Off To Calgary To (Try To) Learn How To Make Sense

I will be taking a three-day course led by David Snowden, who has a thing or three to say about complexity and sensemaking.

Somehow I don’t think we will be covering all of the methods listed below in this one three-day course.

I imagine that my 20 years or so of consulting, strategic planning, organizational development and facilitation experience will be both a help and hindrance.  I am looking forward to it.

Methods

There are four broad categories of method within Cognitive Edge relating to their origin and release state, which are summarised below. Open Source Methods are also roughly organised into three families based on the three aspects of sense making: systems, perceptions and knowledge.

Cognitive Edge provides Accreditation in the methods around the world. For information on the Accreditation programme, see here.

As at the date of publication not all methods and process descriptions are fully documented. Where documentation is available it can be found at the method description. Otherwise it can be produced on demand given a reasonable notice in the context of a real project. In this first edition of the methods we have focused on high level descriptions. Expect slide sets and work sheets to follow – and examples of these from practitioners would be most welcome.

Recurrent assemblies

Recurrent assemblies represent the sort of activities that are carried out in a workshop, or as a project of sub-project and may incorporate several actual methods. These represent the sort of projects that will be typically undertaken by an accredited practitioner when they are getting started, as they are familiar and repeating assemblies of methods. As practitioners become more experienced we expect them to create assemblies of their own. They should not be read as recipes or followed slavishly, however the individual methods used should not be compromised.

Recurrent assemblies include:

Complex Facilitation
Mapping
Leadership Training
Project Management
Staff Satisfaction
Customer Satisfaction
Innovation
Inter disciplinary research as a problem solving technique
Pre-Hypothesis Research

Open source methods

Open source methods are discrete methods that can be used generally, with processes or on their own in a specific context. They are either documented, in the process of documentation or can be documented on demand. There is no control over their use other than the creative commons license.

Open source methods include:

System methods

… And the Butterfly Stamped
Model Creation by Social Construction
The Future, Backwards
ABIDE
Identity Modelling and Monitoring
Nodal Networks and New Forms of Organisation
JIT KM
Dynamics
Necessary Bias
Managing Complexity by Experiment
Perception methods

Archetype Creation
Story Construction
Ritual Dissent
Three Facilitator Rule
Power Ranking
Challenge Task Allocation
AVT comparison workshop
Knowledge methods

Anecdote Circles
Population Sampling
Naïve Interviews
Participative Observation
The Set Up
Story Virus
Getting Ready for SMI Database
Information / DP Mapping

Emergent methods

Emergent methods are methods that are under development and require direct support from Cognitive Edge for use. Their overall purpose or function is described, but the details are not. Such methods must be mentored and only used when formally approved by a Director of Cognitive Edge Pte Ltd. The intention is that all emergent methods will move into open source once sufficient experience has been acquired within the network.

Emergent methods include:

Social Network Stimulation
Community Network Analysis
Metaphor Based Games
From Rules To Ritual
Email As Addiction
Swarm Intelligence
Bid Management

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