Using the Cynefin Framework to Navigate Complexity

TL;DR: The Cynefin framework is a sense-making tool that helps individuals and organizations navigate complexity. It categorizes situations into simple, complicated, complex, chaotic, and disorder domains, and provides guidance on appropriate decision-making approaches for each.

Where you are in the framework determines how you should think and act. Unlike a “one-size-fits-all” management theory, Cynefin emphasizes context awareness. Its main function is to recommend actions based on situational analysis, recognizing that different systems have different causal structures and thus require different approaches to decision-making.

Cynefin, pronounced kuh-nev-in, is a Welsh word that reflects the multiple, intertwined factors in our environment and experiences that influence how we think, interpret, and act—often in ways we cannot fully understand. Importantly, the framework is not a model that seeks to represent reality. Rather, it provides a way of looking at reality.

“From a sense-making perspective, a model represents reality and a framework provides a way of looking at or approaching that reality.”

The framework builds on an original concept that identified three types of systems: ordered, complex, and chaotic. Cynefin refines this by splitting the ordered domain into two (clear/obvious and complicated) and adding a fifth domain: disorder, positioned at the center of the framework. In diagrams, disorder is often labeled as “confusion.”

Confusion is a problematic state—being in disorder means you don’t know what kind of system you are in. This is critical because the system you face could be ordered or chaotic—you simply aren’t aware. (This echoes Bohm’s ideas about order and awareness.)

The decision models in Cynefin are typically illustrated in blue.

In ordered systems, cause and effect have a clear linear relationship—what happens once will happen the same way again, due to the system’s nature rather than by accident. The ordered domain is divided into two: clear (or obvious) and complicated.

The difference between obvious and complicated is that, in the obvious domain, everyone agrees on the cause-effect relationship. For example, in Ireland we drive on the left-hand side of the road, and in Germany we drive on the right. We adjust our behavior accordingly when traveling between countries, without questioning why. The decision model here is sense-categorize-respond: “I’m in Ireland, they drive on the left, so I drive on the left.” Standard operating procedures work here. Chaos emerges only if rigid rules are assumed to be absolute.

“Even the most rigid system allows for exceptions.”

Cynefin encourages an ontologically diverse approach to sense-making: individuals make decisions based on their own experience, perspective, and preferred style of action. For example, bureaucrats may see problems as failures of process or as a need for new processes. Experts often assume a lack of sufficient investigation time. Politicians tend to navigate complexity well, engaging with diverse perspectives. Extremists, however, may exploit crises to seize absolute control.

The framework’s creator emphasizes that, from a cognitive science perspective, we often assess situations based on how we have already decided to act. Many Cynefin techniques are designed to prevent preconceived actions from biasing situational assessment.

The Cynefin framework helps us recognize that every situation is unique and requires a tailored approach to decision-making. By distinguishing different domains, it aligns our actions with the reality we face through a process of sense-making.

Sense-making with Cynefin cultivates awareness of what is truly complex versus what is routine. This prevents wasted effort overthinking simple problems and ensures that complex situations are not forced into standard solutions.