Summary
Estuarine mapping is a way of working out what can and can’t be changed in a situation before setting any goals. Dave Snowden, creator of the Cynefin framework, set it out in October 2022. A group lists the constraints at play and places each on a grid: how much energy it would take to change, and how long. One line marks off what is very unlikely to change; another, what could change quickly. Between them lies the room to act, in many small projects.
The name comes from tidal water: in an estuary, he writes, there are things “you can do only at the turn of the tide”.
Rationale
Mapping what resists change, Snowden’s first step, echoes our prompt “What holds the current contexts in place”; his last gathers small projects into portfolios, as Part 2 does. He was among our interviewees.