Sensemaker - Praxis Makes Perfect

Also catalogued elsewhere

An essential guide for those navigating today’s unpredictable world. Rooted in the pioneering work of Dave Snowden and the Cynefin® Framework, this book unveils the power of SenseMaker®, a revolutionary approach to capturing human narratives and making sense of complexity.

Other types of logical connection create connections from a general rule to a specific example, or from specific examples to a general rule. Abduction, instead, creates connections that are plausible based on what we know about a situation. (Location 135)

Antenarrative stories are many voiced, open to multiple interpretations and operate as pre-narrations that can disperse into and penetrate wider social contexts. (Location 157)

In complexity, attractors are the results, not the cause. (Location 169)

A complex system is a system composed of interconnected parts that as a whole exhibit one or more properties (behavior among the possible properties) not obvious from the properties of the individual parts. (Location 172)

Complex Adaptive System Deeply entangled, highly uncertain spaces that do not operate on simple causality models. (Location 176)

Clear, in which the relationship between cause and effect is obvious to all, the approach is to Sense – Categorise – Respond and we can apply best practice. (Location 186)

Complicated, in which the relationship between cause and effect requires analysis or some other form of investigation and/or the application of expert knowledge, the approach is to Sense – Analyze – Respond and we can apply good practice. (Location 188)

Complex, in which the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance, the approach is to Probe – Sense – Respond and we can sense emergent practice. (Location 190)

Chaotic, in which there is no relationship between cause and effect at systems level, the approach is to Act – Sense – Respond and we can discover novel practice. (Location 192)

Aporetic, which is the state of not knowing what type of causality exists, in which state people will revert to their own comfort zone in making a decision. (Location 194)

Move away from attempting failsafe design towards setting up safe-fail experimentation’. Because you cannot analyse the problem space fully in advance, and you have to be prepared to adjust systems interactively until you find that they work. (Location 202)

Distributed cognition is a branch of cognitive science that proposes that human knowledge and cognition are not confined to the individual. Instead, it is distributed by placing memories, facts, or knowledge on the objects, individuals, and tools in our environment. (Location 204)

The key point is that SenseMaker allows people in the subject communities to act as ethnographers to those communities. (Location 210)

High abstraction signifiers that can’t be gamed and for which there is no “right” answer, and use of metaphor/abstract language empower respondents and ethnographers to use their descriptive capability which has always been the goal of ethnography. (Location 213)

In a complex system, you don’t have linear relationships between cause and effect which means you have inherent uncertainty. (Location 220)

The only thing we know with any certainty is that any intervention will have both intended and unintended consequences i.e. emergent patterns and experiences. (Location 221)

That means we need lots of small interventions where we can afford multiple small failures. (Location 222)

Also known as radical repurposing, exaptation is the taking of an idea, concept, tool, method, framework, etc., intended to address one thing, and using it to address a different thing, often in another domain. (Location 230)

Narrative theorists study what is distinctive about narrative (how it is different from other kinds of discourse, such as poems, lists, conflicts, descriptive accounts, mathematical analyses, and so on), and how narratives can be collective and powerful. (Location 255)

Narrative health refers to a healthy diversity of narratives within a community. (Location 257)

A rhizome is a concept in post-structuralism describing a nonlinear network. (Location 260)

A rhizome is purely a network of multiplicities that are not hierarchical and do not work with dualist/binary categories and choices. (Location 262)

Rhizomatic understandings of history and culture do not apply a clean narrative, but rather presents history and culture as a map or wide array of attractions and influences with no specific origin or genesis. (Location 265)

The basic approach involves a spokesperson presenting a series of ideas to a group who receives them in silence. The spokesperson then dons a mask, or turns their chair, so that their back is to the audience and listens in silence while the group either attack (dissent) or provide alternative proposals (assent). (Location 270)

adaptation of Michael Polanyi’s: “We always know more than we can say,” to which I added “and we will always say more than we can write down”. (Location 341)

triads. The principle being that balancing three positive concepts will force people to think differently. (Location 402)

