Effectively Understand Complex Situations With SenseMaker

SenseMaker is the pioneering software tool that we use at Narrate to conduct narrative research. Created by The Cynefin Company, the software allows us to gather and analyse responses from a large target audience quickly and efficiently. Thanks to this, we can progress directly into decision-making and action.

Over the years, I've come across many tools promising to unravel organisational complexity. Most of them fall short. But SenseMaker? It's different. It's a bit like having a torch in a dark, unfamiliar room: suddenly, you start seeing shapes, connections and possibilities you hadn't noticed before.

I've been working with SenseMaker for 15 years now, using it with clients across six continents. In that time, I've seen it uncover insights that have shaped strategy, improved employee engagement, and even influenced public policy. It's a powerful tool in the right hands.

It is important to first be clear about why you are listening.

In many organisations, surveys are introduced without a clearly defined purpose. They generate data and reports, but the organisation is not always explicit about what the listening system is meant to achieve. This creates a gap between data collection and actually using it well.

Most organisational listening systems are built for one of three reasons:

Listening to prove – to justify decisions already made or demonstrate performance
Listening to improve or fix – to identify problems and areas that need attention
Listening to understand or learn – to gain deeper insight into individual experiences and what is really going on

These are not interchangeable. The purpose you choose shapes the design of the survey, the type of questions you ask, and how useful the results will be in practice.

We start by collecting stories and real, human experiences. We ask people to share an anecdote or a moment related to the topic we're exploring.

We then ask the storytellers themselves to interpret their own stories. They plot their experience on a series of carefully designed frameworks. This self-interpretation is crucial: it means we're capturing their perspective, not imposing our own.

We gather hundreds, sometimes thousands, of these stories and interpretations. And that’s when the patterns start to emerge.

Using the SenseMaker software, sometimes with other data analysis tools, we can visualise these patterns. Suddenly, we can see clusters of similar experiences, outliers that might signal emerging trends and connections we might never have spotted otherwise.

Objective (quantitative, numerical) data emerges from the subjective narratives, giving you and your leaders a strong foundation for decision-making, including:

What really matters to people (not just what they say matters when asked directly)

Where the barriers to change actually lie (often not where leaders think they are)

Why is change not happening and how might we enable it?

What impact we’re really having (including those unintended consequences we’d rather not talk about)

When we’ve pushed a good thing too far (yes, you can have too much customer-centricity)

SenseMaker is a sophisticated tool. Designing a project, collecting the right kind of lived experiences, and interpreting the results requires expertise.

Over the years, I've developed a structured approach that allows us to manage this complexity together. This means my clients (you) can focus on the insights and implications.

I also often support other practitioners with parts of their projects by reviewing frameworks, advising on data gathering, or helping with analysis. I run large-scale projects from start to finish, with brilliant associates in specific topics and with particular skills. This breadth of experience means together we've seen SenseMaker applied in almost every context you can imagine.

Why does this matter? Well, in my experience, it gives us insights that traditional surveys or focus groups simply can't match.

More information about how SenseMaker works can be found here.

SenseMaker is often mentioned in the same breath as the Cynefin framework (developed by Dave Snowden) for managing complex problems. According to this framework, the type of situation you’re in determines the sort of approaches most likely to be effective. Understanding your context is crucial to dealing with complex issues in particular, and SenseMaker can help you build this contextual knowledge.

SenseMaker is a versatile tool that can be applied to various fields, challenges, and applications, including product and service launches, change management, organisational development, and market research, and social research.

It's particularly powerful when you're dealing with complex issues. Modern organisations deal with many challenges where cause and effect aren't clear, and the same action can have different results depending on the context.

SenseMaker isn't a magic wand. It won't give you simple, linear answers to complex problems. But it will give you a much richer understanding of what's actually going on in your organisation or community. And from that understanding, you can start to see where you might nudge things in a better direction.

SenseMaker can help you:

Quickly gather and integrate the perspectives of multiple respondents

Find innovative responses to intractable problems

Ensure you’ve identified the real issues behind a problem before committing resources

Uncover the trends, patterns, and emerging themes within your collected micro-narratives, revealing the underlying dynamics behind a given situation

Understand the possibilities for change in a complex system

Build a more coherent community or team

Align interdisciplinary teams

Assess initial socio-cultural conditions for a project

Address critiques of leadership or organisational culture

Set new organisational directions

Conduct product planning and marketing

Improve customer or brand experience

Survey the perceptions of external stakeholders

Develop the capacity to share knowledge from earlier initiatives and projects

Monitor and evaluate developmental programmes.

Detect emerging trends early

Highlight the sensitive issues that no-one talks about.

I have over 15 years of experience conducting numerous narrative research projects using SenseMaker across the private, public, and NGO sectors in multiple countries and languages. I’m among the world leaders in using this innovative technology. I help organisations gain a deeper understanding of their customer voice, improve employee experiences, and build the capabilities to implement meaningful change.

So, if you feel like you're missing part of the picture or simply want to understand your organisation or community better, SenseMaker might be worth exploring. It's about asking better questions and seeing the patterns that matter.

And isn't that what making sense of complexity is all about?

Where have we helped clients?

To discover the benefits of SenseMaker and narrative-based methods for research, or to find out more about our services, please contact Narrate today and schedule a discussion.

Countries

Topics

What Tony has done

Pakistan

Bangladesh

United Kingdom

Kyrgyzstan

Georgia

Belarus

Serbia

Italy

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Montenegro

Libya

Egypt

Netherlands

Saudi Arabia

Jordan

Portugal

Rwanda

Ethiopia

Spain

Democratic Republic of Congo

Afghanistan

Germany

Yemen

USA

Honduras

Colombia

Israel

Uganda

France

Yemen

Laos

Canada

Moldova

UAE

Customer loyalty

Security and stabilisation

Employee engagement and culture change

Poverty reduction

Salesforce improvement

Gender attitudes

Counter-radicalisation

Customer needs

Cultural assessment

Government engagement and mandate

Building sustainable livelihoods

Attitudes to minorities

Organisational innovation

Economic empowerment and improvement

Health service improvement

Understanding employee resistance to change

Exploring human rights implementation

Monitoring organisational change

Improving leadership skills

Enhancing existing training programmes

Research into initial crisis conditions

Full project to explore multiple stakeholder/department needs in single project

Results presentation

Designed research for local/client data gathering

Data gathering

Training and mentoring of client staff

Ran workshops to design interventions with multiple stakeholders

Monitored effects while client programmes were running

Enhancing media campaigns through local content gathering

Analysis of previously collected data

Participative analysis workshops

Designed frameworks for narrative (SenseMaker®) research

Review of client/colleague-designed frameworks

Business & Industry

From global corporations to small internet startups, I’ve helped organisations become more adaptable and effective. Working with leadership teams to spot emerging opportunities, build responsive cultures, and help people work together in new ways - particularly during times of market and technological shifts.

Government & Public Service

I've supported government bodies in creating meaningful change in how they work and serve citizens. This has included helping policy teams become more responsive, teaching managers to adapt centrally-driven programs to local needs, and developing new approaches for citizens to shape decisions that affect their communities.

International Development

I've partnered with development organisations to make programs more effective and locally-owned. My work has focused on introducing adaptive management approaches, creating ways for local voices to influence decisions, and helping teams bridge the gap between high-level objectives and on-the-ground realities.