A leader's framework for decision making

Snowden, D. J., & Boone, M. E. (2007). A leader's framework for decision making. Harvard Business Review, 85(11), 69-76.

Type

Journal article

Intellectual base

Primary research

Year

2007

Volume

85

Issue

11

Pages

69-76

Link

https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making

Cited from

systems_cybernetics

Cited by

5 citations across 5 artifacts.

Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.

Primes

• Complexity
  • Conversely, skipping measurement entirely can hide gradual complexity accumulation until it reaches crisis (big-ball-of-mud software, spaghetti organizations)

    This sourceCynefin framework sorts contexts (simple, complicated, complex, chaotic) and prescribes different tools for each — supports the measurement-vs-management / domain-tool-matching claim at D26-087. Verified existing and supporting.

• Self-Organization
  • QWERTY keyboard layout, VHS over Betamax, conventions that are now inconvenient—these exhibit self-organized lock-in where initial advantage or historical accident creates path dependence

Mechanisms

• Probe Experiment
  • This is the safe-to-fail posture: a small, undoable experiment run because the outcome is genuinely unknown.
• Small Experiment
  • It is a safe-to-fail probe: designed so that a bad result costs little and teaches much.

    This sourceRecommends small, safe-to-fail experiments in complex settings so failures are containable and the resulting patterns inform subsequent action.

• Small Safe-to-Fail Probe
  • A real anchor names the intended stance: the safe-to-fail probe of the Cynefin framework — in a complex domain you probe with contained experiments and amplify or dampen based on what you learn, rather than analyzing to certainty first.

    This sourceIn complex contexts, the Cynefin framework recommends safe-to-fail probes followed by amplification of successful patterns and dampening of unsuccessful ones instead of exhaustive analysis in advance.

Verification

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Does it back the claim? Not recorded. Neither this nor any other of the 5 citations of this work carries a recorded support check.

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