What if the reason you can't find the right name for your experiments is because you're asking the wrong question?

In this one, we tackle a deceptively simple question from friend-of-Tentacles Matti about behavioural scientists, voting SMS messages, and which Cynefin domain they're playing in. This spirals into a wonderfully messy exploration of why simulation has limits, why "safe to fail" needs better words, and what ice hockey can teach us about working in uncertainty.

Including-but-not-limited-to:

• Why the person who thinks they can predict things in complexity is the most wrong of all
• An ice hockey metaphor that might finally make Cynefin dynamics click (featuring goosebumps, but not just because it's cold)
• How Multiverse Mapping deploys simulation for coherence testing, not fortune telling
• The liminal zone between complicated and complex – and why most "experiments" live there
• Why you can't measure a system without changing it
• The profound difference between "conditions and consequences" vs "cause and effect" thinking
• Why "poking reality" might be better than probes, scouts, or bets (or why we still can't decide)

This one's for anyone who's tired of treating complex human behaviour like it's a physics problem – and anyone who's wondered why their "experiments" keep failing even though the logic seemed sound.

Links and references:

• Matti J Heino (posed the question about voting SMS)
• Dave Snowden (Cynefin framework, Ritual Dissent)
• Jen Briselli (ice hockey player and fellow complexity wonk) https://medium.com/topology-insight/head-up-feet-moving-b56e60867190
• Wayne Gretzky (Canadian hockey player, "skate where the puck is going" quote)
• Ursula Le Guin (author, Earthsea series, concept of "true names")
• Sun Tzu (conditions and consequences thinking)
• Cynefin Dynamics https://cynefin.io/wiki/Cynefin_Dynamics
• Liminal Cynefin https://cynefin.io/wiki/Cynefin_Domains
• Tom's bounded applicability diagram https://triggerstrategy.com/pitch-provocations
• Multiverse Mapping: https://multiversemapping.com
• Matthew principle / Matthew Effect ("to him that has riches, more will come")
• Schrodinger's cat / superposition
• Episode 131: Safe to Fail Boops: A Pragmatic Critique of Business Experimentation (mentioned as previous episode)
• Why Does the Pedlar Sing? (on advertising, branding, and fame)

Find out more about us and our work at crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.