Dave Snowden should not be confused with Dave Snowden (baseball).
| David J. Snowden | |
| Birth Name: | David John Snowden |
| Birth Date: | 1954 |
| Nationality: | Welsh |
| Known For: | Cynefin framework |
| Website: | https://thecynefin.co/ |
| Education: | BA (philosophy), University of Lancaster, 1975 MBA, Middlesex Polytechnic, 1985 |
| Employer: | The Cynefin Company, Singapore |
| Occupation: | Management consultant |
David John Snowden (born 1954) is a Welsh management consultant and researcher in the field of knowledge management and the application of complexity science. Known for the development of the Cynefin framework,[1] Snowden is the founder and chief scientific officer of The Cynefin Company, a Singapore-based management-consulting firm specialising in complexity and sensemaking.
Snowden graduated in 1975 with a BA (Hons) in philosophy from the University of Lancaster, where he was a member of County College.[2] He obtained an MBA in 1985 from Middlesex Polytechnic.
Snowden worked for Data Sciences Ltd from 1984 until January 1997. The company was acquired by IBM in 1996.[3] The following year Snowden set up IBM Global Services's Knowledge and Differentiation Programme.[4]
While at IBM Snowden researched the importance of storytelling within organisations, particularly in relation to expressing tacit knowledge.[5] [6] [7] In 2000 he became European director of the company's Institute for Knowledge Management,[8] and in 2002 he founded the IBM Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity.[9] During this period he led a team that developed the Cynefin framework, a decision-making tool.[10] [11] [12]
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.[13]
Snowden is the author of several articles and book chapters on the Cynefin framework, the development of narrative as a research method, 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's Organizational Behavior division for a Harvard Business Review article on Cynefin.[14] 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.[15]