I've often wondered why I don't pledge allegiance to one particular theoretical framework, set of practices, or tools when engaging with people and organisation's. I've wondered if it is because I'm a child of post-modernism. This is probably true, but Dave has just mentioned the concept of bounded diversity as a guiding philosophy behind building the Cognitive Edge stable of methods. This helps me understand my approach.

The idea is that there is no universal method or tool that can applied in practice, but that each philosophy, tool or practice has its own application within the boundaries of a particular context.

I like this. Context is very important in deciding what tool or technique to use.

Example ...

3M was renowned for its innovation and some time back took on 6 Sigma as a process engineering for cost effectiveness. The end result was that it thwarted its culture of innovation. Instead of throwing out 6 Sigma as useless too, the new CEO created some boundaries and took it our of product development and research divisions. He knew it was a useful tool, but only in specific context.

You can listen to a great BusinessWeek podcast on this very example.