Writing
Cynefin with Examples
Cynefin is a public domain, complexity-centered framework for sense-making. There are 5 ontological domains (you can call them quadrants if you want to piss off certain corners of the internet) — Clear (formerly Simple/Obvious), Complicated, Complex, Chaotic, and...
Tasshin Interviews Ben on Strategy
This is a rapidfire overview of strategic methods that Tasshin Fogleman and I recorded back in July of 2020. He's edited it together for the Reach Truth Podcast, which you can check out at his YouTube channel here. I recommend watching the video directly on YouTube,...
Donald A Schön at Iowa State University (Talk Transcript)
When intuitive, spontaneous performance yields nothing more than the results expected for it, then we tend not to think about it. But when intuitive performance leads to surprises, pleasing and promising or unwanted, we may respond by reflecting-in-action.Donald A...
The Everyday Process of Burnout Recovery
Susan Almon joins Ben to discuss the long, hard journey of recovering from burnout.
Meaning Making Machines (Jennifer Carlston)
Ben and Jenny discuss the absurdity of life, how to create and test learning models, and a unique approach to experience sharing known as “kything.”
Anticipatory Awareness and the Election
The anxiety I feel about the actions of the Trump administration over the last few years reaches a new crescendo as Nov 3rd, 2020 rolls around. Instead of cycling endlessly through various "what-ifs," I am going to make use of a technique I teach others, useful for...
Principles vs Context: It’s Not About Choice
For Map Camp 2020, I had the absolute privilege of co-delivering a session with Farrah Campbell and Cat Swetel on principles in Wardley Mapping.
Ten Heuristics for Bad Times
A heuristic is a cognitive shortcut for decision-making. It is not guaranteed to be rational or even correct. It serves only to help you get to “good enough” in the short term. Here are ten to try in bad times…
We Live in Interesting Times (Andrew Clay Shafer)
In the midst of a pandemic, Andrew Clay Shafer and Ben Mosior talk transformation, hope, and civic duty. Recorded March 23, 2020.
Society in Transition (Dr. Caitlin McDonald)
COVID-19 is changing our society, but how are we coping? Ben is joined by digital anthropologist Dr. Caitlin McDonald to discuss our collective re-examination of common assumptions about work, community, and life.
Language Is Key, but Context Is King (Dean DiStasio)
Ben is joined by artist Dean Distasio to explore what it takes to create transformative conversations through complexity-informed artistic works. Dean shares his process and offers unique perspective on networks, narrative, and the importance of language and context.
Organizational Resilience (Matt Stratton)
Legendary DevOps friend Matt Stratton joins Ben for a discussion on the very near and dear topic of organizational trauma. Matt shares important lessons from his experiences, as well as a few secrets to building organizational resilience through incident response. (Content warning: General discussion of trauma.)
Building Bridges (Colleen Esposito)
Ben is joined by Colleen Esposito, an agile coach and self-described bridge-builder with an incredible set of unique experiences spanning finance, software development, project management, and even home renovation. She and Ben explore the complexity of engaging with...
A Broken Compass: Sentiment Analysis in the Tweetstream
About a year ago, I became acutely aware that my consumption of Twitter was becoming increasingly entangled with elevated levels of anxiety. Twitter has long been a wonderful way to connect with cool people I can't always see in person, so I didn't appreciate how my...
Implicit Guidance (Mario Platt & Ben Ford)
Special guests Mario Platt (Privacy Beacon) and Ben Ford (Commando Development) join Ben Mosior for an extensive discussion of the OODA Loop, the Cynefin Framework, and Derek M. C. Yuen's book, Deciphering Sun Tzu. https://youtu.be/YI1G5LgeOak Boyd: The Fighter Pilot...
How are you doing as a human? (Toby Sola)
This episode features a thoughtful discussion with Toby Sola, Co-Founder & CPO of Brightmind, a meditation app for managing stress and anxiety. Ben and Toby explore the intersection of meditation and technology, as well as how to start inviting contemplative...
The Reluctant Devop: Heretical Anthropology (Anthony Mastrean)
Ben kicks off episode 2 with Anthony Mastrean, a friend, colleague, and professional organizational agitator. They discuss the origin story leading to their work together, what it's like changing an organization from the inside, and the underrated discipline of...
On Understanding the Self: Mapping and the Annual Review
https://twitter.com/callumflack/status/1074133278825693185 Back when I thought I needed to work in cubicles the rest of my life, I did something similar to this with mapping. I believe @kelseyhightower has as well. I do wish I...
The Integrative Approach: When the Opportunities Reveal Themselves (Ryan Wold)
Ben is joined by Ryan Wold for the very first episode of the Hired Thought Podcast. They talk about the sociotechnical nature of organizations, and what it's like to integrate a larger view of the system across functional boundaries. https://youtu.be/RzxjG9MPnWE The...
For Founders
Let's talk about purposeful organizations, the overwhelm of too many sources of information, and what errors to avoid as a founder. https://youtu.be/3Qnk76qqaeM [I]n an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of...
Evolution and Being in Genesis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U7i02WWNaM How do you get through beginnings? What does it mean to be in Genesis? If you broke your work (and everything around it) down into parts, which ones are truly in genesis, and which ones have been done before (in other...
Tim Ebenezer — Mapping Policing in the UK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB-4ynJPDIA Absolutely fabulous conversation with Tim Ebenezer on Wardley Mapping and policing in the UK. We walk step-by-step through a hypothetical example, sharing our stories and experiences along the way!
Mario Platt: Evolution-informed Security Strategy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwEjpgxRVCE What an absolute privilege it was to host LearnWardleyMapping Professional Member @madplatt! He sets us straight on strategy, security as a constraint vs an enabler, and The Four Problems we must address for an adequate...
