This document describes a Lego game exercise used to demonstrate the Cynefin framework. The exercise involves participants completing a series of Lego building challenges of increasing complexity that correspond to the different domains in the Cynefin framework - obvious, complicated, complex, and chaotic. For each challenge, participants are asked questions about their experience that help illustrate characteristics of the corresponding Cynefin domain. The goal is to show how problems can be classified based on their attributes and how different approaches are needed to manage different types of problems.

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“Can Legos Teach You to Think Like Donald Rumsfeld?”

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3. As we know, there are “known knowns,” there are
things we know we know. We also know there are
“known unknowns,” that is to say we know there
are things we do not know. But there are also
“unknown unknowns,” the ones we don’t know we
don’t know. And if you look throughout the history
of our country and other free countries, it is the
latter category that tends to be the difficult ones."

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 Origins: Developed at IBM by Dave Snowden and Cynthia
Kurtz in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
 Background: A Welsh word describing the relationship
between a community and its shared history, enabling it to
adapt instinctively and intuitively to conditions of
profound uncertainty.
 Usage: A decision-making/sense-making framework that
encourages us to understand situations before we react to
them.

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Complicated
ObviousChaos
Complex

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The Challenge
 Sort the bricks into colors, as quickly as possible.
 Create one heap for all special pieces.
 Decide in your team which pieces you want to treat as special.

8. KNOWN KNOWNS
 How much time did you need for
planning?
 How was the communication?
 How many leaders/followers were in
your team?

9. KNOWN KNOWNS
 How much time did you need for
planning?
 How was the communication?
 How many leaders/followers were in
your team?
Complicated
Obvious
Sense
Categorize
Respond
Chaos
Complex

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KNOWN UNKNOWNS
The Challenge
 Build a structure, as quickly as possible, according to the following rules:
 At least 20 bricks high
 Regular color pattern
 Every new block that you add to the structure can’t be bigger than the one below it

11. KNOWN UNKNOWNS
 What felt different compared to the
simple problem?
 How much time did you need for
planning?
 How was the communication?
 How many leaders/followers were in
your team?

12. KNOWN UNKNOWNS
 What felt different compared to the
simple problem?
 How much time did you need for
planning?
 How was the communication?
 How many leaders/followers were in
your team?
Complicated
Sense
Analyze
Respond
Obvious
Sense
Categorize
Respond
Chaos
Complex

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UNKNOWN KNOWNS
The Challenge
 Decide in 30 seconds to build either an animal or a vehicle. After that you work
according to the following rules:
 Create a regular color pattern.
 Each color of bricks must only be touched by one person in your team.
 You are not allowed to talk.
 Every minute, you need to switch tables, taking your unfinished work with you (but not the
material).

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UNKNOWN KNOWNS
 What felt different compared to the simple/complicated problem?
 How was the communication? How many leaders/followers were in your team?
 What kind of feedback did you have to guide you towards a solution?
 Would it have made a difference if you had had five minutes to talk and plan before
you started building?

15. UNKNOWN KNOWNS
 What felt different compared to the
simple/complicated problem?
 How was the communication? How
many leaders/followers were in your
team?
 What kind of feedback did you have
to guide you towards a solution?
 Would it have made a difference if
you had had five minutes to talk and
plan before you started building?
Complicated
Sense
Analyze
Respond
Obvious
Sense
Categorize
Respond
Chaos
Complex
Probe
Sense
Respond

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UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS
The Challenge
 Your task is similar to the last one,
 Decide in 30 seconds to create a building or a robot. After that you work according to
the following rules:
 Create a regular color pattern.
 Each color of bricks must only be touched by one person in your team.
 You are not allowed to talk.
 At random times, a team member’s shoulder will be tapped to be moved immediately to
another table.

17. UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS
 What felt different compared to the
complex problem/situation?
 How was the communication?
 How many leaders/followers were in
your team?
 How did it feel to loose a team
member or join another team?
 Why does this small change make
such a big difference?

18. UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS
 What felt different compared to the
complex problem/situation?
 How was the communication?
 How many leaders/followers were in
your team?
 How did it feel to loose a team
member or join another team?
 Why does this small change make
such a big difference?
Complicated
Sense
Analyze
Respond
Obvious
Sense
Categorize
Respond
Chaos
Act
Sense
Respond
Complex
Probe
Sense
Respond

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Complicated
Sense
Analyze
Respond
Obvious
Sense
Categorize
Respond
Chaos
Act
Sense
Respond
Complex
Probe
Sense
Respond

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2003 2007 2014

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 Often times we manage using common
approaches that worked well for us in the past.
- but -
 Different problems warrant different solutions.
 As you develop professionally, the problems you face will
become more complex.
 Before reacting to problems, take a minute to examine
what you know and don’t know, before leaping into fix
everything

22.  Cynefin Lego Game
• https://www.agile42.com/en/training/cynefin-lego-game/
• Thanks to agile42 for sharing this great exercise
Understanding the Cynefin framework – a basic intro
• http://www.everydaykanban.com/2013/09/29/understanding-the-
cynefin-framework/
• A nice high-level review of Cynefin from the Everyday Kanban Blog
Dave Snowden’s (Incredible) Blog
• http://cognitive-edge.com/blog/author/dave-snowden/
A simple explanation of the Cynefin Framework
• http://www.anecdote.com/2009/04/a-simple-explanation-cynefin-
framework/
• A brief video introduction to Cynefin, recommended by Dave
Snowden
Wikipedia’s (Well Maintained) Entry for Cynefin
Framework
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework
Keil Wilson
Enterprise Applications Architect at
Nelnet and agileLNK Co-Organizer
since 2015
jkeilwilson@gmail.com
@keilwilson on Twitter
www.linkedin.com/in/keilwilson
https://www.meetup.com/agileLNK
https://pmlnk.wordpress.com/