Origins of Open Systemic Challenge Framing

Updated: Sep 17

History of Abstraction Ladder: (Updated)

Welcome back Humantific Journal readers. We love the history of innovation related methods and how it all connects to today and tomorrow! In Humantific practice we use this knowledge to inform our own ongoing R&D. As practitioners we find it to be super useful to know where methods related concepts came from, how they evolved and in many cases are still evolving. We find that it is always good to know where the gold nuggets are in innovation history.

Among the stories we are working on is the history of the Abstraction Ladder which started out in the 1920s as the "Structural Differentiator" and along the way became the Bessie the Cow Story, the CPS (Creative Problem Solving) Mousetrap Story, the CPS Ladder of Abstraction...and ultimately what is known as Open Systemic Challenge Framing today.

Long story short; much of the early practical R&D around the Abstraction Ladder originates in the CPS community, not the design community, not the systems thinking community. At Humantific, CPS is one of numerous innovation related knowledge communities that we participate in, contribute to and celebrate.

How Abstraction Ladder knowledge progressed is a great example of what Alfred Korzybski, originator of "Structural Differentiator" referred to as "time-binding" and a fascinating, bumpy, not-so-simple innovation story.

The CPS Ladder of Abstraction's long R&D history spans many contributors, numerous evolutions, tweaks, name changes, expansions, rethinks and a 70+ year period of evolution, practice, experimentation and refinement.

What makes understanding Ladder of Abstraction evolution important is directly tied to, not only the Design for Complexity movement, but to all forms of upstream strategic framing and changemaking intervention.

Moving beyond traditional discipline-based challenge framing towards open challenge framing is key to becoming not only more strategic but much more adaptable in complex organizational and societal changemaking contexts. Those complex contexts were the early operational arenas for CPS and more recently for arriving forms of strategic design.

Timeline Overview / 10 Milestones:

1. Engineer and general semanics scholar Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950) creates the "Structural Differentiator" in 1921. Complex and cumbersome it is a logic, a device that never really takes off. Korzybski believed that humans cannot experience the world directly, but only through their "abstractions" (nonverbal impressions or "gleanings" derived from the nervous system, and verbal indicators expressed and derived from language). Korzybski sought to train adults in awareness of abstracting, using techniques he had derived from his study of mathematics and science. He called this awareness, this goal of his system, "consciousness of abstracting". His best known premise: "The map is not the territory."

2. After studying Korzybski, Samuel Hayakawa (1906-1992), a Professor of English, switches gears in the direction of simplification and practicality, adopting and adapting Korzybski, creating what he termed an Abstraction Ladder and the interconnected Bessie the Cow story logic (object-focused) with a visualization that appears in his book; "Language in Thought and Action" published in 1939. (See Image 1 above.)

3. Hayakawa's tiered Bessie the Cow story logic is adopted and adapted into the CPS community when it appears as the Mousetrap Story in Alex Osborn's, pioneering, methods-oriented book, Applied Imagination published in 1953. Osborn saw the tiered altitudes, not as language use, but rather in problem framing terms which was a significant insight, dare I say a giant leap of logic and innovation at that time. Many, many others would subsequently build on that tiered altitudes insight, cascading forward for decades.

4. Sid Parnes (1922-2013) and his associates including Ruth Noller and Andrew Biondi (Buffalo School) undertake much heavy lifting R&D work connecting the tiered architecture of the Mousetrap Story to a new challenge framing oriented logic, initially called CPS Ladder of Abstraction in 1959.

5. Sid Parnes & his associates create and insert the now famous invitation stem: How Might We? into Ladder of Abstraction around 1967 making it an operational challenge framing tool inside their CPS method.

6. The logic of navigating upwards to broader challenges within the ladder by asking "Why?" is inserted into the early CPS Ladder of Abstraction circa 1960s by Parnes & associates.

7. The container around the Ladder of Abstraction, the actual CPS process is also in heavy R&D mode during that period (See 5-6-7-8 Diamonds) with multiple streams emerging and the language of CPS being refined and refined across decades of experimentation and practice. The "Sid Trilogy" is published with Creative Behavior Guidebook in 1967, Creative ActionBook in 1976 and Guide to Creative Action in 1977.

8. Grasping its importance, several leading CPS practitioners including Scott Isaksen, Brian Dorval, Min Basadur and Don Treffinger build onto the forward motion of CPS Ladder of Abstraction. One important contribution was refining the narrowing prompt from Sid's 1977 original; "Why the Problem Cannot be Solved" to the smoother "What's Preventing You?" (1985) and or "What's Stopping You?" (1995). These refinements enable the up, down and sideways exploration of interconnected challenges, far beyond the original Bessie the Cow logic. Along the way the CPS Abstraction Ladder is tweaked and rebranded by numerous consultants. Many versions come into play. Becoming part of the public domain over the course of decades, the good news is that no one person or company owns the logic inside CPS Abstraction Ladder including the invitation stems "How Might We?" and "In What Ways Might We?".

