David J Snowden

• Professor
• University of Hull

There is growing interest in studying processes of human sensemaking, as this strongly influences human and organizational behavior as well as complex system dynamics due to the diverse lenses people use to interpret and act in the world. The Cognitive Edge SenseMaker® tool is one method for capturing and making sense of people’s attitudes, percept...

A new awareness of the ancient counterpart to order began over a century ago with Poincar and several others, and has surged in recent decades. In fact there is a fascinating kind of order in which no director or designer is in control but which emerges through the interaction of many entities. Emergent order has been found in many natural phenomen...

This paper outlines one of several sense making models developed by the author based on fieldwork across a range of organizations. These models are designed to pass the ‘paper napkin ’ test: they can be drawn from memory on the back of a paper napkin and used to make sense of a situation in normal conversation. All such models are designed to force...

Anticipatory thinking is a critical macrocognitive function of individuals and teams. It is the ability to prepare in time for problems and opportunities. We distinguish it from prediction because anticipatory thinking is functional—people are preparing themselves for future events, not simply predicting what might happen. And it is aimed at potent...

For Christmas 1998 my parents followed a long tradition of giving me a book related to Welsh culture. That year it was The Land and the Sea, a collection of the works of Kyffin Williams, published to celebrate his eightieth year. I have admired his work from when I first saw a portrait painted by him, of a much loved headmaster a quarter of a centu...

Many executives are surprised when previously successful leadership approaches fail in new situations, but different contexts call for different kinds of responses. Before addressing a situation, leaders need to recognize which context governs it -and tailor their actions accordingly. Snowden and Boone have formed a new perspective on leadership an...

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to focus on the role of networks in organizations as a critical aspect of knowledge management and learning processes. Design/methodology/approach – The article has built on an established technique, namely SNA, by shifting from individuals to identities and then to abstractions. Findings – By making the s...

Introduction to Anticipatory Modeling The Need for Anticipatory Models Rethinking the Prediction Problem Summary References

Imagine organising a birthday party for a group of young children. Would you agree a set of learning objectives with their parents in advance of the party? Would those objectives be aligned with the mission statement for education in the society to which you belong? Would you create a project plan for the party with clear milestones associated with...

In this final article of the series, Dave Snowden completes the catalogue of methods for eliciting anecdotal material from which knowledge assets can be identified using the common sense language of the ASHEN model. He then establishes three heuristics or rules of thumb that can be used to guide the design of knowledge interventions once the knowle...

Narrative or the use of stories is an ancient discipline. Our ancestors evolved the ability to see the world through a set of abstractions, and thereby enabled the development of sophisticated language and the ability to use stories as a primary mechanism for knowledge transfer. The oral-history tradition was the only method of knowledge transfer f...

This report and opinion piece seeks to establish a model in which complexity can be positioned in the context of other management disciplines, in such a way as to effectively communicate to executives in industry and their equivalents in government the importance of applying complex-ity thinking. It also seeks to differentiate what is termed 'socia...

This is the first of a two-part position paper considering how knowledge management supports innovation. The focus of the first part is on diagnosis, and the development of management science and management practice in the 20th century. It is argued that systems need to be understood not as systems, but at the level of agent interaction, and that a...

In this paper, we challenge the universality of three basic assumptions prevalent in organizational decision support and strategy: assumptions of order, of rational choice, and of intent. We describe the Cynefin framework, a sense-making device we have developed to help people make sense of the complexities made visible by the relaxation of these a...

In this paper, we challenge the universality of three basic assumptions prevalent in organizational decision support and strategy: assumptions of order, of rational choice, and of intent. We describe the Cynefin framework, a sense-making device we have developed to help people make sense of the complexities made visible by the relaxation of these a...

The panel explores an alternative conceptual framework to understand and manage the implications of non-linearly structured work forms that emerge in current work environments. The framework of complexity is used for this purpose and to assess the importance of boundaries and limited perspective for systems in which technology is constructed as a f...

We are reaching the end of the second generation of knowledge management, with its focus on tacit-explicit knowledge conversion. Triggered by the SECI model of Nonaka, it replaced a first generation focus on timely information provision for decision support and in support of BPR initiatives. Like BPR it has substantially failed to deliver on its pr...

This paper draws on a six-year programme of research and practice, in IBM Institute for Knowledge Management, which has been recently patented and is shortly to be offered under licence as a body of method to practitioners in the field of knowledge management. It argues that we are entering a third age of knowledge management in which the focus on...

What is complexity science? What is management? And how are the two linked? The potential of complexity science in the fields of management and organization studies has been explored before, yet there is little agreement on what complexity science truly is. Lissack and Rivkin, along with a panel of distinguished academics and executives, identify c...

Narrative techniques reveal the patterns of an organization and are in turn the means by which it can be patterned. Narrative is a powerful tool within organizations, but it is not susceptible to the engineering approaches that have dominated management practice in the last few decades. This chapter presents some cautionary comments and an overview...

nowledge management is a difficult and challenging topic that has been subject to oversimplistic approaches from a variety of authors and technology vendors. It is fashion- able to reference its 2,500-year-old philosophical origins in epistemology, which date back to the first use of the phrase "justified true belief " in Plato's Theactetus. It is...

Part two of a two-part article continuing the theme of a earlier article (BIR, 17(3) Sep 2000, 147–156) which outlined some of the uses of storytelling for communication and knowledge disclosure. Story is positioned against other approaches to storytelling in organizations and identifies the different forms of purposeful story that can be construct...

Part one of a two part article continuing the theme of a earlier article (Business Information Review, 16(1) March 1999, 30–37) which outlined some of the uses of storytelling for communication and knowledge disclosure. Reports results of a study, based on over five years of research, experimentation and practice, of storytelling (‘Story’) as a for...

Story telling is a uniting and defining component of all communities. The quality of story telling and its conformity or otherwise with desired corporate values is one measure of the overall health of an organization. Stories exist in all organizations; managed and purposeful story telling provides a powerful mechanism for the disclosure of intelle...