Summarized highlights from Finding the Next Right Moves | Jen Briselli

“You have to start from *where you are*, notice what’s changing, and identify the moves that are possible *now*.”

“The goal wasn’t to produce a two year roadmap; it was to see the terrain of the present more clearly, notice where currents are moving already, and choose the next most useful steps possible today.”

“In complex systems, you don’t get to engineer the future; you have to interact with the present and observe what propagates.”

“From there, we turned to a process called estuarine mapping: a conceptual way to make the system’s current constraints, opportunities, and tensions visible.”

“The estuarine framework helps teams navigate complex change not by charting ideal end states, but by identifying what’s possible given the current conditions.”

Alternative metaphors can be used: “Instead of an *estuary*, I will sometimes refer to weather patterns, construction sites or alternative metaphors where some elements are stable, some shift quickly, forecasting might be common, but certainty is limited.”

“Team members identified several such elements: people, communities, tools, artifacts, internal dynamics, external forces, relational links, cultural norms, technical constraints, institutional policies.”

Key questions include: “How much energy would it take to change? How much time would it take to change?”

“The map itself doesn’t resolve these tensions, it just makes them visible and negotiable. It reveals a field of intervention possibilities.”

Actions can include: “Creating something new… Destroying an element that’s blocking progress… Stabilizing what’s already present… Monitoring a hard-to-reach element… Triggering action when conditions are ready…”

“Rather than chasing ideal future states, we focus on how the team might shift the system in desirable directions based on what’s feasible for them right now.”

“Teams move from seeing their environment as a list of problems to fix or avoid, toward recognizing a system to engage with.”

“These anecdotes aren’t elicited for mere reflection, they’re a form of evidence. They form patterns, and the patterns reveal affordances. That gives us something to work with.”

The process involves “having identified a *desirable direction of change* and the *affordances of the current situation*.”