These three principles, and a fourth follow-on principle, Always enhance adaptability, provide the overall structure for the book.

There are no rules: Rules provide a spurious sense of certainty that can let us down badly when our business-world changes around us. The real world is much messier and more complex than any system of rules that we could devise. Hence at times it’s necessary to start off from the assumption and expectation that there are no rules: instead, we have to rewrite the rule-book, by working back to the core-principles from which the rules originally arose. A simple everyday business-example of this is embedded in the ISO-9000 standard on quality-systems:  work-instructions provide ‘the rules’ that we need for real-time practice and process, but when the world changes, we need to rewrite the work-instructions by working upward to procedure, policy and, if necessary, overall vision.

There are no rights: ‘Rights’ are an important social fiction, but as with rules, they don’t actually exist in the real world, and in themselves they tell us almost nothing about how to create the conditions that such ‘rights’ would require. In practice, apparent ‘rights’ arise from mutual, interlocking responsibilities – so it’s those responsibilities, and not the purported ‘rights’, that are where we need to start. This has important implications for business-architecture and enterprise-architecture that will be explored in some depth in the book – for example, we need to ask serious questions about “What do shareholders own?” if they possess all the ‘rights’ for the business but without any real responsibilities.

Money doesn’t matter: Money is important for every business, of course, especially in a commercial context – but as with rules or ‘rights’, it’s not the place where we need to start. Money is also only one small part of the overall economy in which the business operates: reputation, trust, attention and respect all need to exist before any money will be placed on the table. And if we state – or show – that we’re only interested in ‘making money’ from our customers and community, why would anyone want to engage with us? As with other ‘rights’, money is solely a social fiction, and profit is an outcome of being ‘on purpose’ to values: to achieve the profits that we may desire, we first need to start from values, with a values-architecture that describes how we engage with everyone within the extended-enterprise of the business.

Always enhance adaptability: Change is the only certainty: we therefore need to design for that fact. Mistaken notions about rules, rights and money often serve only to slow us down, placing the business at risk as the world changes around us. This sections of the book explores how to embed the ‘business-anarchist’ principles into everyday business-practice, especially in business-architecture and enterprise-architecture.

—

More details to follow over the next few days, including book-cover, cover-blurb, ISBN numbers and so on. Publication-date is fixed as late-April, so I need to keep moving!

This post represents yet another attempt to describe certain fundamental differences in approach from twf (aka ‘That Welsh Framework‘ – so-called because we’re no longer allowed to use its official name at all) and to find an alternative term that might reduce the ongoing friction in that quarter.

To do this, we need to go right back to first-principles: the core concept of context-space, which eventually leads us to context-space mapping.

(Another long-ish post: more after the ‘Read more…’ link.)

Before any notion of order or unorder, or even of disorder, there is simply ‘the everything’: everything and nothing, all one, everything and nothing connected to everything and nothing else, a place-that-is-no-place that incorporates within itself every possibility. It’s not ‘chaos’ – it simply is.

There are all manner of names for this ‘active no-thing-ness’: Lao Tse called it ‘the Tao’, for example, whilst the ancient Greeks described it as ‘the Void’. For the more business-oriented purpose of enterprise-architects, though, we’ll need to constrain the scope of this ‘the everything’ somewhat, and we’ll also need a more ‘business-like’ label. So let’s call it context-space – the holographic, bounded-yet-unbounded space that contains every possibility within the chosen context.

In previous posts I’ve split this context-space into problem-space – the context in which things happen – and solution-space – the space in which we decide what to do in relation to what’s happening. But ultimately there’s just the context: “the only true model of a system is the system itself”.

Yet to make sense of anything, we need to impose some kind of structure. One place to start would be to filter ‘the everything’ in terms of its variability. Perceived-repeatability is one example of a variability that we might use (which we’ll come back to in a moment), but there are of course many others.

Initially this gives us a finely-graded spectrum of variability. Yet interestingly, most human sensory-perception is not very good with smooth gradations: it works much better with firmer boundaries. Hence most sensemaking will usually attempt to place some kind of ordered structure upon what may initially seem like unbounded chaos.

When we look at the physical world, of matter and material, we can see both of these processes in action, even within matter itself. There is a fairly smooth gradation of variability, primarily linked to temperature; yet there are also explicit ‘phase-boundaries’ where the internal relationship of matter undergo fundamental changes. Significant amounts of energy (’latent heat’) can be absorbed or released in the ‘phase-transitions’ between these modes. In effect, these present as four distinct states of matter, traditionally described as Earth, Water, Air and Fire, for which the more scientific terms are respectively Solid, Liquid, Gas and Plasma.

Looking at the internal structures of matter within each of these states, we would typically describe the respective structural relationships as Simple, Complicated, Complex and Chaotic, as phases or domains within the context-space of matter. This categorisation along a single axis represents a simple first-order map of that context-space – hence context-space mapping.

Much the same applies to just about any other view into the overall context-space. If we take almost any type of gradation, we will be able to identify distinct phase-boundaries that can be used to partition the context-space into distinct regions along that axis: the nominal split of the visible-light spectrum into Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet is one such example. But perhaps the most useful split of all for enterprise-architecture and business-architecture is along an axis of repeatability, dividing the inherent uncertainty of context-space into regions that we could describe, in parallel with those states of matter, as Simple, Complicated, Complex and Chaotic.

Which brings us, unfortunately, into the same conceptual space as twf (That Welsh Framework) – though we’ve arrived there via what is, in very literal sense, a fundamentally-different route. And unlike twf, we can now see:

• how and why we’ve arrived at those particular categorisations
• how and why to use any specific axis for such categorisation
• what the boundaries between the ‘domains’ in the categorisation will look like
• how, why and when the nominally-Simple boundaries between categories may move (Complicated), blur (Complex) or fragment (Chaotic).

This provides a layered, recursive richness that is largely absent in twf. It also provides a means to link right across every possible view into context-space, rather than solely a specific set of interventions that focus primarily on a set of views into the Complex domain.

A first-order (single-axis) context-space map – such as the Simple-to-Chaotic ’stack’ – is not all that much use in practice. To make it more useful, we’ll need to add other axes as filters for sensemaking, to enable relevant information to fall out of the respective comparison. And we make it more useful again by selecting a related set of axes to provide a multi-dimensional base-map upon which other filters can be placed. (Two-dimensional base-maps are the easiest to work with, for obvious reasons, but three or more dimensions are entirely feasible – the tetradian is one example of a four-dimension frame compressed into three-dimensions for use as a base-map.) To do this, we choose axes which force the domains of the original single-axis spectrum into relationships of opposition and similarity with each other. For example, if we use ‘levels of abstraction’ as the core axis, and overlay that with timescale in one direction and a ‘value-versus-truth’ spectrum in the other, we arrive at the following base-map and its ‘cross-map’ of interpretive text-overlays:

Here Chaotic and Simple are in opposition over their means of interpretation, but similar in terms of timescale; Chaotic and Complex are similar in their means of interpretation, but opposites in terms of timescale; Simple and Complex, and Complicated and Chaotic, oppose each other on both axes; yet all domains are related in terms of layers of abstraction. The central region (’reality’) is essentially a reminder that the domains represent related yet arbitrary views into what is actually the total ‘hologram’ of context-space – everything else is actually an abstraction from the real.

