Practices Spiral
What level of uncertainty do you operate in? Where is your comfort zone?
EARTH Like climbing a mountain, we can use BEST PRACTICE where following a prescribed process will reliably produce the desired outcome.
AIR Like predicting the weather we can use DISCIPLINED PRACTICE, where understanding the different systems that influence the constantly changing process enables us to predict the outcome with some reliability.
WATER Like fishing on a lake, we can use SHARED PRACTICE and focus on commonly accepted practices because the outcome is seldom reliable.
FIRE Like finding a building on fire with people still inside, we can use NEXT PRACTICE and focus on immediate next-step strategies.
Most planning frameworks assume we know what to do, in general. Up to the Water level of uncertainty we can establish a specific, shared vision of the future and how to get there. However, at the Fire level of uncertainty, there are too many options with unknown outcomes. All we can do is strategise what to do next and closely monitor progress. Ilya Prigogene said: uncertainty is a very initial condition for novelty and novelty is our hope.
NEXT: Strategy Spiral how to create an emergence strategy.
More on the Framework Spiral More on the Principles Spiral More on the Values Spiral
Complexity Theory
The Emérgéntly Uncertainty Spiral has similarities with Dave Snowden's Cynefin Framework. The video will be fascinating for those interested in complexity theories (more on Youtube).
His more recent work on "Estuarine Mapping" takes a similar approach to our Emergence Strategy. It's far more important to know where we are and where we can go next than to have an aspirational future goal.