Complex facilitation using Hexi kits

Broad complexity principles which underlie the approach

1. Start with where you are, not where you would like to be
   • Put those hexes up and then talk about what you actually did
2. How do you scale?
   • You scale by decomposition and recombination, not OSFA copy & replicate
   • You find the lowest coherent units and then you put those things together in different combinations based on context
   • Now that's important because lowest coherent unit contained a body of knowledge
     • You don't have to invent things from scratch anymore
     • You get novelty in the combinations
3. You can’t directly engineer an emergent property, but you can manage constraints, catalysts and energy allocation and see if things go in the right direction
4. Granularity - move into the micro question and not macro question. Ask lots of questions with a micro level using typologies. Don't ask questions at a macro level because that will lead people into sort of gaming, politics and everything else.

Chefs not Recipe followers metaphor

• What we're giving you is the ingredients
• This is the chef book. It's not, you always do it in this sequence
• These are the ingredients and they work together in different ways
• Combine them to create something unique
• Contrast working with a conventional consultant who'll take you through a linear process, doing what they've done with everybody else
• We've got this rich set of methods and tools, including things you're already doing. We put them together in a combination which is unique to use. So we got the benefit of the codification and it's not excessively constrained. So we got more fluidity in it. And that's a really strong proposition
• Example: Agile frameworks
  • There's lots of really good techniques in agile. There's really good methods
  • The problem is putting them into massive frameworks and saying, you've always gotta do them the same way!
  • Don't accept a given framework. Take elements of frameworks (ingredients) and put different ones together

Hexi kit

• The plan boards mean people start to put the hexagons together in the right combination, but once people are used to that, you can go into sort of much more free map type form.
• You've got the detailed explanations on each hexagon. See about how difficult they are, how much knowledge you need to have. And that's done in a very simple visual style, so you can pick those up quickly
• It's got a QR code to link the Wiki, which describes not only what it is, it has further instructions for discussion
• When you lay them out on the table, people can say, oh, I remember that now we'll use it
• So people can bring different things into combination when they're planning a project or planning what do
• Transparent overlays are deliberate
  • Some of them do what you'd expect. They say, we'll do this. Then we'll do that
  • So you can do sequencing or you can link things to say, we do these two at the same time
  • But there's also, for example, a hand up - when we get to this point, we'll look again. We'll plan this thing out over the next year, but at this point we might want to change it. So we'll put that overlay arms to indicate that
  • And you got the warning sign - when we get to this, it'll be difficult.
• You've also got disruptive hexagons
  • Common errors, like Whoozer effect, Retrospective coherence.
  • Put those in the process where you think you need to watch out for them.
  • Will be adding disruptive pictures from Gaping Void, all sorts of things you can add into it to make it much richer
• Curiousity around artifacts

DIFFERENT ENTRY POINTS

1. Pick up from what are you doing today and improve
2. Do a situation assessment using the EU field guide to manage a crisis as an audit
3. Start from scratch like planning a workshop

1. Pick up from what are you doing today and improve (Hexi Basekit)

• Map the methods, tools, or techniques you're already using
  • List the models and the frameworks you use
  • List the sequence you put them in
  • By frequency: annual cycle, quarterly, monthly
  • Use blank hexi cards if existing techniques are missing
• Identify what is working well, what isn't working well, needs improvement
  • Allow people to share experiences, capture and signify (anecdote circle, massSense)
• Add more hexes in, or take them out to gradually build into a much more evolutionary approach to doing things differently
  • Example: Add MassSense hexi to actually measure attitudes before we do the employee engagement survey. Show arrows and things moving around. So it allows us to build things in incrementally rather than say mass replacement.

Example 1: Client workshop

• A leadership assessment tool (DISC, MBTI, Lumina) is being used
  • Don't try to dismiss or eliminate. Instead, we can use what you've already got (stereotypes), but make it a lot better (archetypes)
  • What you do is you write those on blank hexis or write the methods and put them across the top as columns
  • Then put Archetype Extraction horizontally
  • And create persona in the gaps between them
• They do an annual 360 performance management which you don't get rid of overnight
  • We can keep it going but you do these things around it
  • Run a narrative based 360 for the three months before the formal 360
  • Leaders get micro feedback which is nonjudgmental
  • That reduces the stress for them when they come to the annual 360
  • Compare and ask which is better
  • And the nice thing about the hex is. If something is having a nasty effect, you can surround it with better things. You don't have to get rid of it. You can effectively put taxis around it. Yeah. Mm-hmm so, but do I get it right? So basically what, what we're doing with those kids, it's basically a, I would say kind of mapping experience.

Example 2: Client familiar with Cynefin

• We are gonna go through everything they currently do in their OD practice.
• They've already been trained on the basic Cynefin methods and tools.
• They'll identify whether they'll complement or replace existing practices with the new tools.
• This will be done by different teams working with the kits on different tables.
• We'll do silent listening comparison between the two and then effectively we've got a new way forward.

2 . Do a Situation Assessment using EU field guide to manage a crisis (EUFG hexi kit)

• Use the five stages and cards. Go back over the crisis and map everything you did in those stages. Or not in those stages
• What do we do differently?
• Could we carry on doing this? If we do carry on with it, how do we do it?
• Which method do we use? Well, it worked, but we can't do it that way again. So we've gotta think of something new.
• What will we try out?
• And so gradually you build your pattern of the capability you're gonna build into the organization to manage future crises
  • Example: Put crews in place and identify how many and type (recovery, idea). Run an anthro-simulation with the crews to train people. So if we get a crisis, we can activate people into crew straight away cuz they've already rehearsed it

3. Start from scratch like planning a workshop

• Use to cluster the results of brainstorming and to lay out timelines for different actions.

Presenting Output

At in-person workshop, take photo of plan board and present

Could also reassemble it within the Miro board and put it up and say it's a visual way of telling a structured story

• We'll do this
• This is what this does
• These are the things we're looking out for
• We need to be careful about this sort of thing

Cynefin Action forms (revised)

• You've got new forms for complex systems interventions, safe to fail
• You've also got new cards for ordered and also for chaos
• Engage decision-makers with professional visualization
• Create a wall of action forms that executives go through
  • Talk to people who are champions of individual projects
  • Tick the ones they're prepared to authorize

Using the EUFG Hexikit

• Firstly mapping what we actually did around each stage and then adding in what we should do
  • (i) to get ready for a future crisis and
  • (ii) what we would do in that crisis.
• The cards can be used to centre clusters or as a linear set of stages, in effect heading columns.
• Aside from EU Field Guide use, the cards have utility for general brainstorming and discussion - exaptation can be a workshop topic in its own right as is the aporetic turn, each of which would require the use of multiple hexi's.