We then layer this recursively to apply to the nominal boundaries between each of the domains, so that these too may be considered to be fixed, movable, porous or fragmented or transient. An axis based on a simple binary true/false categorisation (in other words, a Simple boundary) will split the the context-space into two domains along that axis; if both overlay-axes have relatively-Simple categorisations (or movable two-part categorisations, in Complicated style), the overall context-space is split into four regions – which aligns well with the ‘matter’-type categorisation of Simple, Complicated, Complex and Chaotic. Likewise a smooth gradation along both axes pushes the context-space into four regions with Complex or even Chaotic boundaries between them.

Because of this,  a four-region base-map is likely to be the most common and most useful two-dimensional type – hence, we may note, the twf is often shown paired with two-axis overlays. But other layouts are possible and sometimes useful: for example, a pair of tri-value  axes would typically be used to align an eight- or nine-domain primary axis, such as seven-colour plus infra-red and ultra-violet.

The result is a consistent structure for base-maps that are simultaneously bounded and not-bounded, and that describe the whole of a context-space by structured views into that context-space that also acknowledge that the context-space ultimately has no actual structure. Hence the importance and validity of the assertion that even though twf is often shown paired with two-axis overlays, it is not solely a two-axis matrix. The other point, though, is that this indicates that twf is merely one instantiation (or set of instantiations, rather) of a generic class of context-space mappings that has been around and in general use for a lot longer than twf itself.

Hence to avoid further clashes with twf, I suggest that in future we use the generic term context-space mappings to denote base-maps and derivatives that use this type of structure.

Once we’ve cleared that particular road-block, we should be free to concentrate more on practical applications of context-space mapping for whole-of-enterprise architecture, but I’ll leave it there for now. As usual, any constructive comments, ideas and suggestions would be most welcome – over to you, if you would?

Previous posts in this series:

• ‘Complexity, chaos and enterprise-architecture‘
• ‘More on chaos and Cynefin‘
• ‘Alternatives to the ‘Cynefin’ term, please?‘
• ‘Solution-space: beyond Cynefin?‘
• ‘On meta-methodology‘
• ‘Using ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps‘
• ‘More ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps‘
• ‘And more ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps‘
• ‘More on meta-methodology‘
• ‘‘tinc’ – a Temporary Inconvenience‘

Related:

• ‘Two Cryptic conversations‘

Anyway, two great conversations yesterday with Chris Potts and Sally Bean on enterprise-architecture and an assortment of other related topics. More details after the ‘Read more…’ link.

The starting-point for the conversation with Chris Potts was a straightforward-sounding question from one of his clients: can we use TOGAF 9, unmodified and in its standard form, to model not-IT technology such as trucks and assembly-lines. The short answer is no, we can’t – to make TOGAF work beyond IT, we have to modify it, sometimes in quite radical ways. We rambled for a while through the various options for doing this, such as described in my books ‘Bridging the Silos: enterprise-architecture for IT-architects‘ and ‘Doing Enterprise-Architecture: practice and process in the real enterprise‘.

We then turned to Chris’ recent work with John Gøtze and a group of EA (enterprise-architecture) students in Copenhagen. He’d come up with some really useful ways to challenge would-be EAs to make their work useful, by tackling genuine business-problems via modelling scenarios against specific financial-performance ratios. (As described on his website and in his book ‘FruITion: creating the ultimate corporate strategu for information technology‘, investment-strategy in relation  to IT and change is Chris’ main business-consultancy focus.) The slides also included some unusual yet really useful definitions:

Enterprise:
A bold or courageous undertaking
The ‘animal spirits’ of the entrepreneur

Architecture:
The art and science of designing structures
A style of structure

Enterprise architecture:
Discovering, investing in and successfully exploiting structural innovations

As Chris said in our conversation, it’s about the people exploiting the structures – not so much about the structures themselves.

As you’ll see here, one of the highlights of any conversation with Chris on enterprise-architecture is that so many of his views are so refreshingly different from the usual perspectives. For example, he argued that much of what purports to be ‘EA’ these days is little better than glorified asset-management: “architecture is about the structure, not redecorating the walls of the building or putting in new phone-lines”. He also often takes a fairly strict economics-oriented approach to enterprise-architectures, viewing ‘enterprise’ in terms of the classic three strands of economics: land, labour, and capital. Again, this is a fairly unusual approach – especially by comparison with those who still think that EA is solely about IT – but it’s definitely a useful and insightful line to explore.

We also talked briefly about the ‘experience economy’ – a term I hadn’t come across before, but makes immediate sense. As Chris explained:

People don’t appear in our business-processes
- we appear in their experiences

It’s a different, much more customer-centric view than the usual organisation-centred approach to architectures – especially business-architecture – and one that again seems valuable to explore further.

At this point Sally Bean arrived to join us. The conversation wandered a while around the topic of effectiveness, which to me is one of the most central themes in enterprise-architecture. As usual, Chris has a usefully different view on this: that effectiveness is actually part of a ratio:

efficiency = effectiveness / economy

‘Economy’ is the input, in essence a measure of cost, or cheapness; ‘effectiveness’ is a measure of good-ness, or fitness-for-purpose.

Chris had to go on to his next appointment, and Sally and I then turned to the planned topic for our own discussion, my recent work on meta-methodologies,  and the various cross-maps in the framework I’ve had to label temporarily as tinc, and that draw in very small part on one specific aspect of twf (aka ‘That Welsh Framework‘).

What became evident very quickly from the conversation was that whilst the notion of traversing through ’solution-space’ is fairly clear in my own mind, I haven’t yet described it anything like well enough for it to be clear to many of my colleagues. In short, whilst I may think I know ‘what it all means’, others often don’t: and it’s my responsibility – not theirs – to provide conditions under which it can be meaningful for them too. (So if those cross-maps still don’t make any sense to you, or if you think they are somehow supposedly some part of twf, my apologies – please accept that this is still only a work-in-progress?)