9. With interest rising in complexity of challenges, interconnected systems and the increasing scale of changemaking in real world contexts, connections are made by Humantific and other scholarly practitioners to the open and systemic nature of CPS Abstraction Ladder logic not found in Systems Thinking or Design/Design Thinking.

10. Most leading innovation practices involved in Arena 3 organizational changemaking and Arena 4 societal changemaking, including Humantific and IDEO, have long ago integrated some version of what is now Open Systemic Challenge Framing into their hybrid methods, geared towards operating upstream from briefs. In those organizational and societal contexts what the challenges and opportunities actually are is unknown at the outset and cannot be assumed.

In essence, Open Systemic Challenge Framing allows participants to cocreate systemic challenge constellations showing (often for the first time) how challenges (not solutions) fit together. As systems are relative to viewers, so too is Open Systemic Challenge Framing.

Parallel Universe 2 / Berkeley

In this kind of story we are always interested in broader context: It is no secret that the change/intervention communities in Buffalo and Berkeley were largely disconnected islands at that time. (See NextD Journal: Buffalo/Berkeley Divide.) In a parallel universe, operating on a different R&D timeline, with different contributors, university professor Horst Rittel (1930-1990) (Berkeley School) introduces the term "wicked problems" in 1972. As far as we could tell, there was no framing or systemic Ladder of Abstraction logic in Rittel's "Generation 1" process which we included in our first Humantific book, Innovation Methods Mapping / De-Mystifying 80+ Years of Innovation Process Design.

Parallel Universe 3 / Ackoff

In another parallel universe running on a different R&D time-line, engineer, author, consultant and teacher extraodinaire, Russ Ackoff (1919-2009) exclaims that "problem solving is what I have been trying to do all my life." Ackoff publishes "The Art of Problem Solving" in 1978. As far as we could tell, there was no logic related to creating systemic views of challenges in Ackoff's "The Art of Problem Solving" approach.

Parallel Universe 4 / Soft Systems

In yet another parallel universe, operating on a different R&D timeline, Systems Thinking pioneer, Peter Checkland introduces "Soft Systems Methodology" circa 1981. Not reflective of already existing CPS knowledge, as far as we could tell, there was no systemic Ladder of Abstraction logic in Checkland's "Soft Systems Methodology" which we also included in Innovation Methods Mapping / De-Mystifying 80+ years of Innovation Process Design.

Parallel Universe 5 / Design

Since we also wrote a sensemaking and rethinking oriented book on the subject of design / design thinking in 2020 we are pretty sure that discipline-based framing continues to dominate most forms of design being taught in the graduate design academies. Hopefully with rising interest in complexity and the deteriorating state of the world this might be finally changing. Bravo to any graduate design school that has made the transition. Humantific is happy to help those graduate design schools that would like to but have not.

Other parallel universes always seem to exist...:-)

CLOSING

The CPS Ladder of Abstraction has undergone many evolutions since it first appearred in rudimentary form. It remains an active, evolving work in progress for many enlightened practice leaders engaged in cocreating framing within organizational and societal changemaking contexts.

For more than a decade we have, at Humantific been teaching Open Systemic Challenge Framing (sometimes referred to as Open Challenge Framing or Systemic Challenge Framing) to organizational leaders in our Humantific Academy / Complexity Navigation skill-building program.

Open Systemic Challenge Framing is among the most strategically useful, difficult to master, skills/tools in the Humantific Complexity Navigation toolbox. Popular with organizational leaders facing fuzzy complex situations it is a framing mastery that can be inserted into many intervention method types. Divergent and SenseMaking in orientation it becomes supercharged when combined with other human-centered Visual SenseMaking and ChangeMaking tools. (See Humantific Think Blending.)

Hope this is useful Humantific readers. Happy framing to all.

Have a good summer out there!

END.

NOTE: Few Options:

If you are an organizational leader wrestling with innovation methods related R&D and would like to invite a Humantific person to join your team light us up. We do work with organizations around the world. Send us an email with kick it up as the subject: kickitup (at) humantific (dot) com.

If you are inside an organization leading a cross-disciplinary team that would benefit from Open Systemic Challenge Framing and Complexity Navigation skill-buildling lets have a conversation.