SenseMaker TM Software

History never repeats
We are living in a time of fundamental change - where sustainability
requires new ways of thinking about systems and communities in near real
time
The building blocks of the past will not necessarily provide a firm foundation
for the future. To survive and thrive in these complex timed requires us to
understand the landscape in which we live today - to make sense of the
world so we can act
Complex times require a toolkit that allows us to:
- manage high levels of uncertainty
- understand intent in a rapidly changing environment
- do more with less
- make decisions in inherently complex environments
- manage knowledge critical to the organisation
- evaluate impact of initiatives
- make invisible issues visible

Some facts - Humans...
• can only see 0.01% of their visual range
in sharp focus at any one time
• will only ever seen approximately 5% of what is available
• see the world as a series of dots based previous experience
• make decisions by scanning thousands of fragmented patterns
stored in long term memory and applying the first pattern that
matches
• are pattern recognition intelligences NOT information
processing devices
Source: Theories of Visual Perception - Ian E. Gordon

Everything is Fragmented
• IF the world as a series of dots joined up on the basis of past
experience
• IF Humans are Pattern Recognition beings NOT Information
Processing machines......
How do we make sense of the world so we can act?
• Narrative and visual images are ways to convey complex
knowledge and ideas - a supplement to traditional ways of learning
and interpretation of our world
• Decision making occurs through the blending of fragmented
experiences gained through narrative and personal understanding
• Multiple fragments provide the basis for interpretation

SenseMakerTM Suite
A natural and intuitive approach to gaining multiple perspectives and new
insights into complex problems that have until now proved to be intractable for
both strategic management methods and software

Asymmetry
“There is no difference between a terrorist, a
citizen, an employee and a consumer - all
represent the problem of asymmetry in which an
organisation has to understand multiple
interactions and decision from large populations
which cannot be predicted or controlled by that
organisation.”
- Cognitive Edge
SenseMakerTM can provide a decision maker with the ability to “see the
world” through the eyes of their customer, their staff, their citizens or even
their enemies.

Survey & Interview limitations
Traditional surveys & interviews have limitations:
• the questions utilised for these techniques assume the validity of a
pre-existing hypothesis (it is virtually impossible to develop the
survey questions without a hypothesis)
• interviewees tend to provide neat (rationalised) answers when
asked for their opinions which normally doesn’t resemble their real-
world experiences at all
• survey and interview questions provide minimal context—how
many times have you answered a survey and found yourself
thinking: ‘It depends…’?
• traditional survey techniques are too open to gaming or
manipulation to provide any value at all. If interesting patterns are
discovered, they often cannot be explained unless further research
is commissioned.
SenseMakerTM reduces the influence of “Experts”

Narrative fragments
Whose \"increased selfishness\"?? Litigators?? That will hinder many
volunteers, regardless of time, attitudes, and generations. Who can
seriously afford to be sued for any perceived wrong doing while do
gooding?? Like everything in our highly dynamic society today, volunteering
attitudes and experiences are shifting. Some more positive, some negative,
and many traditional volunteer beliefs and services need to mirror these
changes to move with the times to survive the times.
Who killed the Volunteer?
SenseMakerTM uses fragments to uncover patterns not readily visible

Narrative fragment collection
Photo
You Tube
Paper survey
Voice recording
Anecdote Circles Websites Physical object Blog
SenseMakerTM enables narrative capture from many different sources

The “crux of the issue”- managing more with less
How often have you had to depend on others for
information from the “coal-face”?
Have you ever wondered about the validity of what
you hear?
How many people have filtered and interpreted
issues and actions before they reach you?
How do you know in a rapidly changing environment
that the data you are making decisions with is not
“yesterday’s news”?
SenseMakerTM can overcome issues of multiple entities divided into
component parts - by being your management dashboard - to make sense of
what is actually happening at the “coal face”

Management Dashboard - doing more with less
SenseMakerTM as a management dashboard - a decision support platform
with near real time data from the front lines - understanding the business in
order to act