One of the problems is that all the layerings often provide multiple meanings for the same base-map – sometimes even within the same diagram – which provides plenty of opportunities for confusion. One example we looked at in the conversation was the cross-map using dimensions of time versus interpretation:

To me this is quite straightforward, but it wasn’t obvious to Sally, and judging from some comments from others it wasn’t obvious to them either. The point I’m trying to make here is this:

• The base-map tells us our range of choices when dealing with the real world (Simple, Complicated, Complex and Chaotic).
• The ”horizontal’ axis (’value’ vs ‘truth’) is a spectrum of interpretation, ranging from binary true/false in terms of predefined ‘objective truth’ at one end (extreme of Complicated/Simple) to almost completely subjective  and therefore necessarily principle-based at the other end (extreme of Chaotic/Complex).
• The ‘vertical’ axis (’infinity’ vs ‘now’) is a spectrum of time available for decision-making, ranging from apparently-infinite (such as we see in the Complicated-domain  ’analysis-paralysis’ and its Complex-domain equivalents) to a real-time ‘Now!‘ (where there may literally only be split-seconds in which to make an appropriate decision). (In the physics-ish terms I used in the ‘More on meta-methodology‘ post, the act of deciding what action to take ‘collapses the wave-function’ in solution-space’.)
• What this really tells us that Complex-domain experiments and Complicated-domain analysis are a kind of ‘luxury’ that depend on time being available for prolonged decision-making. Conversely, the closer we get to real-time action, the more we’re forced into a narrow band where we have to keep things very simple: follow the rules, or follow the principles, with no time for anything more elaborate than that. In that sense the Chaotic-domain and Simple-domain have strong similarities – in decision-making terms, the main difference between them is the extent to which the decision is ’subjective’ (’value’-based) or ‘objective’ (’truth’-based).

Given this, we then need to work out which of those approaches is most appropriate for the context. To do this, we again use the base-frame, but this time in its consistent usage to map degrees of repeatability in the underlying ‘problem-space’. For example, lower apparent repeatability places us in the Complex or Chaotic domain for decision-making (i.e. ‘value’-based decisions), whilst high apparent repeatability places us in the Complicated/Simple pairing (i.e. ‘truth’-based decisions). Low repeatability and limited time (i.e. Chaotic domain) means that we must have appropriate principles in place to guide real-time decision-making – which we would typically derive from experiments in the Complex-domain. Limited time but high-repeatability (i.e. Simple domain) depends on the availability of appropriate rules – as in ISO9000-style ‘work-instructions’ – that would typically be derived from Complicated-domain analysis. The combination of repeatability (in the problem-space) and the  ’compression’ of the time available for decision-making (in ’solution-space’) is what forces this fairly straightforward split in decision-making choices.

As part of her own response to this explanation, Sally came up with a really useful cross-map of her own, about boundaries between the domains themselves:

• Simple: the boundaries between the domains are fixed, explicit, and absolute (either/or)
• Complicated: the boundaries between the domains are explicit and absolute, but can move somewhat along each axis (as in the way that IT can make analytic decision-making faster, and hence ‘closer’ to real-time)
• Complex: the boundaries between the domains may blur (such as where one or both of the axes are a both/and spectrum rather than a strict either/or distinction)
• Chaotic: there are boundaries, and there are no boundaries, all in the same moment

We also spent a fair bit of time going through the work I’ve done recently on extending enterprise-architecture right out to the whole ‘market space’, including ex-clients, anti-clients and the broader community. Each business actually operates not only within the transaction/money economy – usually mistakenly referred to as ‘the economy’ – but within an overall market-place of transactions, conversations, relationships and meaning that are expressed in three interlinked economies: transaction/money, attention/respect, and reputation/trust. In a mature market, there’s a clear sequence of dependency:

reputation -> trust -> respect -> attention -> transaction -> money -> profit

Bizarrely, far too many businesses seem to try to run all of this the wrong way round, starting from the notion that profit is the only important factor in this sequence, and expecting that all the preceding factors will follow. Many ‘business strategists’, it seems, barely manage to get as far understanding what part attention plays in all of this, let alone everything else that comes before it.

To me that attitude is madness – a guarantee of business-suicide in the medium- to longer-term – which is why I’ve pushing so hard for awareness of a ‘whole-of-enterprise’ view in enterprise-architecture. Sally made it clear, though, that even a conventional business-architecture is probably too far beyond most of her clients’ grasp at present; what I’m presenting here, whilst valid, is far too ‘way out’ to have much chance to make much sense to anyone other than a fairly small subset of the enterprise-architecture discipline.. Oh well. Once again, trying to get a workable idea out into the market, yet way before the market is ready for it: my perennial mistake, really…

—

Overall, a couple of great conversations with real thought-leaders in the field – I learnt a lot, and I hope this has been useful to you too.

Constructive comments and suggestions welcomed, as usual!

Various urgent online and in-person conversations have ensued. The only directly-meaningful name we came up with was ‘solution-space mapping‘, but several people have disagreed with that, and in any case there is already a well-established usage of the acronym ‘SSM’ in this context, namely Checkland et al’s Soft Systems Methodology.

There’s a long-standing software tradition of assigning arbitrary names as working-titles for projects. Someone suggested ‘Eric’, which was a name they’d used when developing an IT system for an airline, and which reminded me of a nonsense-phrase I’ve often used, that “anything unknown is called Fred”.

But even an arbitrary proper-name seems too concrete for something that is necessarily abstract and, as a name, necessarily temporary. We couldn’t think of any meaningful acronym, so we played with sounds for a while, until someone came up with this:

tinc

It’s the sound of the penny dropping, as someone ‘gets it’; the small bright sound that the imaginary light-bulb makes at the ‘Aha!’ moment in solution-space. A quick, recursive echo of a sound. And it’s also a contraction of what this name really is: a temporary inconvenience.

Since it’s clear we’re not even allowed to use the name of the framework that this isn’t in order to describe what it isn’t, we would have to apply the same process to give us a temporary name for that. So we might note that in Welsh the plosive sound ‘toof!’ would be spelt as twf, which should give us a relatively-safe acronym for That Welsh Framework. (’Twf‘ is also the name of the Welsh Language Board website, by the way – “Cymraeg o’r Crud, Two Languages from Day One”.)

So there we have it: tinc, for the framework, and twf, for the-framework-that-it-isn’t. A temporary inconvenience, but it’ll have to do for now.

Back to theory again – apologies… – following on from comments on the previous posts, especially ‘On meta-methodology‘.

The aim of this post is to try to create a bit more clarity around the notion of ‘problem-space’ versus ’solution-space’. To do this, I’ll draw on a variety of sources, ranging from dowsing to enterprise-architecture, Sigurd Rinde’s work on ‘barely-repeatable processes’, activity/response-models such as OODA and PDCA, and much more besides.

Will again be long, hence more after the ‘Read more…’ link.

Two key criticisms came up on the previous post on meta-methodology, as you’ll see in the comments. One was from Sally Bean:

One thing that does slightly jar with me in this particular posting, and elsewhere, is the use of the words problem and solution, which both suggest bounded spaces, when the reality is often much fuzzier, especially in the unordered domains. I strongly share the views that David Gurteen expressed in this recent comment on his website. http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/no-solutions. And of course, Ackoff used to talk about messes, rather than problems.

