The Cynefin Framework and the Technical
                         Leadership Model

                                                        Davide Fierro
                                           INAF – National Institute for Astrophysics
                                               Scientific Directorate - ROMA
                                                             fierro@inaf.it

                                                      Copyright © held by the author.

                           ABSTRACT                                     depending on the belonging domain of the projects and the
    Nowadays the macro-economic crisis, the globalization of            professional "soft and hard" characteristics of the leaders, the
markets in a framework of absolute non-uniformity of the                latter in relation to the "mind map" drawn up by the "INCOSE
reference economic systems, the exponential growth in the               Institute for Technical Leadership" working group, to which D.
complexity of the projects, the continuous development of               Fierro belongs.
technologies and, above all, the criticality of requirements
management subject to rapid and sometimes uncontrollable                                            REFERENCES
evolution, require an holistic, efficient, methodically structured      [1]   A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making - David J. Snowden and
and strongly flexible management approach. To strengthen the                  Mary E. Boone
leadership in such a drastically competitive scenario requires          [2]   The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex
personnel constantly trained in the reference standards, as well              and complicated world - C. F. Kurtz
as in the application of processes and procedures, both                 [3]   Building a Technical Leadership Model - Patrick Godfrey FREng
engineering and managerial, which represent the state of art in               FINCOSE
the international reference system. The definition, selection and       [4]   The Cynefin framework: putting complexity into perspective -Helen
                                                                              Hasan
management of the optimized development of techno-
management solutions are therefore strategic, vital, for the            [5]   Systems Thinking and the Cynefin Framework - H. William Dettmer
"feasibility" and competitiveness of front-running projects and
cannot succeed without a contextual analysis of the reference                                   AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
scenarios.                                                                  Davide Fierro is the Head of INAF ’s “Project
                                                                        Engineering”. He has direct roles in various international
    The Cynefin Framework, developed between 1999 and                   programs such as SKA , of wich he is the Program Manager of
2003 by Snowden and Kurtz on the basis of studies by Boisot             the overall INAF’s participation. He has been involved in large
and Cilleris, helps leaders to identify the reference context and       astrophysics technology projects, with roles of PM/SE, for
describes the features and operating logics to apply to it. The         about 20 years. He collaborates with various Universities and is
Cynefin is an interpretative model of different levels of               committed in dissemination activities of SE/PM
complexity of the systems in a continuum that ranges from               methodologies. He is member of the Board of INCOSE Italy
order to disorder through five different contexts (or domains):         chapter and of the board of AFCEA Rome. He is also member
simple, complicated, complex, chaotic and disorder. The                 of the “INCOSE Institute for Technical Leadership
Cynefin therefore allows leaders to have a polyhedral view of           Development Program” and associate teacher of ISIPM. In
the problems inherent in complex systems by describing in a             2009 he was appointed as "Project Controller of National
pragmatic manner the dynamics and typical behavior within               Projects" at INAF’s “Scientific Directorate”. He got his first
various domains. Each respective domain is unique in its scope          relevant job in 1997 as Deputy PM of the VST project
and characterized by specific decision-making models,                   followed by the “VST AIV Manager” role, for which he spent
management, leadership skills, as well as by different ratios of        about two years at ESO Paranal Observatory, Chile. He
cause / effect.                                                         graduated in Mechanical Engineering from University of
    The goal of the seminar, part of the Technical Leadership           Naples, where he also got the PhD in Industrial/Management
session, is to represent and describe the various domains of            Engineering. He then continued his postPhD studies first at
complexity as indicated by the Cynefin Framework. The                   LUISS Business School and then at the SDA Bocconi School
seminar will also analyze and "contextualize" the most                  of Management.
effective and efficient techno-managerial methodologies,