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Cynefin Online Game

Here is the online version of the popular Cynefin Lego Game. As with the Lego Game, players experience four of the five Cynefin domains in this online version: obvious, complicated, complex and chaotic.

I have created a Mural Template for the game, which you can use.

If you don’t have a Mural account, you can also implement the game with another digital solution (Miro, Conceptboard, Powerpoint, etc.). In this case you have to design:

  • for each challenge a template with 36 squares in three different colors and three different sizes.
  • for each challenge a template for the evaluation.

Game Instructions for Facilitators

Introduce the game by inviting people to experience different states of systems in four challenges. Be careful not to mention the names of the domains in advance or during the game. Players should experience the system states without bias.

You play one challenge for each of the four domains. For each challenge:

  • Introduce objective/ time & rules.
  • Set the timer & start challenge.
  • At the end of each challenge take 3-5 minutes to evaluate the challenge before moving over to the next one.
  • Wrap-up the evaluations from the individual challenges and conceptualize the habitats at the end of the game.

Challenge I – Obvious Domain

Players get the feeling of standing in front of a very easy task.

Objective: Sort the squares by size and color.

Rules: None

Time: 2 Minutes

Challenge II – Complicated Domain

Players get the feeling of standing in front of a technically difficult task, where they have to analyze the challenge together.

Objective: Group the squares into a 2D object of your choice

Rules:

  • The object must consist of at least 10 squares.
  • Only 1 square may be adjacent to the 4 sides of each square, or the laterally adjacent square must have different colors and smaller sizes

Time: 8 Minutes

Solution: The squares touch each other only at the corners

Challenge III – Complex Domain

Players get the feeling of being confronted with a complex task, where cause-effect relationships are no longer obvious from the outset, but where it is a matter of experimentation.

Objective: Group the squares into a 2D object of your choice

Rules:

  • The object must consist of at least 10 squares.
  • Only 1 square may be adjacent to the 4 sides of each square, or the laterally adjacent square must have different colors and smaller sizes.
  • Each player is allowed to touch only one color.
  • You are not allowed to talk (mike off) or chat with each other.

Time: 10 Minutes

Challenge IV – Chaotic Domain

Players experience chaos. Everything is possible and conceivable, nothing can be anticipated. All they can do is choose a place to act and quickly sense what comes next.

Objective: Group the squares into a double heart

Rules:

  • Everything is possible.
  • Pay attention to the instructions of your facilitator.

Time: 3 Minutes

To make chaos tangible the facilitator gives new instructions in 30 second intervals:

  • 30 seconds after start: Everyone may move only one shape.
  • 30 seconds later: One heart must be twice as big as the other one.
  • 30 seconds later: You may only communicate via chat, turn off your microphones.
  • 30 seconds later: The heart twice as big must have the color frequency red-yellow-red-yellow.
  • 30 seconds later: The small heart must consist only of small red stones.
  • 30 seconds later: The small heart must be to the left of the big heart.