Cognitive Edge has developed an emergent, bottom up methodology to allow and empower organizations to “diagnose and treat [themselves]” in terms of the knowledge management needs.
- A scalable workshop model is used where narratives are gathered in advance and teams are then asked to execute a series of exercises to accomplish the following:
- Identify comprehensive set of cultural indicators
- Identify knowledge objects comprising both codified and experiential knowledge artifacts
- Create large volumes of tangible suggestions to address complex issues
- Increase interaction and dialogue between stakeholders (internal as well as external) thus establishing new social networks and increasing cohesion of existing social networks (Blignaut et. al, p20).
- Facilitators promote a disruptive and emergent environment marked by ambiguous instructions and a de-emphasis on finding the “right” answer (a 1:12 facilitator to participant ration is recommended).
- Visual communication is emphasized in the form of hexagonal post-it notes in various colors, narratives displayed on walls, and cartoons created by artists during the workshop as a way to communicate complex concepts.
- The disruptive, emergent and nature of the workshops makes it “very difficult for participants to influence the outcome to their benefit” or for leadership and detractors to deny the outcomes (Blignaut et. al., p23).
Process Components
The following process components are incorporated into the workshops to iteratively identify necessary components and cluster for likeness in order to eventually formulate appropriate solutions.
- Anecdote circles where narratives collected ahead of time are posted on walls. Participants are then asked, in rotation, to review and identify elements within each that will later be grouped into themed categories.
- Knowledge Disclosure Points (KDPs) “comprise decisions, judgment, problem resolution and learning” which are identified using their ASHEN framework: Artifacts, Skills, Heuristics, Experience, Natural Talent (Blignaut et. al., p24).
- Decision information flow map identifies the info currently used, info that if available could improve decision making, and how decisions are communicated. This is then contrasted with the organization’s process maps to identify potential points of failure related to gaps in as-is/to-be knowledge activities.
- Emergent cultural indicators are elicited by identifying characters, behaviors and beliefs within the narratives and then describing character traits from a best friend/worst enemy perspective. These archetypes can help in identifying perceptions that may be inaccurate or have a negative impact on relationships.
- Ritual dissent is conducted by having one person present their findings to a group where the group is prohibited from commenting. Once the presentation is complete, the presenter must turn their back and listen only and take notes while the group openly critiques the info they’ve just received. The process encourages divergence, prevents groups from converging on a solution too soon and allows for non-threatening, open feedback.
- Future backwards asks participates to create timelines that led to current events and also to think through worst and best case scenarios moving forward. This helps to identify top of mind issues as well as aspirations.
Ordered and Unordered Domains
The Cynefin framework is a sense-making framework consisting of ordered and disordered domains with accommodations for disorder that arise from lack of agreement about issues.
- Ordered domains are context free and serve as the basis for many management planning tools that assume order.
- Simple ordered domains have clear cause and effect relationships often derived from best practice, convention and/or legislation hence changes can be implemented through rules and procedures that do not allow for much deviation, if any.
- Complex ordered domains involve relationships that may be repeatable but require research to identify best practices, and there is often more than one way of achieving desired results.
- Unordered domains are often contextual and are difficult to deal with as a whole. Instead, the focus should be on the ordered parts of the system first.
- Simple unordered domains have cause/effect relationships that are only understood in retrospect, therefore, these benefit from an approach based on probing, experimentation, and context-specific solutions.
- Complex unordered domains have a lack of perceptible cause/effect relationships therefore action is the only way to stabilize the situation.
Conclusion
This emergent and disruptive format creates a social environment where “the system” diagnoses and treats itself. As the authors highlight, individuals who prefer more structured workshops with clear directions may decide to leave at some point. However, the workshop format of having people leave activities for a time seems to address the problem of having dissenters and leadership discount the results produced by the team.
Issues
Lack of instruction can turn people off. If this happens to be an organizational culture where the workshop structure negatively impacts people at a greater rate, a larger than acceptable number of participants could leave the discussions thus taking valuable knowledge with them.
Workshops are effective but how do organizations repeat this process on their own, especially for problems in the complex unordered domains where action is the only way forward and issues/solutions must be dealt with/derived incrementally.
