Established model
The Cynefin framework
Dave Snowden, with Cynthia Kurtz and Mary Boone · 2003
Also known as Cynefin
Decide what kind of situation you are in before deciding how to act, because the right way to act differs by kind.
Its place in the frameworkGoal Core›Strategic goals
What it does
It separates situations where cause and effect are obvious, where they can be worked out by analysis, where they can only be seen in hindsight, and where there is no discernible pattern at all — plus the state of not knowing which of these applies. The practical lesson is about method: best practice suits the first, expertise the second, small safe experiments the third, and decisive action to restore some order the fourth.
- Reach for it when
- When a strategic problem is being attacked with a plan and an analysis, and the problem keeps behaving in ways the analysis did not predict.
- Where it stops
- It is a sense-making device, not a sorting machine. Deciding which domain you are in is itself a judgement, and people reliably place their own problems in whichever domain suits the method they already prefer.
Cynthia F. Kurtz & David J. Snowden, “The New Dynamics of Strategy: Sense-making in a Complex and Complicated World”, IBM Systems Journal, 2003; David J. Snowden & Mary E. Boone, “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making”, Harvard Business Review, 2007.
Why it sits at Strategic goals
The few goals that decide direction. A strategic goal is not simply a large goal — it is one that answers a diagnosed problem and commits the organisation to some paths at the cost of others.
A model is only useful when you reach for it at the right moment. This one answers a question that arises here — so it is filed here, and nowhere else. These are the working areas it serves:
- DiagnosisRumelt, Good Strategy / Bad Strategy (2011): diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent action as the kernel of any real strategy.
- Strategic themesKaplan & Norton’s strategy maps, where themes connect objectives across perspectives into a causal chain.
- Trade-offsPorter, What Is Strategy? (1996): the essence of strategy as choosing what not to do, and the role of trade-offs in making a position defensible.
- Horizon and measuresBalanced Scorecard practice on tying each strategic objective to a small number of outcome measures.
What it touches elsewhere
Nothing in a business is decided on its own. A conclusion reached with this model at Strategic goals lands in these other cores, whether or not anyone follows it there.
- GovernanceThe board approves strategy and sets the risk appetite the strategic goals have to sit within.
- Vision CoreStrategic goals should be readable as steps towards the stated vision.
- Market CoreDiagnosis usually begins here — with competitors, audience and opportunity.
- Brand CorePositioning is a strategic choice and belongs among these goals, not after them.
- Data CoreWhere the outcome measures are defined, collected and reported.
Filed at the same place
These answer questions that arise at Strategic goals too. Where they disagree with this one, the disagreement is the useful part.
- Rumelt’s kernel of good strategyA strategy is a diagnosis, a guiding policy and a set of coherent actions — and anything without all three is a wish list.
- The Ansoff MatrixFour directions growth can come from, ordered by how much is unfamiliar in each.
- Porter’s generic strategiesThere are three ways to win a market, and trying to do more than one at a time is how companies end up winning none.
- The growth–share matrixSort what the business owns by how fast its market is growing and how strong its position in it is, and fund each kind differently.
- Playing to winStrategy as a short chain of linked choices, each of which has to make sense of the one above it.
Elsewhere in Goal Core
These are other people’s models, named here so you can go to the source and use them properly. The Omnigoal is not affiliated with their authors and is not endorsed by them; nothing of theirs is reproduced here — no canvas, no diagram, no wording. Each is described in our own words, with the originator credited, because the framework is a place to put thinking, not a replacement for the people who did it. Model names and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used here only to refer to the work itself.
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