The other was from Paul Jansen:

I would like to ‘add a dimension’ (if you like) that I feel(!) is an intrinsic part of the quest at hand (meta-methodology). I speak of the relationship between the ‘interventionist’ and ‘the subject’. As it is with the inter effecting aspects of diagnosis and intervention, so it is at least equally true for the ‘performing artist’ and ‘his subject’ for either diagnosis or intervention. As the quote goes: “we find mostly what we look for”, and this is very true, it must be that the ‘consultant’ starts to effect the object of his attention immediately, a process which is part of what we should call ‘meta-context’.
[T]hat thought … has been lingering for some time now since a great deal of the interchanges so far seem to imply ‘no relationship whatsoever’ between the person doing the diagnosing and interventions and his ‘object’ of these.

To summarise, these are about the dangers of any purported separation between ‘problem’ and ’solution‘, and between ’subject/object’ and ‘observer’.

What I’m suggesting, I suppose, is that yes, those separations are artificial, but we do need them in order to able to respond appropriately within a given context (hence my re-framing of ‘responsibility’ as ‘response-ability’).

In essence, this is like the now fairly old physics-problem of “Is light waves or particles?”. The short answer is “Yes, therefore no”, which isn’t very helpful.  :-) In a science, this kind of inherent uncertainty can be a serious problem; but n a technology, we can choose to view light as waves, or as particles. Even though the two views are inherently incompatible at the quantum-level, both views are functionally ‘true’, therefore potentially useful: to use the physics-terminology of the time (Heisenberg? Schrodinger?), we “collapse the wave-function” according to perceived need. In other words, we use an artificial separation – though we do need to know and remember that the separation is not actually real.

John Boyd’s OODA (Observe / Orient / Decide / Act) model is useful here. The first phase is to observe what we see as ‘reality’. The catch here, as Paul Jansen implies above, is what I’ve elsewhere termed ‘Gooch’s Paradox’, after the psychologist Stan Gooch: “things have not only to be seen to be believed, but also have to be believed to be seen’. The result is that much of ‘observe / orient’ is an iterative process in itself, driven in part by culture, as John Boyd also notes, in a quote in the Wikipedia article on OODA:

The second O, orientation – as the repository of our genetic heritage, cultural tradition, and previous experiences – is the most important part of the O-O-D-A loop since it shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act.

This is one key reason why it’s important to provide a multiplicity of ‘views’ into the same nominal space. Some of these views will conflict – and the resulting ‘confusion’ should help to force us to observe more closely, not just the context, but also ourselves as part of that context. To use that previous terminology, we create a space within ourselves to prevent the ‘wave-function’ from collapsing prematurely.

So to adapt Shawn Callahan’s excellent video-summary of Cynefin, we could see the first stage of interpreting the ‘problem-space’ (i.e. ‘reality’) as a quick assessment of how cause/effect seems to work within the context:

And so on, with other views into ‘reality’, and how we perceive that ‘reality’. The process of interpreting ‘problem-space’ and deciding on an appropriate response takes place in what I’ve termed ’solution-space’ – in other words, the ‘Decide’ phase of the OODA loop, or, to use that physics terminology, the period whilst we hold the wave-function ‘uncollapsed’. All of the various cross-maps I’ve described in the previous posts [see the list of links at the end of this post] are tools that we might use within ’solution-space’. Overall, some of the key factors that I see in play within ’solution-space’ can be summarised in yet another cross-map:

Some of the choices we have are driven by the amount of time available before we have to commit to a decision (and subsequent action). The closer we get to real-time, the fewer options we have to reflect, experiment and analyse – which means, in effect, that we’re all but forced to choose between Chaotic or Simple. And if we’re not able to accept ‘chaos’ for what it is, we end up trying to ‘take control’ of something that, by definition, cannot be controlled. Which is not a good idea…

(This is the core of my disagreement with Dave Snowden and others around Cynefin: they’ve done amazing work on bringing the Complex domain closer towards real-time, but to me it still doesn’t seem to make any real use of the Chaotic domain in its own terms. Instead, as Shawn explains in the video, almost the only tactic offered is to ‘take immediate action’ to force it into another domain – which, in the real-time context, would necessarily push us toward the potentially-dangerous over-simplifications of the Simple domain.)

Another key point here is that every possible view of ‘reality’ – the ‘problem-space’ – is an abstraction. (One everyday example is that digital sound-recording is an abstraction of analogue – and there’s always some loss of potentially-important information within that process of abstraction. A long-established adage in systems-thinking is that the only complete model of a system is the system itself: everything else is an abstraction.) The Simple domain provides the most obvious extremes of abstraction; yet although the Chaotic domain is much closer to ‘reality’ in that sense, it’s still necessarily an abstraction of some kind.

In that sense, there can never be a perfect alignment between ‘problem-space’ and ’solution-space’ when we ‘collapse the wave-function’ in the decision immediately before action (and, recursively, in the decisions we take n the nested OODA loops within that action). In short, we never get it right.

The aim of recursive models such as OODA and PDCA is to allow us to iterate closer towards the ‘unachievable ideal’, either within the action (as in OODA) or over a series of actions (as in PDCA). What I’m aiming to do with this notion of ’solution-space’ is to provide a perhaps-better map of what actually happens within  those loops – in other words, to provide a means to map out the ‘orient / decide’ pathways.

Real complexity occurs whenever ’cause’ and ‘effect’ are interdependent – as they are in virtually every ecosystem – and/or whenever we touch a social context – frequently leading to ‘wicked problems‘.  It seems to me that the ‘mid-range’ of such complexity is already well-served  by tools such as Cynefin and the PDCA cycle; yet as with classic physics, those techniques seem to become less useful or usable as we move towards the far extremes:

• the ‘very small‘: a ‘quantum event’ of a single person applying a skill to a single (if sometimes nominally ongoing) real-world event – such as in dowsing, or in Sigurd Rinde’s concept of ‘barely-repeatable process’
• the ‘very large‘: a ‘cosmology’ of an entire conceptual ecosystem – such as in a whole-of-enterprise architecture that applies to the full lifecycle of an enterprise

The ‘run-away-to-another-domain’ tactic implicit here in Cynefin pushes us towards the Simple domain in both of these cases – either as overly-simplified real-time ‘rules’, or excessive large-scale abstractions. So how can we instead hold back against the inherent ‘panic’, and work with the inherent uncertainties of the Chaotic domain? That’s what I’m after here.

The set of ‘disciplines‘ that we described in ‘Disciplines of Dowsing‘ (pp.31-70 in the e-book version) provide one such summary for a specific class of Chaotic-domain skills (i.e. for use in inherently non-repeatable real-time contexts). As I’ve described in earlier posts, I’m also working similar sets for other contexts such as subjective-archaeology, but there’s a lot more that could be done in mainstream business with those same principles – such as sales, or maintenance, or anywhere else that has a high degree of non-repeatability. (Anyone who’s interested in working with me on this, please let me know! )

Right now I’m working more at the ‘very-large’ scale, such as whole-of-enterprise architecture – as documented in some of my books, such as ‘Doing Enterprise Architecture‘ and ‘The Service-Oriented Enterprise‘. The challenge there is not so much about rapid response (as it is in real-time skills) but in the sheer scale and scope of the contexts that need to be included, from the very small – individual details of individual processes – to the very large – interactions with an entire market and milieu over many decades.

