Dave Snowden’s Blog
Picking up on yesterdays post on ABIDE. As I suspected forcing myself to teach the idea produced some innovation and resolution of problems. Thinking back nearly everything original I have developed (including the various Cynefin representations) have been achieved on my feet in front of an audience. Some people are visual thinkers, some written, I think I reflect the oral tradition I come from, the interaction with an audience opens up new channels of thinking.
I said yesterday that I was stuck as a result of thinking that ABIDE (and something else now yet worked out on Culture) had to have an identical pattern to ASHEN. The insight overnight and through conversation with Michael was to break that pattern, both in starting point and completion. So how does ABIDE work? I'll outline it here, but the full method will end up in the Network library.
We start, as in ASHEN in seeking to map the decisions that are being made within the field of study. That might be an organisations own processes, it could encompass customers and suppliers or citizens or whatever. Generally the field of study on any complexity programme should extend to intersecting areas if at all possible. Decision mapping is best derived from a mass narrative capture, but can be achieved through interviews or workshops. The key thing is to gather material without analytical questions or any form of judgement. We are after what decisions people make daily, weekly, monthly, annually, exceptionally. Stories give context that will be useful later but they are not critical. Each decision is summarised (with backup...
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