cynefinlisted

# Cynefin Cynefin (Welsh, "habitat" — the many contexts you sense-make from) is Dave Snowden's framework for matching your **response** to the **kind** of problem you face. The whole value is upstream of solving: pick the wrong domain and the right technique for a different domain fails. This skill routes a decision by reading the system's *constraints* and applying the domain-appropriate response. **The one anti-pattern that voids everything: Cynefin is not a 2×2 matrix and not a categorization model.** Categorization puts the framework before the data — you pre-judge and filter out the signal that disagrees. Cynefin is *sense-making*: ingest the real, messy data first, let the domain emerge from the constraints, *then* act. A "pick your quadrant" menu has already failed. The order↔chaos edge is a catastrophic fold, not a line on a grid. ## The five domains Route by the **type of constraint** governing the system — that is the rigorous, current definition (Snowden, post-2014), not just "ordered vs unordered". | Domain | Constraint / cause-effect | Response | Practice | What to do | |---|---|---|---|---| | **Clear** (was Simple → Obvious → Clear) | Fixed/rigid; obvious, repeatable — known knowns | **sense → categorize → respond** | best practice | runbook, checklist, automation, lint | | **Complicated** | Governing; knowable by analysis — known unknowns | **sense → analyze → respond** | good practice (plural) | expert review, design docs, capacity planning | | **Complex*