In both cases it seems to me that the most important requirement is empathy – in other words, engagement with the context as itself and in its own terms, whilst also maintaining a clear sense of ’self’ so as to be able to move around within the ‘problem-space’ and ’solution-space’ before ‘collapsing the wave-function’ to make practical, real-world decisions. To keep it closer to the Chaotic domain of ’solution-space’, we need to emphasise the ‘values’ end of the ‘truth/values’ decision-making spectrum. Perhaps paradoxically, cross-maps such as those I’ve described in the previous posts seem to help at both of those two extremes of scale, by providing recursive real-time checklists for rapid decision-making, yet also with an inherent breadth and depth of scope that enables a naturally holistic overview of the entirety of a context.

That’s where I’ve come to so far with this, anyway. As usual, any constructive comments, ideas and suggestions would be most welcome – over to you on that?

Previous posts in this series:

• ‘Complexity, chaos and enterprise-architecture‘
• ‘More on chaos and Cynefin‘
• ‘Alternatives to the ‘Cynefin’ term, please?‘
• ‘Solution-space: beyond Cynefin?‘
• ‘On meta-methodology‘
• ‘Using ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps‘
• ‘More ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps‘
• ‘And more ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps‘

Over to you if you’re interested, anyway.

Enterprise-architecture, business-architecture and general business-ish matters:

• unorder: RT @davidbrewster: Astonishing insight into the Canberra public service from a (short term) insider. http://ow.ly/19xBo <is it really as bad as that??? – ouch…
• allygill: 5 Facets of Change – Lead it, Communicate it, Manage it, Deal with it, and Relate to it. http://bit.ly/cfiBxe <useful framework for change-management
• tetradian: <post> ‘More on chaos and Cynefin’ http://bit.ly/dslQyB #cynefin #methodology
• AussiMike: Amazing to see major government programs struggling with this RT @totalcio: Common Language for Enterprise Architecture http://post.ly/Ozll <has been urgent for too many years already.. #entarch
• SAlhir: RT @Kallokain: Boyd archive at Project White horse http://bit.ly/d7cudY < Boyd, the Father of Agility // RT @Kallokain: The full Boyd http://bit.ly/bCl9EU < Boyd, the Father of Agility <links to two resource-archives for the work of John Boyd – see also Wikipedia on OODA (observe, orient, decide, act), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
• rtolido: Simplifying applications just requires some architectural thinking. Simplifying the organisation at the same time is the real conundrum. // ‘Conundrum’ is not a simple word, by the way
• chrisdpotts: Customer experiences. People have experiences in life. Your enterprise contributes to some of them, but is not ‘the experience’.
• davidsprott: thriving on chaos? http://tinyurl.com/yc9zz7k <excellent reminder from Tom Peters on governance #entarch #bizarch
• chrisdpotts: I’d love to see a model of an enterprise that is equivalent to models that buildings architect create: http://bit.ly/6084gy <a great challenge for #entarch?
• business_design: The Business Model Innovation Hub2.0 is opening for business now. Join it and shape it http://bit.ly/9eHrYE <v.important for #bizarch #entarch
• business_design: Game changers hop on! RT @davegray: Check out the Knowledge Games wiki http://www.knowledgegames.net/wiki/ #kgames <v.useful for #entarch #bizarch #km #e20
• chrisdpotts: RT @richardveryard: @RSessions Bad architects try to force/constrain people to use/occupy space in predetermined ways. Good architects create positive space.
• rettema: My word of the day: Syntegration // Syntegration is a structured, non-hierarchical process for highly effective and efficient dialogue that leads to much faster, .. // …much more informed outcomes and aligns people behind the resulting decisions, mssgs and action plans with a high chance for implementation // So Syntegration is my word of the day http://twurl.nl/l4qlbl
• hebsgaard: RT @hebsgaard: #Innovation From the Inside Out http://bit.ly/dgmOhs <important for values-driven #entarch #bizarch
• joyce_hostyn: RT @zappos What you can learn from a pizza business’s company culture http://bit.ly/5VLolR <v.important for #entarch!
• christinearena: Ben & Jerry’s – Unilever merger: a cautionary tale http://3bl.me/8yermw via @JeffHollender <<good advice from someone who knows.
• chrisdpotts: RT @PhilipHellyer: {RT @richardveryard: Architecture is about creating space for business/people/projects to be successful.} True in EA & in buildings, both. <strongly agree
• cybersal: RT @richardveryard: I strongly recommend Morgan’s Images of Organization to business analysts, enterprise architects, planners, consultants and everyone else.
• joyce_hostyn: design-driven innovation, process based on relational assets with key interpreters http://tinyurl.com/ybj8zm6 via @GrahamHill // Focus on people & context of life, not users. Design-driven Innovation by Roberto Verganiti worth reading! <first time I’ve seen someone else use the term ‘relational assets’
• rlimbanda: RT @designthinkers Can we first design a cultural model and then the business model? Can a culture be the business model? <I would say ‘yes’ – a specific type of ‘value-proposition’, anyway
• enterprisearchs: Where does workforce architecture fit within the Enterprise Architecture story? ie EA = process & technology. What about people? <yup – I’ve argued for this point for a long time too
• enterprisearchs: RT @avenlea: RT @sreardon: HBR: The Secrets to Successful Strategy Execution http://bit.ly/bw4kgl
• business_design: New blogpost: Social Media and Business Models http://bit.ly/csjSaA <#entarch #bizarch #e20
• davidcushman: RT @gleonhard: Nice whitepaper on “the Outernet” via TrendONE (eng & german) http://ow.ly/18IBC <’the internet of things’ again – white-paper with business emphasis #entarch #bizarch #futures
• business_design: Sellaband’s bankruptcy doesn’t necessarily mean their model was wrong – it could be the business model, bad implementation, or mismanagement <(SellABand was one of the examples used in the BMGen book)
• business_design: Tell us what you would like to get out of an open business model community http://bit.ly/dA6aKF <#bizarch #entarch
• bartleeten: The Enterprise Data Cloud: Why Information Power Is The Future of Business #yam http://icio.us/btkdej <#entarch #itarch
• AussiMike: Mentorship is a critical community development activity …much need in #entarch. Great post by Leo de Sousa !! http://tinyurl.com/yfq8z4d
• enterprisearchs: Good blog article: http://bit.ly/azRXWS What does the brand of “Enterprise Architect” stand for? #entarch <a worthwhile rant from Nick Malik
• SAlhir: Companies blt on communities: comp offr platfrms, orchestrate conv amng passionate users,who invent use/innovate. http://bit.ly/djanMr #tlcc <”you don’t need organizations to be organized, to achieve large and complex tasks”
• davidcushman: RT @ccarfi: a good update on #vrm: http://www.mycustomer.com/topic/customer-intelligence/doc-searls-vrm-and-new-tools-engagement <VRM=’vendor relationship management’, the buyer-oriented inverse of CRM – very relevant for #entarch etc
• business_design: Made it easier to download a free Business Model Canvas poster in case you don’t have it yet http://bit.ly/5Tlqbz
• chrisdpotts: Opposing forces are the essence of architecture. If all forces in an architecture were aligned, construction would collapse. #entarch
• tetradian: <post> “Using ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps” (part of ‘beyond-Cynefin’ series) http://bit.ly/aXspwp #entarch #km #in
• CBAtInnovations: RT @skemsley: Blog:  Building a Lean Six Sigma and Process Excellence Culture http://goo.gl/fb/0iFQ #iqpcbpm #sixsigma #lsspi <also explores importance of culture and reasons why LSS may fail
• chrisdpotts: If the CIO treats innovation versus maintenance as a zero-sum calculation then it’s likely everyone else will too. #CIO // In a non-zero-sum strategy (eg innovation) a zero-sum game plan (eg prioritizing a ’set’ IT budget) is a disadvantage #CIO
• oscarberg: RT @stangarfield: Communities Manifesto – 10 principles for successful communities of practice http://bit.ly/apFC2L #KM <yes! – fundamentally important for #entarch – consider ‘community’ here as a type of enterprise, intersecting with organisation
• SAlhir: RT @jorgebarba: Futures Thinking: Writing Scenarios | Open The Future | FastCompany http://ff.im/-gxa60 <useful intro to futures
• oscarberg: Hamel: How can you create a company where the spirit of community, rather than the machinery of bureaucracy, binds people together? // bureaucracy should spell bureauCRAZY // Hamel: When compared to bureaucracies, communities tend to be undermanaged. That…is why they are amplifiers of human capability // Hamel: Asking a manager to manage less is a bit like asking a carpenter to pound fewer nails – this is what these people DO // Hamel: If you wring all the slack out of a company, you’ll wring out all of the innovation as well
• SAlhir: Agility is not abt collocation, its abt proximity. Proximity in focus/feedback/balance in a near-enough (coincidental/correlated) timeframe. // Mutuality endures: when adorned w/ commitment, accountability, responsibility, & authority, a win-win emerges, else a lose-lose.No win-lose.
• tetradian: <post> ‘Some more ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps’ (’beyond-Cynefin’ series) http://bit.ly/a4HCNS #entarch #bizarch #km #in
• oscarberg: RT @cshirky: “The war between engineers and marketers has been ended at craigslist by the simple expedient of having no marketers.” http://bit.ly/yws8N <excellent Wired article on Craigslist
• oscarberg: RT @VenessaMiemis: The top 5 new rules of productivity http://ff.im/-gndde via @adeliyannis <important #entarch #bizarch etc
• SAlhir: “Purpose & principle, clearly understood,articulated,commonly shared R the genetic code any healthy organization” http://tinyurl.com/yc7g3×2 <nice/useful extended quote by Dee Hock