Quantitative & Qualitative Data
Summary Statistics for graph: In this story people feel
they are -- Lacking choice X The people in this story
could be described as -- Old ways
But everything else is great..
Number of items: 36
~~~~~ X axis (In this story people feel they are -- If your lucky you'll get a competent
Lacking choice)
supervisor. If not you can end up with
Mean: 68.6667 someone who doesn't do their job but will
Median: 79.5
always appear to others that they are
25th percentile: 36.25
75th percentile: 97.75 helpful and hard working. They will take
Standard deviation: 31.9616
credit for your hard work and even put
Skewness: -0.6409 (skewed to the left) their name to it. They will quietly and
Skewness standard error (SSE, sqrt(6/n)): 0.4082
without witnesses bully you all the while
Skewness Z score (skewness / SSE): -1.5699
Skewness indicates normal distribution (abs Z score < justifying why they need you to do as they
2): yes
say. If your not good at dealing with this
Kurtosis: -1.1866 (platykurtic or heavier in the tails) type of conflict you often feel angry and
Standard error for kurtosis (KSE, sqrt(24/n)): 0.8165
frustrated.
Kurtosis Z score (Kurtosis / KSE): -1.4533
Kurtosis indicates normal distribution (abs Z score <
2): yes
~~~~~ Y axis (The people in this story could be
described as -- Old ways)
Mean: 65.8056
Median: 79.0
25th percentile: 24.0
75th percentile: 99.0
Standard deviation: 33.0427
Skewness: -0.4929 (skewed to the left)
Skewness standard error (SSE, sqrt(6/n)): 0.4082
Skewness Z score (skewness / SSE): -1.2074
Skewness indicates normal distribution (abs Z score <
2): yes
Kurtosis: -1.4432 (platykurtic or heavier in the tails)
Standard error for kurtosis (KSE, sqrt(24/n)): 0.8165
Kurtosis Z score (kurtosis / KSE): -1.7676
Kurtosis indicates normal distribution (abs Z score <
2): yes
Restrictions
Correlation
Use parametric correlation test? yes
We're under staffed, under resourced,
Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient:
0.4346
aging demographic.
Pearson correlation significance: 0.0081
Significance threshold: 0.05
Correlation is significant? yes
SenseMakerTM provides hard and soft data for actionable results

SenseMakerTM project overview
Index and Instrument Design • Emerging Options facilitates workshops,
• Workshop 1 - setting project boundaries - what do
provides support for briefings and assistance
you need to know (representative sample of target
with scoping
group. Developing areas of focus
• Workshop 2 - refining Sensemaker instrument, • Technical advice re database if required
developing prompting questions & language
(Project team)
• Conducted by the project team,
Testing the questions and indexing framework supported by Emerging Options consultants
• Testing Sensemaker instrument with sample
Finalise the database and complete data • Database configuration completed by
collection Cognitive Edge
Data Analysis & Report presentation
• Conducted by Emerging Options
consultants
• Data analysis & preparation of presentation to
management
• Capture and share learning about the process
• Exploration of options for further activities and

SenseMakerTM Distributed Research project overview
Preparation and Planning • Consulting support for briefings and
• Briefing sessions with management team (s)
assistance with scoping
• Scoping projects
• Technical advice re database if required
• Selection of Sponsor and Project team
Training Workshop (2 Days)
• Cognitive Edge principles and framework • Training workshop with project teams from all
• Sensemaking database participating organisations
• Developing prompting questions and indexing
Testing the questions and indexing framework • Conducted by the project team, supported
• Initial sample of people tested by Emerging Options consultants
Finalise the database and complete data collection • Database configuration completed by
Cognitive Edge
Generate reports from the database •Technical and consultant assistance for each
participating organisation
Final workshop (2 Days)
• Preparation of presentation to management
• Conducted by Emerging Options consultants
• Capture and share learning about the process
• Exploration of options for further acitivities and
application

Elements of SenseMakerTM - the Instrument
Portal Entry
• Customised workflow for each
application
Prompting Questions
• Specific to each instrument
• Language tailored to target group
• Designed to elicit range of experiences
Experiences from
participants
• Written narrative
• Visual items i.e. Photos
• Audio files
• Web based media
Indexes
Sticky Tags
• Specific to each experience
• Language tailored to target group
• Specific to each experience
• Provide basis for tracking relative
• Provides context for experience related
nature of experiences over time
& personal perspective
• Established as double negative slider bars
• Are the lens through which patterns are
Non sticky Tags
recognised
• Capture demographics of respondents
• Provide ability to ask traditional research
questions
• Not experience specific but respondent
specific
• Completed only once

Skins can be constructed to reflect
organisation brand & image
Web capture instrument can be configured
with workflow to cater for targeting
multiple audiences

Participants are asked to relate their
anecdotes or experiences in response to
a “prompt”. This could be visual or
written
Instrument can be configured to cater for
written word, audio files, video files, url’s
and pictures
Each experience is a fragment that can
be interrogated to understand patterns
existing in the respondent group

Drop down questions are used as lenses
through which patterns can be viewed
Responses are attached to each
anecdote - context is captured with each
entry
Expert interpretation of respondent
experiences is removed at point of
capture

Double negative questions are used to prevent respondents providing responses that they think are wanted.
Negative extremes range from “total lack of” to “excess of” in each question
Each question focuses on an area of interest about which you want to know more

