A Systems Engineering Framework for Navigating Complexity

Abstract

The Cynefin Framework is a popular framework primarily designed to help leaders make strategic decisions in complex systems. Its popularity can be associated with the simplification of many complexity concepts into an accessible framework. It uses simple, complicated, complex and chaotic terms as its foundation. The INCOSE Complex Systems Working Group has been working on Complexity understanding and how it relates to Systems Engineers since 2006. This work has led to the evolution of these same terms within INCOSE. This paper explores the structure of the Cynefin framework and sees if that structure can be used with the most recently defined terms to develop a new tool that is more relevant to Systems Engineers in navigating complexity. This work led to the development of the Pleko framework. Testing of the framework indicates that the Pleko framework is useful for removing unnecessary complexity. Further, the Pleko Framework was compared to the COSYSMO model, which uses similar axes but was developed independently. This enables the two models to be combined, suggesting that the cost and benefits of complexity mitigation strategies, should they be required, can be estimated to inform decision-making on how best to proceed.