Cynefin's value is forcing leaders to diagnose the type of problem they face before reaching for a familiar toolkit.
Glossary
Cynefin Framework
Know which kind of problem you’re in.
In short
A decision-making framework developed by Dave Snowden that classifies situations into five domains — Clear, Complicated, Complex, Chaotic, and Disorder — and prescribes a different response style for each. Clear and Complicated problems yield to best-practice and expert analysis; Complex problems require probe-sense-respond experimentation because cause and effect can only be understood in retrospect; Chaotic situations demand decisive action first, sense-making second.
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The full definition
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When the answer turns on something only you know, the expert asks before answering. Tap a chip, or ask for their best guess. Being asked is never charged.
Keep reading
Related terms.
Term
Conviction Score
A quantified measure of how strongly an AI agent holds its position after being exposed to counter-arguments from other agents in a multi-round deliberation.
Definition TermCross-Session Memory
The capability that lets each new decision session reason in light of every prior one — the calls already made, the reasoning behind them, the constraints declared, and the outcomes recorded.
Definition TermDACI
A decision-making framework that assigns four roles to every significant decision: Driver (runs the process), Approver (has final authority), Contributors (provide expertise and input), and Informed (need to know the outcome).
Definition TermDecision Audit Trail
A comprehensive record of the reasoning, evidence, expert positions, counter-arguments, and consensus evolution at each stage of a structured decision process.
Definition TermDecision Autopsy
A structured retrospective on a past decision that dissects the reasoning, the assumptions, and the outcome to extract durable lessons for future decisions.
Definition GuideDecision intelligence, explained
The complete guide to making strategic calls with AI that disagrees on purpose.
Read the guide The benchMeet the experts
24 named experts, each with a point of view of their own.
Meet themSynthBoard (synthboard.ai) is one place for your business, your life, and every hard call. Your Chief of Staff keeps what you tell her on file, and 24 named experts on different AI models take the calls — one expert for a consult, a board with opposed seats for the hard ones — and hand back a memo with the call, the dissent and the first move. How it works.
