David John Snowden (born 1954) is a Welsh

management consultant Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultant ...

and researcher in the field of

knowledge management Knowledge management (KM) is the set of procedures for producing, disseminating, utilizing, and overseeing an organization's knowledge and data. It alludes to a multidisciplinary strategy that maximizes knowledge utilization to accomplish organ ...

and the application of

complexity science A complex system is a system composed of many components that may interact with one another. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication sy ...

. Known for the development of the Cynefin framework, Snowden is the founder and chief scientific officer of The Cynefin Company, a Singapore-based management-consulting firm specialising in

complexity Complexity characterizes the behavior of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to non-linearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generally used to c ...

and sensemaking.

Education

Snowden graduated in 1975 with a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

(Honours) in

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

from the

University of Lancaster Lancaster University (officially The University of Lancaster) is a collegiate public university, public research university in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established in 1964 by royal charter, as one of several new univer ...

, where he was a member of County College. He obtained an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

in 1985 from Middlesex Polytechnic.

Career

Snowden worked for Data Sciences Ltd from 1984 until January 1997. The company was acquired by

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

in 1996. The following year Snowden set up

IBM Global Services IBM Consulting, rebranded in 2021 from IBM Global Business Services, is the professional services and consulting arm of IBM. It provides services to companies, global government organizations, Nonprofit organization, non-profits and Non-government ...

's Knowledge and Differentiation Programme. While at IBM Snowden researched the importance of

storytelling Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing narrative, stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatre, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cul ...

within organisations, particularly in relation to expressing tacit knowledge. In 2000 he became European director of the company's Institute for Knowledge Management,"Dave Snowden"
LinkedIn. Retrieved 28 November 2016. and in 2002 he founded the IBM Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity. During this period he led a team that developed the Cynefin framework, a decision-making tool. Snowden left IBM in 2004 and a year later founded Cognitive Edge Pte Ltd, a management-consulting firm based in Singapore, now trading as The Cynefin Company.

Works

Snowden is the author of several articles and book chapters on the Cynefin framework, the development of

narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller ...

as a

research method Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

, and the role of complexity in sensemaking. In 2008 he and co-author Mary E. Boone won an "Outstanding Practitioner-Oriented Publication in OB" award from the

Academy of Management An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the g ...

's Organizational Behavior division for a

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a not-for-profit, independent corporation that is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. ''HBR'' is published six times a year ...

article on Cynefin. In 2008–2009 he wrote a column for ''KMWorld'' on trends in technology, "Everything is fragmented". He was an editor-in-chief of the journal ''Emergence: Complexity and Organization''."Review Board"
''Emergence: Complexity and Organization''.

References

External links

Publications by Dave Snowden
{{DEFAULTSORT:Snowden, Dave 1954 births Living people British academic journal editors Alumni of Lancaster University Alumni of County College, Lancaster Alumni of Middlesex University IBM employees Knowledge management People from Essex Welsh educators