If Mapping is the solution, what is the problem?
I've been wanting to understand what makes Wardley Mapping so incredibly useful to some and so completely inaccessible to others. After a conversation with Chris Donnelly, I offered the following prompt on Twitter:...
“Help” Is a Four-Letter Word
There is helpful help, and then there is unhelpful "help." Far too much help seems to fall into the latter category, and when someone “helps” — when it’s not asked for, when it presupposes too many incorrect assumptions, and when the relationship is not fair and...
The Conditions for Community
The Conditions for Community There’s an old joke that says you only need two tools in life: Duct tape, for things that move but shouldn’t, andWD-40, for things that don’t move but should. I have both in my toolbox at home, along with a number of other, more...
Evolve: A Quick Reference for Wardley Mapping
About two years ago, I was doing quite a bit of Wardley Mapping, and I found myself looking up the same parts of Simon's blog over and over. At the time I was super interested in information microsites (single-topic sites like this one), so I built one to host the one...
Wardley Mapping on Kumu.io
I’ve noticed that quite a few people have been writing purpose-built software for Wardley Mapping, and lately I’ve been feeling inspired to join them! I had some extra time last Saturday, so I sat down at my laptop in the hopes of hacking together a fancy D3.js...
The Wardley Mapping Canvas
The Wardley Mapping Canvas provides just the right amount of visual structure to help mapping practitioners make quick progress and have a better learning experience while building their first maps. The canvas has been added to the official RealtimeBoard template...
So you want to build a website
Every once in a while, I plan to share something I call a solution blueprint — a way to fulfill a particular business need that I think is universal enough to be offered as general advice for the current moment in time. Something to consider as a safe default. That...
Intro to Wardley Mapping
A hard truth of decision-making is that complete information will never be available. We use tools, techniques, shorthands, and experience-laden aphorisms to fill in the gaps, but they remain inadequate in addressing uncertainty. Our individual coping mechanisms are...
Deconstructing Ideas
Everything I’m Hoping Is in Your Elevator Pitch When I attend a pitch event, I sit with a notebook in my lap and sketch out a quick value chain of each product or solution while it is being described. At the end of each pitch, I write where I would focus first, were I...
The Five Focusing Steps for Human Systems
I don’t normally read textbooks just for fun. Ok, that’s not true. I wouldn’t normally read this textbook just for fun. It is, however, excellent reference material and worth a skim every once in a while. The textbook is Bill Dettmer’s The Logical Thinking Process,...
Wardley Mapping Tools and Techniques
A current list of tools for Wardley Mapping is maintained over at LearnWardleyMapping.com. This post has two main sections: A semi-serious reflection on the problem space of tools for mapping, and then a fun overview of all sorts of mapping tools and techniques,...
Who Is the User, Really?
Thinking Globally When Constructing the Value Chain The Theory of Constraints teaches us the difference between local and global thinking with respect to systems and their performance. To think locally is to optimize each individual component of a system with the...
On Strategy
“Strategy” is an interesting word in that its absence of useful meaning is directly correlated with its frequency of use, as Dave Aron describes in his book, The Essence of Strategy: People put the word strategy next to other words in order to make them sound...
Batches and Iterations
The following is a rather unpolished glimpse into how we think about batch sizes and iterations. First, we expect our system to have a goal. For a software-building system made of people like ourselves, the goal is to deliver value in the form of working software. We...
Buffer Management for Meal Prepping
This post describes an attempt to apply theory practically (praxis) to solve a silly little problem. My wife and I are getting serious about cutting our restaurant spending, so we have been cooking large batches of food to store and eat throughout the week. Cooking in...
On Diversity
Just a few years ago, I would not have been able to articulate why organizational diversity matters. (I know that for a fact, because I once offered a barely adequate, fumbling answer during an interview. Despite somehow getting the job, I remained largely clueless...
Hidden Complexities
Originally published September 24, 2016 I consider sense-making to be a component of Landscape and Doctrine (from Sun Tzu’s Five Factors), and so I am incorporating a short overview of Cynefin into an upcoming talk on strategy. While outlining, I toyed with a few...
Wardley Mapping, A PowerPoint Template
UPDATE: A new template is available at LearnWardleyMapping.com. Check it out here. Originally published June 25, 2016 One particularly coherent approach to “strategy” involves using a map to pursue increased situational awareness from which to execute various forms of...
Cutting Costs. Or, How to Pretend Complex is Simple.
Originally published March 20, 2016 Suppose a company discovers that its projected revenue is below original expectations for reasons outside of its direct control. The bottom-line numbers are going to look bad, so something must be done immediately. Cost-cutting...
Cynefin, Culture Change as Complex
Originally published February 27, 2016 The Cynefin framework (created by Dave Snowden) reveals that Complicated or Simple approaches break down and can only succeed by complete accident in the Complex domain, because causality is only clear in retrospect. From this...
Motivation Cycles
Originally published February 24, 2016 You could find the Abstract listening to hip hop My pops used to say, it reminded him of Bebop I said, well daddy don’t you know that things go in cycles Way that Bobby Brown is just amping like Michael — Excursions (A Tribe...
Visual WIP
Originally published February 21, 2016 I have been searching for a temporary work visualization method to adequately convey both how a given process works and the WIP (Work In Progress) within it at any given moment. With eventual improvement set as a goal for the...
The Four Questions
Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, in his lecture titled Beyond the Goal: Theory of Constraints, describes the necessity of answering the following questions when adopting a technology: What is the power of the technology? What limitation does it diminish? What rules helped us...