Decision Making and Handling Uncertainty with PRINCE2 Agile

Question 1

What is Cynefin?

Answer 1

Cynefin (kuh-nev-in) is a decision-making framework that helps one understand the level of complexity in a situation, environment, or project. It can also handles known unknowns in BAU.

Cynefin outlines five domains that determine the relationshup between the cause and effect of events or interactions. If x happens and causes y, how likely is x to cause y (always, mostly. sometimes, hardly ever).

Question 2

What are the five domains of Cynefin?

Answer 2

There are five domains:

1. Obvious
   
   1. Known knowns - The relationship is obvious and usually addressed by best practise
   2. Normal process should be used to handle the issue
   3. Generally speaking, BAU falls into this domain
2. Complicated
   
   1. Known unknowns, expected challenges, periods of discovery. Some form of analysis or expertise is required to understand the relationship. There may be several potential options and this is normally handled by good practise
   2. A specialised person with the relevant experience should handle this using the normal processes
3. Complex
   
   1. Unknown unknowns, requires a lot of scoping and investigation. The relationship can only be understood in retrospect. It is addressed by “emergent practice” and may result in a new way of working
   2. Slow down and active attention should be paid by specialists. Need to keep regular contact and find ways to tweak the process to handle these events. The normal process will not handle this effectively without intervention
4. Chaotic
   
   1. No relationship and any new way of working is novel and existing processes are entirely unsuitable. A lot of care and experimentation is needed to move forward
   2. There is a lot of uncertainty and need to manage expectations and communicate clearly and regularly
   3. Progress is guided with a lot of informal and regular control and communication
5. Disorder
   
   1. The relationship is not known.
   2. Stop, break the problem down further and do not act on a part of the problem until a clear solution has been found.

Question 3

What can Cynefin be used for?

Answer 3

Cynefin can be used in the SU / IP phases to understand the complexity of a project, both in terms of the final product (not much commercial information) or the project environment (no relevant experience, colocation, new team). It can also be used to assess the output, outcome, or benefit.

Question 4

What is a potential pit fall with Cynefin and how can this be solved??

Answer 4

People measure the complexity of a problem based on their past experience. If a person is used to working in the “Complicated” domain, they move jump straight into sensing and analysing when it is better to slow down and use complex protocols.

If complexity is measured collaboratively, a team is more likely to decide on the correct response.

Question 5

How should Cynefin by employed?

Answer 5

The complexity of a project may change over it’s lifetime, so it may be necessary to tweak the Project Approach, including ditching and picking up other Agile behaviours / techniques.

Not adapting the PM practises to changing levels of complexity can lead to problems, known in Cynefin as a “crisis”.