Decision Framework Diagrams in Confluence with Mermaid (Copy-Paste)
The meeting asks "who owns this feature?" and the answer is a Venn diagram by hand — drawn on a whiteboard, erased, redrawn, photographed, and lost. Two teams each built a piece of a shared workflow, and "the overlap" is exactly where the bugs and the SQL both landed. A decision framework is only useful while its picture survives the meeting; in Confluence as Mermaid text, it survives.
Quick answer: put decision frameworks in Confluence as Mermaid — venn-beta for set overlap, cynefin-beta for which operating mode a situation needs, quadrantChart for which item goes first — rendered by Mermaid Plus for Confluence. Each framework encodes a decision shape, and text keeps the picture attached to the decision record. This post gives you three copy-paste examples.
Why decision pictures survive differently
A whiteboard decision picture dies at cleanup; a spreadsheet of the same decision survives but says nothing visual. Mermaid text sits in the middle — the shape is preserved and the source is versionable:
- The overlap is first-class. In a Venn diagram the intersection is the interesting part, and a union line names it explicitly.
- The framework travels with the record. The Cynefin map sits next to the ADR it classified, so the reasoning is auditable.
- It draws from words. Sets, unions, domains, coordinates — all plain text a review can read without opening a canvas app.
Use a face-to-face whiteboard to find the shape, then move it to the wiki as text before the marker dries.
Copy-paste 1: ownership overlap — Venn
Who owns "the checkout shared by web + mobile + third-party SDK"? Three sets, and the labeled unions answer the overlap question:
venn-beta
title Checkout ownership
set Web
set Mobile
set SDKs
union Web,Mobile["Shared checkout"]
union Web,SDKs["Trusted client"]
union Mobile,SDKs["Native payment"]
Each union line names a real ownership pocket: "Shared checkout" (Web ∩ Mobile), "Trusted client" (Web ∩ SDKs), "Native payment" (Mobile ∩ SDKs). The decision record now says which team answers which intersection — the fugue state where bugs went unresolved is gone because the overlap has an owner and a name.
Copy-paste 2: what mode does this problem need — Cynefin
Cynefin classifies situations into five domains by how knowable they are, and each domain prescribes an operating mode:
cynefin-beta
title Which mode does this problem need?
complex
"Run safe-to-fail experiments"
complicated
"Analyze with experts"
clear
"Apply best practice"
chaotic
"Stabilize first"
confusion
"Break the problem down"
clear --> chaotic : "Complacency"
chaotic --> complex : "Stabilized"
Read the diagram as a decision: a new outage is chaotic (stabilize first), once the network is back it moves to complicated (analyze the hypotheses with experts), and a repeat postmortem outcome lands in clear (apply the documented runbook). The transitions between domains are drawn, not implied — the map answers "which mode now" the way the team actually works.
Copy-paste 3: which item first — quadrant
When the decision is a ranking, the effort/impact quadrant is the framework. Pair it with the Venn when the ranking inputs overlap:
quadrantChart
title What to tackle first
x-axis Low Effort --> High Effort
y-axis Low Impact --> High Impact
quadrant-1 Ship now
quadrant-2 Plan carefully
quadrant-3 Defer
quadrant-4 Skip
"Shared checkout": [0.25, 0.2]
"Trusted client": [0.35, 0.7]
"Native payment": [0.6, 0.85]
"SDK gold path": [0.85, 0.3]
This is the Venn above, re-asked: of the three ownership pockets, "Shared checkout" is low-effort low-impact (ship now, cheap win), "Trusted client" and "Native payment" are the big bets. One page, two questions answered — who owns the overlap (Venn) and what to build first (quadrant).
Picking the framework
| Question you're answering | Framework | Mermaid keyword |
|---|---|---|
| Who shares this concern / what overlaps? | Venn | venn-beta |
| What mode does this situation need? | Cynefin | cynefin-beta |
| Which item goes first? | Quadrant | quadrantChart |
| How much flows through each stage? | Sankey | sankey-beta |
The decision record's neighbors are on the same wiki: the analysis behind the choice as a fishbone root cause analysis and the owners of the resulting work as a responsibility swimlane.
FAQ
Does Confluence have a built-in Venn or Cynefin diagram tool?
No — Confluence has no native framework diagramming. Mermaid Plus for Confluence renders venn-beta, cynefin-beta and quadrantChart from editable text.
When do I use Venn vs Cynefin vs quadrant? Venn for overlap, Cynefin for operating mode (how knowable is the situation), quadrant for sequencing (which first). They compose: classify with Cynefin, find overlaps with Venn, rank with the quadrant.
How do I show shared responsibility in a Venn diagram?
Define each set, then add union A,B["label"] lines — the labeled intersection is the shared-owner pocket.
What does Cynefin actually change about the decision? It changes the method: best practice for clear, expert analysis for complicated, safe-to-fail experiments for complex, stabilization for chaotic. Drawing the domain is the decision aid.
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