Cynefin - Berlin City Masterclass

This series of half-day workshops provides an introduction to both the theory and practice of surviving and thriving under conditions of irreducible complexity and uncertainty. Overall, the programme focuses on reducing risk and cost while creating innovative and adaptive processes and solutions.

Each module assumes some familiarity with the material covered in the introductory session. There are also virtual training courses and readings that can bring people up to speed if necessary. The programme can also be adapted for in-house training and combined with other material.

SERIES INTRODUCTION

During Covid, the Cynefin Centre and the Future Systems Directorate of the European Union produced a field guide on how to manage complexity (and chaos). The field guide covered how to manage a situation, but how to create an organisation with the resilience to respond quickly and appropriately in the face not only of the unknown unknowns but also the unimaginable unknowns. The underlying science of the guide was the growing field of anthro-complexity: the application of complexity science to human systems, both locally and at scale.

THE PROGRAMME

The programme comprises an introductory overview session, followed by three follow-up sessions that expand on aspects of the introduction with more detailed descriptions and practical exercises for participants.

• The half-day afternoon sessions can be taken as a complete programme or as individual standalone units.
• Each module assumes some familiarity with the material covered in the introductory session. There are also virtual training courses and readings that can bring people up to speed if necessary.
• The programme can be adapted for in-house training and combined with other material.

Berlin isn’t just a city; it's a sprawling, dynamic object lesson in complexity. Its fractured history (division, reunification, constant reinvention) exemplifies path dependence, emergence, and resilience. The Wall was a sudden phase transition followed by a chaotic, adaptive reintegration process that is still unfolding today. Complexity science is not just abstract math, but rather the essential toolkit for navigating the kind of messy, real-world challenges that Berlin thrives on. The clatter of trams, snippets of multilingual chatter, and distant techno bass become the ambient noise of a complex adaptive system at work.
This approach grounds abstract complexity concepts in Berlin’s palpable reality, making the training not just intellectually stimulating but viscerally connected to the unique, ever-evolving urban fabric surrounding the participants. The city itself becomes the ultimate teacher.

Info: Also known as the science of inherent uncertainty and common sense, this session will
define complexity in human systems, distinguishing it from complicated ones. It will cover
what can be managed in a complex system (with implications for both risk and cost
reduction) and the characteristics of any interventions to make sense of inherent
uncertainty. This will emphasise the difference between aiming for a ‘North Star’ and
using it as a navigation aid to explore new landscapes, in that one can quickly exploit
unforeseen opportunities as they present themselves.
Of high relevance, given current concerns about cognitive decline associated with the use
of AI and challenges in complex projects, this section will also provide a basic overview of
the differences between abductive and deductive reasoning. This is key to the proper
balance of human and machine processing.

Info: The Field guide identifies 5 key actions an organisation needs to take to make it resilient in the face of unknown and unimaginable unknowables: 1. Generating ‘informal’ trusted networks across the organisation that can transmit knowledge outside of the usual bureaucratic silos of an organisation. | 2. How to use your customers, employees and third-party networks (academics, journalists, schools) as human sensor networks to spot weak signals and provide situational assessment and scenario planning. | 3. Quickly map complex issues relating to culture and attitudes using quantitative approaches to narrative. | 4. How to discover and rapidly repurpose existing capability for novel purposes under conditions of change: The history of human innovation is more about radical repurposing of existing capabilities for novel use than about primary inventions. | 5. Basic techniques to map the affordances provided by the current situation

Info: The concept of affordance can be traced back to Gibson and others, describing what is
possible, or afforded to an organisation by its environment and, critically, its capabilities.
The method taught, which can be supplemented by software, starts by identifying the
nature of any actant (agent) within the system that has agency, such as people, roles, legal
constraints, formal processes, or the physical environment. Once identified, the actants
are mapped based on the energy cost of changing them and the time required to change. This method is designed to radically reduce risk (and cost) on programmes and projects,
By changing the environment before committing significant resources, you utilise the
energy gradients of the system, rather than being used by them.
The method taught for this is called Estuarine Mapping, which draws on the
metaphor of the Estuary's dynamic nature. The tide goes in and out; things can
be accomplished at the turn of the tide, but not when the tide is running.

Info: The adage that culture eats strategy for breakfast, wrongly attributed to Peter Drucker, is
essential in an initiative. Human attitudes, values, and beliefs can rarely be discovered
through polling, focus groups, or questionnaires, and even if they can, those approaches
require a significant amount of time and cost. By presenting paradoxical situations, or
through distributed ethnography, we can capture the stories of the water cooler, the
school gate or the after-work drinks. By measuring and mapping those attitudes, we can
quickly identify what is inhibiting and enabling change in an organisation. Attitudes are
lead indicators, and compliance is a lag indicator.
In a range of fields, from culture and attitude mapping (safety, cybersecurity, and others)
to distributed scenario planning, we can now obtain real-time feedback and iterate
quickly to see not only the insights and enablements but also how and where they can be
improved.

Info: The underlying metaphor of this module lies in a range of examples from nature. The
distributed intelligence of bees, how mitochondrial fungi redistribute resources from
mature trees to saplings in times of drought and how antelopes maintain alignment when
dealing with predators without specific goals or direction. We also know that human
society evolved to handle decisions differently in different group sizes. All of this has high
applicability to resilience.
The module will begin with an examination of the science behind these phenomena and
then apply those examples to human systems. It will also explore how narrative has
evolved over the millennia as a pragmatic and effective method of knowledge
dissemination, building on the idea that we always know more than we can say, and will
always say more than we can write down.

Info: Note: this session will assume some familiarity with Module TWO, but reading material can be
sent to people who are unable to attend both
The strategy literature generally takes a linear approach, to borrow military terms,
starting with ‘Grand strategy’, then moving through a series of steps to plans and tactics.
The irony is that this approach is still taught in military circles despite the recognition that
no plan survives first encounter with the enemy.
Formal strategy is often a characteristic of mature organisations; it is less likely to be seen
in start-ups. Risk assessments generally follow the development of plans, informing them
tacitly at best. There are encouraging signs of change - open strategy, for example, seeks
to engage the entire workforce in both creating and evaluating strategies and tactics, but
requires time and considerable facilitation.
This module utilises the latest framework from the Cynefin Company, specifically
Weaving Risk and Strategy (WRAS).

Host or Publisher EZC Partners