Narrative-knowledge, knowledge-management and in-person collaboration:

• unorder: “Experience is inevitable, learning is not.” Turning experience to learning involves an intentional, reflective process http://bit.ly/c6UiuL <recommend #km #e20 #collaboration
• getstoried: ‘Pop Culture as Competitive Advantage: Embracing the Chief Culture Officer’ http://bit.ly/dxibud <important #entarch #km
• getstoried: RT @kayeporter: “If u want to learn about a culture listen to the stories. If u want to change a culture, change the stories.” @getstoried
• oscarberg: RT @fdomon: Harold Jarche » A framework for social learning in the enterprise http://dlvr.it/2c4k <interesting… #km etc – definitely useful, yet feels like the distinction between ‘organisation’ and ‘enterprise’ might be useful here…
• thoughttrans: Relevant Article: #in You’re stuck on an airplane for hours http://is.gd/6QxKB <nice reminder on importance of conversation
• BillIves: RT @socialmedia2day: Moving beyond the industrial society http://bit.ly/bM2pxC #socialmedia <deep social/societal change
• SAlhir: Continuous renewal is the living process. w/out it, organizations, relationships, & individuals die. From it emerges resilience.
• unorder: RT @unorder: A change story need to illustrate impact on society, on the customer, on the company, on the team & on the person.  Aiken & Keller
• unorder: RT @Storyteller: Free Article: “How to Tell A Story” http://storytip.net/howtotellastory #symc2010 <basic but useful summary
• DavidGurteen: Becoming A Brand: The Experience Of Robin Good http://bit.ly/9BhPzT #km #e20

Social-media, ‘enterprise 2.0’ and on-line collaboration:

• SAlhir: RT @VenessaMiemis: Tapping the Network to Facilitate #Innovation http://bit.ly/d8TdoO #sociallearning #sna #e20 #km <recommend
• unorder: RT @4KM: RT @jaybaer: Interesting. Kodak is hiring a Chief Listener position to connect the social chatter dots. #oms10
• oscarberg: The Machiavellian Guide to Enterprise 2.0 http://kuex.us/7f3b <very useful collection of important articles by key players in the E2.0 space
• (via @craighepburn) Mashable: ‘The Science of Building Trust With Social Media’ http://bit.ly/bPTHIY < social-media and reputation-economy
• oscarberg: Social Media has evolved into “rather standard ways to share information.”  – US Navy CIO Robert Carey http://kuex.us/8164 #e20 <interesting summary of US military’s knowledge-priorities

Technical architecture and software architecture:

• CBAtInnovations: RT @jamet123: New blog post: Rules discovery in decisions http://jtonedm.com/?p=3014 #decisionmgt <also points to useful article on ‘decision-engines’ etc http://jtonedm.com/2009/03/05/heres-how-decisions-and-rules-relate-and-how-to-manage-them/
• CBaAtInnovations: RT @jbandi: Shared: Scrum Will Die « Making the Complex Simple http://bit.ly/aAW60o <balance Agile vs process #entarch
• (via @CBAtInnovations) Kanban Applied to Software Development: from Agile to Lean http://bit.ly/Dfrbl <useful article on kanban
• enterprisearchs: RT @a_josey: Three TOGAF 9 Reference card sets are now available for free download from the TOGAF information site http://bit.ly/1GIbzR

Society, culture and corporate social responsibility:

