Slides from the Cynefin Melbourne Meetup on 31st Jan 2019 https://www.meetup.com/Cynefin-Melbourne-Meetup-Group/

1. Wardley Mapping and Using Cynefin to
Navigate Uncertainty

2. 2
Strategy – Tactics - Operations
What to keep in-house
Outsourcing
Decommissioning
Extending – adding new features
Update – modernise
Decisions

3. Senior Leader ‘We need to commoditise ‘X’
Teams ‘But we have a very specific need’
Both can be right
3
How would we find that out?

4. 4
Why should we create a Wardley Map?
Just like an ordinary map, a Wardley map helps us
to know where we are now and make good
decisions about where to go to next
It is a way of visualising the systems, functions and
features that support our Customer or user needs

5. 5
What is a Wardley Map?
Product or
Rental
Commodity/
Utility
Visibility
Genesis Custom Built
Evolution
Shop
Computer Terminal in
ShopDisplay List
Customer device in
shop
Website
Interface to ISBN
system
Internet
Buy a Book
View a list of books
Website host

6. 6
How to create a Wardley Map?
Place the need at the top of the map
Place the functions and features that support that need underneath the need
from most visible to the Customer/user at the top (e.g. website) to least visible
to the Customer/user at the bottom (e.g. Oracle Database)
Identify a user or Customer need
Keep these simple and small scale –
better to multiple maps than one great
big map
Visibility
Genesis Custom
Built
Product or
Rental
Commodity/
Utility
Evolution
Buy a Book
View a list of books
Display List
Shop
Computer Terminal in
Shop
Website

7. 7
How to create a Wardley Map?
• Genesis at the very left (for items that no-one has built before and you need to create)
• Custom built – (others have built it, but it needs to be customised to suit your needs)
• Product or rental (you can use it as it comes)
• Commodity/Utility (it is ubiquitous and standardised – such as electricity)
Spread out the functions and features
from left to right across the map (4 major
stages)
Genesis Custom
Built
Product or
Rental
Commodity/
Utility

8. 8
Outcomes from Wardley Mapping
For example
• Are we handcrafting software that everyone else buys ‘off the shelf’? – like a CRM system
• Have we outsourced something that should be brought back in-house? Such as specialised
configuration to support research needs (the overhead to manage contracts/vendors could be
significant)
Once we have a map of the current state,
have a good look at it and see if that
makes sense for the future.
Genesis Custom
Built
Product or
Rental
Commodity/
Utility
Replace Manual List
with Automated
Inventory Management

9. ’This should have taken 2 hours
– not 2 weeks’
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10. Using Cynefin to Navigate Uncertainty
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11. The Cynefin Framework
11The Cynefin Framework by Dave Snowden 2014
Unordered Ordered
kb2bkb

12. Cynefin – A Checking Tool
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Not a direct tool – like a trowel
when we are building a wall
More like a spirit-level or
string line – without it the
wall is wonky

13. Context – Project-Based Work
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14. Idea Collaboration Sessions
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15. List the capabilities – Broad and Shallow
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16. Narrow the Scope
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17. Argue Scope In - Easier
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Argue Scope Out - Harder

18. Classify the Capabilities
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19. Easy - Can ask for an Estimate
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20. Analysis
Can be Solved by Subject Matter Experts
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21. Can of Worms
Tricky to Tackle or No Obvious Answers
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22. Name the People and Groups
for Easy and Analysis Items
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23. Cans of Worms – Experiments turn
Assumptions into Facts
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24. 24
Experiment Design?
Who has tried to design experiments?

25. Some of the Theory Behind the Context
and Experience
25

26. Expertise
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Experts Non-Experts
'Expertise can also get us in trouble. It can lead us to view
problems in stereotyped ways. The sense of typicality can
be so strong that we miss subtle signs of trouble...these
shortcomings seem a small price to pay; however, there
may be times when a fresh set of eyes proves helpful‘
Klein, G. 1998. Sources of Power:
How People Make Decisions. MIT Press.

27. 140 Decisions in 2 Days
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Can of Worms
DecisionsExperts
Analysis
Decisions
Experts
Experts

28. Using Cynefin in Context
28
Obvious
Easy
Complicated
Analysis
Complex
'Can of Worms'
Chaotic
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29. 29
Cynefin on a Wardley Map

30. 30
Cynefin on a Wardley Map – A Thing

31. 31
Cynefin/Wardley Map – Genesis to Custom

32. 32
Cynefin/Wardley Map – Custom to Product

33. 33
Cynefin/Wardley Map – Product to Commodity

34. 34
Cynefin and Wardley Mapping
• Where analysis of the present is corrupted by the desired end-state – Wardley
Mapping can be an enabling constraint
• Visualise bias by mapping the same types of components on multiple maps to
build up a profile
Roles and Cynefin
• Hack Days (Pioneers love them – Complex domain -and Settlers wondered
why we were doing them – Complicated domain)
• Six Sigma (Town Planners loved it – Complicated to Obvious – Pioneers did not
love it)
• Common Source – Max Boisot (I-Space Model of Knowledge)