We rarely try to design or procedurize concept work but my thoughts on this is that it can be done. It can be quite expensive to do so because you need a lot of expertise to lay out a process.

For example, one can structure problem solving processes in most fields. It is only effective if the executioner masters the unit skills required to do each step. The odds of finding someone mastering unit problem-solving skills is very low, so it probably wouldn’t be worth the effort of designing concept work.

To come back to a chess analogy. A few years back, I read “Think Like a Grandmaster” and did the exercises to get into the disciplined analysis approach (a procedure). Worked wonders. I won my next chess tournament, winning every game against higher rated players, to everyone’s amazement. It was like being on mental steroids.

A student of mine actually pointed out that what differentiates a professional from the every day person is that one uses a “Methodology”. After 30 years I would say that the Methodology differentiates the competent individual from the incomptent ones.

I worked as a functional analyst for a while using a methodology call productivity plus. Those who mastered the unit skills and followed the step by step approach usually produced better “concepts”.

Take project management. It is relatively high on the conceptual scale. It can be improved with procedures but the project manager must have a very deep understanding of things like managing risks, or assumptions for the procedures to be effective.

White collar workers and ivory tower dwellers don’t usually like having the work designed for them.

In my mind your table is leading you in a difficult direction. Probably would be easier if you went back to the basic philosophy/ideas of cynefin and worked your way up. My guess is that you would just end up with one type of graph showing obviousness of solution on horizontal axis and the vertical axis would be interchangeable things like amount of management required, type of training, etc. “If my grandmother can’t understand it easily, it probably aint gone a work”.

Gilbert

Your distinction between “execution” time and “design” time is important. Thinking back to when I first put this together, I realize that in defining the work type I was implicitly calling out the work at execution time.

If I were to add an extra column to my table above to show your “Cranial Index”, I think that it would go from low to high as we progress from simple to complex.

Your point raises an interesting question in my mind: If execution of concept work requires mastery, what would the design of concept work require? Or, even more bluntly, can you “design” concept work?

Thanks for the new insight into how to look at this.