• jdevoo: New American Environmentalism and New Economy http://bit.ly/d9s4jj <global/nation-scale #entarch
• SAlhir: RT @Annemcx: How different cultures shape the brain – @Viewsflow http://ff.im/-gpRUS <interesting… hmm… in some ways not a surprise, but also interesting how Western-centric assumptions have shaped our views of ‘normal’ brain-activity
• SAlhir: Real crisis is inside us. how we make sense of the world, what motivates us, what we value. It is culture. RT @umairh: http://bit.ly/bR5iVR <another great piece by Umair Haque
• davidriveroll: A great animation video about the great deal “stuff” is, and some other stories too. It’s really awesome – http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Miscellaneous technical matters:

• craighepburn: Set Up Your iPhone or iPod Touch for Google Sync : Mail, Calendar, & Contacts Setup – Mobile Help: http://bit.ly/6HBfh
• davidriveroll: RT @wptavern: RT @markmcwilliams: Amazing Compilation Of Links To WordPress Resources And Tips http://bit.ly/b8bLib #wordpress
• (via @davidriveroll) http://typewith.me/ <free, very simple ’shared-document’ service (powered by Google EtherPad – simpler vers of GWave)

And the perhaps-not-actually-magical-but-always-interesting miscellania:

• josvanoosten: RT @Artfire: Incredible shot of a bamboo forest http://cot.ag/9JDauI
• SAlhir: Commitment without Accountability is Empty, Accountability against anything but Commitment is less than Healthy. #in
• davidriveroll: 10 plantas de interior que limpian el aire http://bit.ly/91t5zE /cc @feedly <10 plants that clean the air within buildings (in Spanish, but easily translated, and Latin plant-names are provided)
• Cybersal: Ackoff: ‘Good teachers produce skeptics who ask questions and find their own answers;management gurus produce only unquestioning disciples’
• SAlhir: Spirit vs. Letter (as in “Spirit /Letter of the Law”): Spirit is defined by Values and Principles while Letter is define by Practices.
• oscarberg: We really need these types of trains in Sweden http://youtu.be/MBq6falYI4U <very nice video of snowplough at full-speed!
• SAlhir: RT @davidrock101: The brain reacting to unfairness: http://bit.ly/9ZtUip <interesting, though if this ‘proves’ that selflessness is a built-in human trait, I’d like to see the experiment repeated with Ayn Rand believers…

Here’s another collection of ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps that I’ve found useful for sensemaking in enterprise-architecture and related work:

• ISO-9000 quality-model
• Skill-levels
• Automated versus manual processes
• Asset-types
• Data, information, knowledge, wisdom

More details after the ‘Read more…’ link.

ISO-9000 quality-model

A fairly straightforward cross-map to something that’s usually presented as a vertical stack but actually makes more sense in a Cynefin-style layout.

A work-instruction defines Simple rules that apply to a specific context. In Zachman-framework terms, it provides the row-4 detail-level What, How, and Who that apply at a specific When-event, with the Where usually defined in more generic terms (e.g. any location that uses a specific machine). The underlying Why is usually not specified.

When anything significant is changed – for example, a new version of software, or a new machine – we move ‘upward’ to the procedure to define a new work-instruction for the changed context. This accepts that the world is more Complicated than can be described in simple rules, yet is still assumed to be predictable. The procedure specifies the Who in terms of responsibilities, and also far more of the underlying Why – the row-3 ‘logical’ layer, in Zachman terms.

When the procedure’s guiding reasons and responsibilities need to change, we move upward again to policy. This provides guidance in a more Complex world of modal-logic: in requirements-modelling terms, a more fluid ’should’ or ‘could’ rather than the imperative ’shall’.  The policy describes the Why for all its dependent procedures – the row-2 ‘conceptual’ layer, in Zachman terms (though ‘relational’ might be a more accurate term here, as we’ll see from other cross-maps).

When the ‘world’ of the context changes such that the fundamental assumptions of current policy can no longer apply, we turn to vision. This is a core set of statements about principles and values that in effect define what the enterprise is. And because this vision should never change, it provides a stable anchor in any Chaotic context – the row-1 ‘contextual’ layer, in Zachman terms (though again ‘aspirational’ might be a more useful term here).

(Because a vision for an organisation or business is literally fundamental to the entire enterprise, it is essential to understand that it is not trivial, and it is definitely not a mere marketing-ploy. For more on this, see my presentations ‘What is an enterprise?‘ and ‘Vision, role, mission, goal‘ on Slideshare.)

Note that in some ways this cross-map is the exact opposite of the ‘Repeatability and ‘truth” cross-map in the previous post: there, the purported ‘universality’ of a given ‘truth’ increases as we move from Chaotic to Simple, whereas here the values become more general and broader in scope as we move from Simple to Chaotic.

Skill-levels

This cross-map links to a well-known and very useful set of guidelines on the amount of time that it takes to develop specific levels of skill.

The ‘trust in capability’ spectrum shown here is actually an inverse of the amount of supervision needed both to compensate for lack of skill and to shield the person from the consequences of real-world complexity and chaos.

A trainee can be ‘let loose’ on Simple tasks after about 10 hours or so of practice (a 1-2 day training-course).

An apprentice will begin to be able to tackle more Complicated tasks after about 100 hours of practice (2-4 weeks); most of those tasks, however, will still need to be insulated from real-world complexity.

A journeyman will begin to be able to tackle more Complex tasks that include inherent uncertainties after some 1000 hours of practice (6 months full-time experience). Typical uncertainties include variability of materials, slippage of schedules, and, above all, people. Traditionally there is an intermediate point within the 1000-10000 hour range at which the person is expected to go out on their own with only minimal mentoring: in education this the completion of the bachelor’s degree, whilst in a traditional technical training this is the point at which the apprentice becomes qualified as a literal ‘journeyman’ or ‘day-paid worker’.

A trainee should reach a master level after about 10,000 hours (5 years) of practice - the traditional point at which a journeyman was expected to produce a ‘master-piece’ to demonstrate their literal ‘mastery’ in handling the Chaotic nature of the real-world. This is also still the typical duration of a university education from freshman to completion of masters’ degree.

Skill should continue to develop thereafter, supported by the peer-group. Building-architects, for example, often come into their prime only in their 50s or later: it really does take that long to assimilate and embody the vast range of information and experiences needed to do the work well. Hence there is yet another heuristic level of 100,000 hours or so (more than 50 years) – which is probably the amount of experience needed to cope with true Disorder.

For more details, see the article ‘10, 100, 1000, 10000‘, on my Sidewise weblog.

This additional cross-map for skills (using the old Cynefin labels of ‘Known’ and ‘Knowable’ for ‘Simple’ and ‘Complicated’ respectively) shows why this isn’t as straightforward as a simple linear stack. In the early stages of skills-development we in effect pretend that each context is predictable, controllable, reducible to some kind of ordered system; but at some point in the apprenticeship there’s a crucial stage at which we demonstrate that the world is inherently uncertain, inherently ‘unordered’. In the real world we can learn to direct what happens, but it can never actually be controlled – a distinction that is sometimes subtle but extremely important, and actually marks the transition to true skill.

