Workshop presented by Dave Snowden at agile42 Connect in Berlin, November 2015 – It's not just enough for Agile to deliver projects faster and at higher quality. It has to move further back in the life cycle to help form the definition of those projects by linking unarticulated users needs with strategic imperatives and technology capabilities. Moving from simply responding to needs, to using technology to generate novel capability that form markets rather than respond to them or which transform service in the commercial or government sectors. This means looking at pre-Scrum processes within an Agile approach, and also at creating new ways of interacting with user Executives. This workshop will build on the Cynefin framework and narrative approaches developed by Snowden within Cognitive Edge over the past decade. It will look at radical new approaches to user requirements capture and the creation of sense-making frameworks that link strategic need with technology capability. – Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved.

2. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
Navigating landscapes
0 20 40 60 80 100
020406080100
Doing it Right
Anintensedrivetoachieve
Present
Past Future
Peers
Management Self-imposed
Lacking and
needed
Over the top
stressful
Situation relevant to… Pressure coming from… Sense of urgency is…
Creating new
process
Allocating
responsibility
All about
sharing failure
Fairness is about
0 20 40 60 80 100020406080100
Doing it Right
Welldefinedprocessesandprocedures

3. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
From categories to dispositions
Speed
Sophistication
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
020406080
Over the top stressful
Pressurefromself
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
0.00.20.40.60.81.0
Freedom too far
Deadlinestoofar
Sophistication
Speed
Signification diversity over time as confidence indicator

4. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
Cynefin: making sense of
the world so we can act
in it
There are three basic types of
system: ordered, complex and
chaotic.
Complex systems have
propensities and dispositions
but no linear material cause
In Cynefin order is divided
into ‘obvious’ & complicated
and the fifth domain) disorder.
The boundary between
Obvious and Chaotic is show
as a cliff, or a catastrophic
failure arising from
complacency.
Complicated
Governing constraints
sense-analyse-respond
Good Practice
Obvious
Rigid constraints
sense-categorise-respond
Best Practice
Chaotic
Absence of constraints
act-sense-respond
Novel Practice
Complex
Enabling constraints
probe-sense-respond
Emergent Practice
1
2a
2b
3

5. Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved.Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved.Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved.
Expected signs of success
Possible signs of failure Dampening actions
Amplification actions
Oblique? Naive?
Name
Action description
Why is it coherent?
COMPLEXDOMAINACTIONFORMCopyright©2013CognitiveEdge.AllRightsReserved.
something
memorable
leave blank if not leave blank if not

6. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
Safe to fail experiments
Principles
Short life cycle, three months max often shorter
Any coherent idea gets an experiment
They must take place in parallel
Minimum of three, maximum of seven
They must be safe-to-fail so amplification & dampening
identified up front
Don’t analyse other than to prove coherence
Portfolio (managed as such)
At least one must be naive
At least one must be oblique
You can have a few high risk/high return
There must be contradiction

7. Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved.Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved.Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved.
Research/analysis methods to be used
Experts to be consulted/deployed Justification of choice
Justification of methods
Anticipated date for results Who will review?
Name
Summary of issue/opportunity
Evidence for research or experts being
able to handle this question
COMPLICATEDDOMAINACTIONFORMCopyright©2013CognitiveEdge.AllRightsReserved.
something
memorable
Leave blank if not used
Leave blank if not used
Leave blank if no research/analysis proposed
Leave blank if no use of experts proposed

8. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
Basic heuristics
For action
Finely grained objects
Distributed cognition
Disintermediation
To avoid
Retrospective coherence
Premature convergence
Pattern entrainment
At its simplest
What can I change?
Where can I monitor the effect
of change?
Where can I amplify success or
dampen failure?

9. Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201

10. Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Edge.All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
01.04.1954
Like bramble bushes in a thicket
ComplexAdaptive Systems are dispositional
not casual in nature; modulated not driven
Enabling but not governing constraints
(endoskeleton not exoskeleton)
Research and intervention are abductive not
inductive (Cobra, butterfly & Hawthorn
effects)
Resilience & sustainability require exaptive
not adaptive evolution
Innovation as an interplay between
unarticulated needs & unknown capability
Scaling requires imperfect copying and
recombination not imitation
Juarrero, A (2002) “Complex Dynamic Systems and the
Problem of Identity” in Emergence 4(1/2) B-104

11. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
24 radiologists were asked to
perform a familiar lung nodule
detection task.
Apicture of a gorilla, 48 times
larger than the average nodule,
was inserted in the last case.
83% of radiologists did not see
the gorilla.
Eye-tracking showed that the
majority of the those who missed
the gorilla looked directly at it
“The invisible gorilla strikes
again”
Drew, Vo & Wolfe
Psychol Sci. Sep 2013; 24(9): 1848–
1853

12. Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Edge.All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
01.04.1954
There is no question that in
virtually all circumstances in which
people are doing things in order to
get rewards, tangible rewards
undermine intrinsic motivation
Any observed statistical regularity
will tend to collapse once pressure
is placed upon it for control
purposes Goodhart
When a measure becomes a
target, it ceases to be a good
measure Strathern
New Scientist. 9thApril
2011 pp 40-43

13. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
From robustness to resilienceProbabilityofoutcome
Range of possible outcomes
Gaussian
Low Probability
High impact events
Derived from material created by Max Boisot
Academy of Management Montreal 2010
10-²
10-¹
10⁰
10¹
10²
10³
10⁴
10⁵
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Magnitude m=log₁₀(S)
N(M=m(earthquakes/year)
Pareto
✘
early detection,
fast recovery &
speedy exploitation

14. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
Different approaches to understanding
Logofeventfrequency
Log of event size
Pareto
world
Gaussian
world
Possible
Plausible
Probable
Hypothesis/
inductive Non-hypothesis/
abductive

15. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
Scalable ethnography using human metadata
Micro narratives or observations
are the basic units of sense-making
Meaning does not reside in text it is
provided by human actors in
context
Significant and growing issues with
Big Data & Social Media: the
tyranny of herds & algorithms
Abstraction is key to interpretation,
meaning making & reuse
Description opens up more
possibilities than evaluation
More like these, fewer like those:
intervention & advocacy
Acting
intuitively,
instantly
The situation was
analysed logically
People made decisions
based on principles

16. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
Navigating landscapes
0 20 40 60 80 100
020406080100
Doing it Right
Anintensedrivetoachieve
Present
Past Future
Peers
Management Self-imposed
Lacking and
needed
Over the top
stressful
Situation relevant to… Pressure coming from… Sense of urgency is…
Creating new
process
Allocating
responsibility
All about
sharing failure
Fairness is about
0 20 40 60 80 100020406080100
Doing it Right
Welldefinedprocessesandprocedures

17. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
Dispositional monitoring

18. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
Understanding nuanced differences
0 20 40 60 80
020406080100
Doing it Right
Anintensedrivetoachieve 20 40 60 80 100
020406080 Doing it Right
Anintensedrivetoachieve
0 20 40 60 80
020406080100
Doing it Right
Welldefinedprocessesandprocedures
0 20 40 60 80 100
020406080100
Doing it Right
Welldefinedprocessesandprocedures
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
0.20.40.60.8
Freedom too far
Deadlinestoofar
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
0.00.20.40.60.81.0
Freedom too far
Deadlinestoofar 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
20406080100
Over the top stressful
Pressurefrommanagement
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
020406080100
Over the top stressful
Pressurefrommanagement
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
020406080
Over the top stressful
Pressurefromself
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
020406080100
Over the top stressful
Pressurefromself
0 20 40 60 80
020406080100
Self Imposed
Anintensedrivetoachieve
0 20 40 60 80 100
020406080100
Self ImposedAnintensedrivetoachieve

19. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201
12 Nov 2015
Human sensor networks
networks for ordinary
purpose that can be
activated for extra-
ordinary needs
stimulating the generation
of open source data
focus on connections on
perceptual timelines not
content (as that can
already be handled well
From anticipation to
anticipatory awareness
Real time decision support

20. Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Edge. All Rights Reserved. US Pat. 8,031,201