I don’t think there’s been a narrative project where we didn’t discover something that wasn’t self-evident with the benefit of hindsight, but nobody realised it upfront. (Location 440)

This brought together three bodies of knowledge: assemblage theory, the mathematics of attractors, and narrative studies. (Location 454)

New materialism or neo-materialism argues for a real and active material reality that nonetheless is evolving and historical, and doesn’t have unchanging essential identities. (Location 458)

Anti-stories undermine specific narratives by pointing out the inherent hypocrisy in the original story. (Location 472)

Max Boisot was absolutely fundamental. He and Alicia Juarrero were the main mentors on this. Boisot coined the phrase micro-narratives (James, 2011). And he also said that with this tool, you can solve the problem of abduction, and that drove MassSense. (Location 480)

There’s still a tendency in the social sciences to gather stories, interpret them and write a report, which I’ve been trying to move away from for 15 years now. (Location 488)

we discuss the role that axiology – under which ethics and aesthetics sit – plays in the discussion of value. We discuss how axiology can and does influence the way decisions are made and the way technological products are developed and designed. (Location 742)

“narratives express the cultural, institutional, and social embeddedness of our human decision-making”, and “decisions reflect the value systems of the people concerned; they are shaped in the interaction networks of these people” (Van der Leeuw, (Location 749)

Whenever we discuss ethics and aesthetics, we implicitly understand that we are talking about value: why do we hold one judgement over the other, and what is our justification for doing so? It is a largely two-pronged discipline with aesthetics and ethics underpinning it, and it is this focus that the authors would like to urge readers to turn to. (Location 755)

It is from this perspective of a double poly/meta-crisis that the complexity of the Anthropocene becomes transparent – something which transcends any single science, discipline or agency. (Location 1333)

not all the challenges we are facing in the world today are necessarily complex problems. Some are indeed complex; others complicated; others chaotic. (Location 1341)

complicated problem situations are characterised by linear causal relationships and complex problem situations by non-linear causal relations. (Location 1343)

Cynefin signifies the social places and spaces where people are continuously assembling and re-assembling the ‘social’ (Latour, 2007)– whilst, in the process of doing so, adopting different roles and identities as social actors. (Location 1353)

exploring different contexts in terms of their fundamentally different kinds of causal dynamics or cause–effect relationships. (Location 1357)

in the clear domain we are dealing with known knowns; in the complicated domain with known unknowns; in the complex domain with unknown unknowns; and in the chaotic domain unknowable unknowns (Location 1373)

Where in the Clear Domain, single-discipline expertise would be the appropriate methodological approach, in the Complicated Domain there is a need for either multi- and inter-disciplinary expertise, or both. (Location 1446)

in both approaches, there is limited, or no, engagement and inputs sought from social actors or stakeholders. The subject matter at hand is seen as being separable from the environment and context. (Location 1478)

In the complex domain we encounter a shift from linear to non-linear causality – meaning that events / occurrences in this domain are no longer caused by direct cause–effect relationships between A (cause) and B (effect), but rather by bi-directional or circular feedback loops occurring between A to B and back from B to A again (Location 1495)

A and B are not static, and that A or B might become something completely different as it becomes embedded in this, as well as multiple other feedback loops. (Location 1498)

the differences between the Complex (Unordered), and Clear and Complicated (Ordered) domains are ontological in nature – and, thus, display differences in system type (Ordered vs. Unordered), and not just in degree. (Location 1501)

it is because of their fundamental interconnectivity in emergent complex systems that things always happen through a multiplicity of intense local and external interactions. (Location 1517)

the very notion of causality – i.e. what causes what in space and time – needs to be seen and understood more as a distributed phenomenon, something which is part and parcel of the dynamic, emergent property of complex adaptive systems (Location 1520)

the system itself is characterised by non-linear causality (Rosen, 2005); seeking causality might become futile, as the system can better be described as one of dynamic correlation (Location 1522)

