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🩺 Diagnose the Domain Before You Decide
1️⃣ Real-World Use Case
Consider this scenario at a national retailer rolling out same-day delivery across 500 stores.
On the surface, it looks like one project.
In reality, it spans four different problem types:
Store operations → Clear
Once designed, the pickup flow is obvious:
“Order comes in → staff picks → packs → hands to driver.”
Write checklists and SOPs. Best practices work.Routing and capacity → Complicated
How many drivers do we need? What routes hit SLAs at lowest cost?
Ops and data teams model scenarios and tune constraints.
Expert analysis works.Customer adoption → Complex
Will customers pay extra? Will it shift in-store vs online behavior?
No one can know upfront. The team pilots in a few cities and experiments
with pricing, messaging, and time windows.
Experiments work.System outage on launch weekend → Chaotic
The order system crashes. Orders are stuck, drivers idle, customers angry.
There’s no time for root-cause analysis. The team pauses new orders,
manually triages existing ones, and updates customers via SMS.
Immediate action works.
Same initiative. Four domains. Four different methods.
Leaders who treat it as “one Clear project”, “just roll out the playbook”, get burned.
📚 Framework in Focus: Cynefin
From complexity science → to IBM knowledge management → to Harvard Business Review → to global adoption.
Cynefin helps you match your decision-making process to the nature of the problem.
The 5 Spaces in Cynefin (4 domains + Confusion):
Clear → Cause and effect obvious
Sense → Categorize → Respond
Use checklists, SOPs, best practices.Complicated → Cause and effect knowable by experts
Sense → Analyze → Respond
Use models, expert judgment, decision frameworks.Complex → Cause and effect only visible in hindsight
Probe → Sense → Respond
Run safe-to-fail experiments and watch what emerges.Chaotic → No perceivable cause and effect
Act → Sense → Respond
Act immediately to stabilize, then reassess.Confusion (Confused state) → When you are not sure which domain you are in.
Your job is to break the situation into parts until each piece fits Clear, Complicated, Complex, or Chaotic.
Why it matters:
Cynefin prevents "domain dissonance" using the wrong method for the situation.
It tells you when to analyze, when to experiment, when to act, and when to standardize.
2️⃣ Powerful Prompt
Role
You are a Cynefin strategist helping leaders correctly diagnose the nature of their challenge and choose the right type of approach.
Context
Use the Cynefin framework to understand what kind of problem this is, and whether the current way of working fits that problem type.
Inputs
Challenge: [INPUT: Describe what you’re facing]
Current approach: [INPUT: How you’re currently trying to solve it]
What you’ve tried: [INPUT: Previous attempts and their results]
Time pressure: [INPUT: How urgent this is (e.g., low / medium / high or specific deadline)]
Expertise available: [INPUT: People, data, or tools you have access to]
Task
Diagnose which Cynefin domain(s) the challenge belongs to.
Identify where the current approach does or does not fit the domain (“domain dissonance”).
Recommend the type of method that is most appropriate (best practices, expert analysis, experimentation, or immediate stabilizing action).
Instructions
Use the Cynefin domains: Clear, Complicated, Complex, Chaotic.
You may use Confused only as a temporary label when the domain is genuinely unclear. If the situation is Confused, break it into smaller parts and re-diagnose each part until it fits Clear, Complicated, Complex, or Chaotic.Explain your reasoning briefly for each domain you assign.
It’s okay for different parts of the situation to sit in different domains.
Focus on diagnosis and approach fit, not detailed solutions or project plans.
Keep the output concise and easy for an executive to scan.
Output Format
1. Domain Diagnosis
Summarize how the challenge maps to Cynefin:
Overall domain: [Clear / Complicated / Complex / Chaotic / Confused]
Reasoning (2–4 sentences): Why this domain (or mix of domains) fits.
Sub-parts (optional): Part: [short label] → Domain: [X] → 1–2 sentence explanation
If the overall domain is Confused, break the situation into smaller parts and classify each part into Clear, Complicated, Complex, or Chaotic.
2. Domain Dissonance Check
Compare the current approach with the diagnosed domain(s):
What fits: Where the current approach matches the domain.
What doesn’t fit: Where the current approach is misaligned (e.g., analysis on a Complex problem, best practices on a novel situation).
3. Recommended Method Type
Recommend only the type of approach, not detailed steps:
Recommended stance:
If Clear → “Rely on standard procedures / checklists.”
If Complicated → “Use expert analysis and models.”
If Complex → “Run small experiments and learn.”
If Chaotic → “Act immediately to stabilize, then re-diagnose.”
One-paragraph summary (3–5 sentences):
What kind of work the team should prioritize next (analyzing vs. experimenting vs. acting vs. standardizing), and any key watch-outs.
(Copy-paste this into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, fill in the inputs, and let it do the diagnostic work).
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🧭 Try This Week
1️⃣ Pick one live challenge
Something that actually matters this week (not a hypothetical).
2️⃣ Run the Cynefin prompt on it
Paste in the markdown prompt, fill in the inputs, and let the AI classify the challenge as Clear, Complicated, Complex, Chaotic, or Confused.
3️⃣ If it’s “Confused,” break it down
Ask the AI to split the situation into smaller parts and re-diagnose each one until every piece sits in Clear, Complicated, Complex, or Chaotic.
4️⃣ Change just one thing in your approach
Based on the diagnosis:
Clear → tighten/check SOPs
Complicated → get expert analysis
Complex → design one small experiment
Chaotic → take one stabilizing action
5️⃣ Write the domain on the initiative
Literally label it (“Complex”, “Complicated”, etc.) in your doc or roadmap so your team sees the problem type, not just the project name.
✨ The problem isn’t finding the right answer. It’s finding the right question type first.
↗︎ Think Better. – Clarity Prompts team