As indicated in the cross-map above, there are fundamental differences in worldview on either side of that transition. For more details on this, and on the overall skills-learning process, see the article ‘Surviving the skills-learning labyrinth‘ on my Sidewise weblog.

Automated versus manual processes

This cross-map is a logical corollary from the skills-maps above, though it also has cross-links with the ‘Asset-types’ map below. It’s reasonably straightforward, but has extremely important implications for systems-design.

Physical machines follow Simple rules – the ‘laws of physics’ and the like. The Victorians in particular did brilliant work exploring what can be done with mechanical ingenuity – such as Babbage’s ‘difference engine’, or, earlier, Harrison’s chronometer – but in the end there are real limits to what can be done with unassisted machines.

Once we introduce real-time information-processing, algorithmic automation becomes possible, capable of handling a much more Complicated world. Yet here too there are real limits – most of which become all too evident when system-designers make the mistake of thinking that ‘complexity’ is solely a synonym for ‘very complicated’.

As with skills-development, there is a crucial crossover-point at which we have to accept that the world is not entirely repeatable, and that it does include inherent uncertainties. The most important breakthrough in IT-based systems here has been the shift to heuristic pattern-recognition – though there are real dangers, especially in military robotics, that system-designers will delude themselves into thinking that this is as predictable as for the Complicated contexts. Instead, to work with the interweaving relational interdependencies of this Complex domain – especially the real complexities of relations between real people -  the best use of automation here is to provide decision-support for human decision-making.

Within a true Chaotic context, by definition there is little or nothing that a rule-based system can work with, since – again by definition – there is no perceivable cause-effect relationships, and hence no perceivable rules. The only viable option here is a true expert skills-based system, embodied in a real person rather than an IT-based ’system’, using principles and aspirations to guide real-time decision-making. One essential point here is that there is no way to determine beforehand what any decision will be, and hence how decisions are made. Although there indeed a very small number of IT-based systems that operate in this kind of ‘world’ – such as those based on ‘genetic-programming‘ concepts – we have no real certainty at the detail-level as to how they actually work!

Note that most – perhaps all – real-world contexts include a mix of all of these domains. This is why it’s essential that any real-world system provides procedures for escalation and de-escalation: moving ‘up’ from Simple to Complex to handle inherent-uncertainty via human skills, and ‘down’ from Complex to Simple to make best use of the reliability and predictability of machines.

Asset-types

A rather different cross-map, using a tetradian layout (four dimensions in a tetrahedral relationship). I’ve used this for several decades now as a background metaphor or model, but it’s made even more useful via cross-links to the Cynefin-type domains.

There are four fundamentally different types of assets in an enterprise-architecture context:

• physical – has existence independent of a person, and is alienable (if I give it to you, I no longer have it)
• conceptual – may have existence independent of a person, yet is non-alienable (if I give it to you, I still have it)
• relational – exists between two people, often in a physical-like sense (person as person)
• aspirational – exists from a person to a conceptualised ’something/someone else’ (person, brand etc as idea)

From what we’ve seen in other Cynefin-like cross-maps – such as the automation example above – it’s clear that for sensemaking purposes it’s useful to cross-map the Cynefin-style domains to the asset-dimensions as follows:

• physical assets to Simple domain – physical objects follow Simple rules
• conceptual assets to Complicated domain – information supports Complicated yet still predictable algorithms
• relational assets to Complex domain – no-one would doubt that dealing with real people is Complex…
• aspirational assets to Chaotic domain – vision, values, principles and suchlike are keys to survival when the world turns Chaotic

(Crucially, the key ‘asset’ in the human context is the relation with that person – not the person as such, as is implied in the well-meant yet lethally-dangerous phrase “our people are our greatest asset!”. For more on this, see the Sidewise article ‘The relationship is the asset‘.)

Note that many, perhaps most, real-world assets will include combinations of these types. For example, a paper form is both physical (it’s a piece of paper) and conceptual (it carries information); a CRM record is information about a business-relationship; a physical product will often be associated with an aspirational brand; and so on. Any real-world entity in effect is not situated solely on a single point in a single dimension, but occupies a region within the tetradian’s metaphoric asset-space.

A key point is that we can typically only hold up to three of the four dimensions in mind at any given time. For example, production folks will emphasise physical, conceptual and relational (machines, IT and people), but in the pressure of ‘Now!‘ may tend to forget about the aspirational dimension – in other words, the purpose of what they’re doing. IT folks tend to focus on information and machines, and often the purpose too (’business-rules’ and the like), but are notorious for forgetting about real-people… Often it’s only by intentionally rotating the tetradian, to give different ‘views’ into the same enclosed space, that we can avoid falling into the trap of thinking that the ‘hidden’ dimension is somehow ‘not relevant’.

Another key point is that we can turn the tetradian in any direction, such that we can argue for a vertical hierarchy with any combination – hence all and none of any proposed hierarchies are ‘true’. The same applies if we ‘flatten’ the tetradian to a two-dimensional surface – hence, for example, the ‘figure-of-eight’ pattern of the path in the Plan/Do/Check/Act cross-map in the previous post in this series. Also if we place any two dimensions in opposition, we automatically place the other pair in opposition to each other: hence the semantic significance of an apparent opposition may not be inherent as such, but actually an artefact of our own arbitrary choices.

Data, information, knowledge, wisdom

This cross-map provides a fresh and potentially very useful view on a hoary old hierarchy.

The conventional view of the relations between data, information, knowledge and wisdom is that they form a strict hierarchy, with data at the bottom, and wisdom at the top.

Yet it actually makes more sense if we map each of these as regions within a Cynefin-like space, and also as dimensions in a tetradian space (as per the ‘Asset-types’ cross-map above). Hence proverbs, for example, represent pre-packaged ’wisdom‘ that may be ‘true’ in its own right, but only becomes useful when it is anchored into the real-world by concrete data and contextual metadata, and connected into the personalised knowledge built up through personal experience.

Note also that this is a kind of recursion on the Cynefin-like space: as we can see from the ‘Asset-types’ cross-map above, all of this relates to the conceptual dimension, and hence is ’situated’ within the Complicated region of the root-level of the tetradian or Cynefin-like map, even though this cross-map also extends throughout the entire Cynefin-like space. This kind of meta-layering becomes extremely important in understanding the recursive relationships between ‘problem-space’ and ’solution-space’ in meta-methodology – though more on that in a later post.

—

That’s all in this series of cross-maps for now, but I hope you’ll find them useful.

As usual, any constructive comments, ideas and suggestions would be most welcome – over to you on that?

Previous posts in this series:

• ‘Complexity, chaos and enterprise-architecture‘
• ‘More on chaos and Cynefin‘
• ‘Alternatives to the ‘Cynefin’ term, please?‘
• ‘Solution-space: beyond Cynefin?‘
• ‘On meta-methodology‘
• ‘Using ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps‘
• ‘More ‘Cynefin-like’ cross-maps‘