This means that the task of sensing or sense-making of such emerging patterns cannot be conducted by disciplinary experts, with their theoretical knowledge systems, only. It requires epistemic engagement with various publics (stakeholders) to incorporate their practical / embodied / tacit / experiential knowledge of the complex problem situation at hand as the knowledge developed would be incomplete without it. (Location 1527)

Working strictly in mono-, multi- and inter-disciplinary ways in the Complex Domain is, therefore, ontologically inappropriate. (Location 1531)

This means working collaboratively in the trans-disciplinary mode by bringing such pre-theoretical knowledge into the research process – from the very outset of defining / developing the problem statements and research questions (epistemic objects). (Location 1534)

Such approaches are known in the literature as distributed cognition / ethnography (Location 1540)

The Chaotic Domain (see Figure 11 below) is, ontologically speaking, radically different from the other three domains in the sense that things happen in a completely ad hoc manner with no discernible causal relationships. (Location 1545)

The domain of Chaos can be seen as the extreme end of the spectrum between the Ordered and Unordered systems, with it representing complete un-ordered and randomness. (Location 1547)

Chaos is also, ontologically speaking, a very temporary state, as complete randomness requires massive energy to create, and is impossible to maintain (Location 1552)

In the Chaotic Domain, the main focus is on strategic action-taking, specifically aimed at bringing the chaotic events under beneficial control. (Location 1553)

Systems that undergo chaos become fundamentally different, and there is an irreversibility to the system-level disruption. (Location 1555)

In the Aporetic domain, we are well aware that we are confused, and we know that we need to adopt different ways of learning, perceiving, interpreting, and exploring to work our way out. (Location 1583)

It is when it is not possible to know must be done when knowledge is not and cannot be determining that a decision is possible as such.’ He highlights that the alternative is the decision where it is clear what is to be done, in other words there is no other possible decision and thus it is more akin to “an effect, an application, a programming” than a decision. (Location 1592)

In summary, this final domain in Cynefin can be seen as the learning space(s) opening during emergent research processes, where mono-, multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary scholars can interact with each other and seek to work with the tensions to create truly transformative work. (Location 1596)

synergic satisfiers is of a mother breastfeeding her baby; thereby satisfying the baby’s needs of subsistence, affection and identity – in short, one action (breastfeeding) satisfying more than one human need at the same time. (Location 1612)

Narrative Action Research (NAR) is another good example of synergic methods because it wants to fill this gap created by mixed methods by bringing transformative approaches into its repertoire of methods – thereby, not only setting out to developing better insights and understandings of peoples’ lived realities – in short, sensemaking – but also figuring out how to change things. (Location 1623)

Guiding principles NAR / SM processes are guided by the following guiding principles. • Co-design: Rather than assuming atomism, NAR / SM takes a communitarian approach. This is akin to, metaphorically speaking, a dynamic interaction between actors and the stage with emergent connections between social agents and their social contexts – in which people – both individuals and groups – are constantly shaping and being shaped by each other. (Location 1675)

Self-signification: The idea behind self-signification is that people self-interpret their stories into their own structure; they give further meaning to their experiences by placing their story onto signifiers. (Location 1685)

Epistemic justice: Epistemic justice refers to a fairness of knowing, including the need for inclusion in the “knowing process.” If there is a lack of representation from one group or an overabundance from another, or if people are excluded based on their socio-cultural-economic status, demographic, or geographical context, then this can be seen as an epistemic injustice as there is an unjust power dynamic (Byskov, 2020). It is not enough to collect more perspectives about an experience or event or situation. To attend to shifting knowledge, and seeing differently, people have to create new knowledge about a system by identifying what their experiences mean and how they are making sense of, and finding meaning, in the world. (Location 1699)