Cognitive Cynefin: How Language and Bias keep us Complicated by Liz Keogh - YouTube

Table of Contents

1. Cognitive Cynefin: How Language and Bias keep us Complicated by Liz Keogh

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1.2. Physical metaphores

All of the metaphors we use in our language are physical ones

1.3. The part for the whole

Pretend the part is the whole (A card is a placeholder for a conversation)

1.6. Asteroids metaphor   example

What happens when you shot big asteroids?
They become smaller ones which move faster, you can’t keep track of them and you die
A really good way to kill a project is to break absolutely everything into task before you start

1.7. A real project

cannot be broken down neatly into multiple levels because you discover things along the way (Oh crap! moments)
A project is made of discoveries

1.8. Why probe before we sense?

Because our brain are biased
Epiphany → See patterns where aren’t, make up patterns out of noise

1.8.1. Pattern fixation

When we see a pattern, we get fixated on it
That must work, that must be right

1.9. Root analysis doesn’t work in complex space

We like to do root cause analysis, but that doesn’t work in a complex space
«This is why rational, analytical aproaches don’t work when dealing with emotional stuff»

1.10. Rephrasing from work language to people language

1.11. “I couldn’t do much testing until the end of the sprint”   example

  • Testing as a substance
    • Treat it like a physical thing instead of being fuzzy
    • Who is benefited from the testing? The developers
    • “I wasn’t able to give the devs any feedback until the end of the sprint”
  • Sprint is also a boundary
    • Who is at the other side of this boundary? The other stakeholders that you’re going to show the work to (show and tell)
  • "I wasn’t able to give the debs any feedback before they showed their works to the stakeholders

1.12. “That’s out of scope for Release 1”   example

“Our main stakeholder wants to satisfy the need of these people in this context first”

1.13. “How many stories are in that feature”   example

It could mean any of these:

  • “What can I promise to my stakeholders?”
  • “How can we co-ordinate ourselves to work on this together?”
  • “Could we deliver value to our stakeholders earlier?”
  • “What investments are you looking to make, and who with? What options are you looking to open up and who with?”

1.14. Why bother?

  • Much more powerful to persuade
  • You can see what the impact really is
  • Break the boundaries

1.15. What to do when the process breaksk?

Any time the process isn’t lending itself to getting things done, think about using different language (break the boundaries):

  • Feedback, relationships, people involved in the system rather than just the language of the work

Author: Julian Lopez Carballal

Created: 2026-08-12 Wed 04:43