Demographic & other research questions can
be included as ways of interpreting patterns
that exist

SenseMakerTM
An alternative to traditional ways of understanding
the world by:
- implementation at 50% of the cost of traditional
research tools
- being an alternative to focus groups
- providing immediate insight from real time data
- data capture: owned by the organisation, context
embedded at point of collection, reducing expert
interpretation required
- easily scaleable to 000’s of fragements
- keeping it “Real”

SenseMakerTM - Example Projects
Project: My Visit (United Kingdom) Project: Future of Volunteering (Australia)
The project was driven by a need at National Meals on Wheels is a home-based community
Museums Liverpool (NML) to carry out large scale service facing major challenges regarding the
qualitative evaluation in order to adapt and develop traditional service model patterns of volunteering.
its schools' program.
A critical issue was to retain and build its volunteer
As a result of the My Visit project, figures for base into the future across all sectors.
learning visits to NML rose by over 400% from
Knowsley. Feedback from the site has helped The key objectives of the project were to develop
refine or develop over twenty NML learning an understanding of policy issues and implications
activities. given the changes in demographics and patterns of
volunteering, as well as guidance for those
Sustainable relationships with teachers in the area organizations funding and managing volunteers.
have been created. The project has enabled the
learning team to concentrate on leading sessions,
development work and other evaluation techniques
rather than the analysis of data.
The success of the project has also led to the
development of an on-gallery web-based
questionnaire for visitors to the slavery museum.

SenseMakerTM - Example Projects
Project: Risk Assessment & Horizon
Project: Making Sense of Life in a
Screening (Singapore)
Philippine Public Hospital (Phillipines)
The RAHS system is a strategic risk assessment and
The project sought to understand the challenges
analysis tool, which aims to provide early alerts on
facing a small, under-resourced hospital. It
potential threats to national security by building a
focused on issues such as the lack or resources
network that links various independent government
and other constraints.
agencies throughout the Singapore government.
The project also focused on the relationship
Through the RAHS project, the government aims
between consultants, residents and the
to identify early indicators of change, detect
administration. It attempted to gauge their
signals and analyze potential threat patterns
various perspectives and pinpoint levers that
which otherwise would have gone unnoticed.
could be used to improve the overall dynamics
of the operations.

SenseMakerTM - Example Projects
Project: Career Development Project Project: A Strategic Conversation (Canada)
(Ireland)
The aim of this project was to link the Forest service at all
levels in a collective understanding of the opportunities,
The Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) is a
challenges and uncertainties in the internal and external
public sector organisation which is facing
operating environment that are expected to affect the
modernization and transformation. It also has a
Forest Service over the next 3-10 years.
male dominated aging workforce profile in senior
management positions.
It provided an innovative opportunity for staff
to engage in conversation with Executive and
There is one female director in HR and of the 29
each other about some of the key internal and
people at the next management level, there are
external forces influencing the ministry.
only four women. At least one-third of the 29
people are over 55 and two-thirds over 50.
A outcome has been to create a culture in the
Forest Service where staff are able to sense
The project aim was to answer the question of how
change and act quickly and confidently when
NIHE could facilitate career development and
change is required.
maximise the performance contribution of all
employees in the NIHE, regardless of age, gender or
The project established strategies that will
religion.
assist the Forest Service to better plan for
It was important that internal processes for future business challenges.
succession planning and staff development ensured
that the NIHE had the skills supply it requires for A ‘culture of networking’ inside and outside of
future performance the ministry has been created that allows for
continued scanning and dialogue across the
Forest Service, and with partners, as issues
emerge.

About us:
Emerging Options are a consulting network specialising in complexity and ways of helping
organisations and groups understand the world in which they participate in order to act.
Chris Fletcher is a co-founder of Emerging
Vivien Read is a founder of Emerging Options. Viv
Options. Prior to starting Emerging Options, Chris
has over 30 years experience as a consultant and
was the Asia Pacific Director for Knowledgement
manager in organisational strategy, change
Management at Deloitte. He has over 20 years
management, industrial relations, leadership
experience working in Marketing, Business
development, and action learning. She has co
Development, Strategy and Knowledge
facilitated 4 Cognitive Edge accreditation
Management - predominantly in the professional
programs, in Australia and South East Asia. She
services sector. His current focus is on using
is currently involved in projects using the Cognitive Chris Fletcher
Cognitive Edge tools and processes to help
Edge tools and processes in Australia and Vivienne Read
organisations and groups understand complex
Singapore.
issues, connect people and develop networks.
Chris is a regular speaker at conferences and
Viv is a frequent presenter at conferences,
seminars in the Asia Pacific region.
seminars and professional groups including
knowledge management societies, facilitator
networks, and training and development groups.