If you’re trying to think and act more creatively and more critically, focus on asking better, more interesting questions of the briefs you’re tasked with answering. What we teach children can and should be applied to our own professional lives, too. A focus on problems and solutions first, promotes consistent, ‘safe’ answers, but won’t move the work on. Spending time on asking and answering better questions will help refine the understanding of a problem and will create the conditions for new, interesting and challenging solutions.

This is SenseMaker in its most simple form, usually structured to have an open (non-hypothesis) question (commonly referred to as a ‘prompting question’) to collect a micro-narrative at the start. This is then followed by a range of triads (triangles), dyads (sliders), stones canvases, free text questions and multiple choice questions. The reason or value for using Sensemaker: Open free text questions are used at the beginning as a way of scanning for diversity of narratives and experiences. This is a way to remain open to ‘unknown unknowns’. The narrative is then followed by signifier questions that allow the respondent to add layers of meaning and codification to the narrative (or experience) in order to allow for mixed methods analysis, to map and explore patterns.

This is a map of subcultures within an organization (it's called a fitness landscape). It's built from stories told by the people in the organization. What can you do with it? Understand where the culture(s) are and request changes by saying I want “More stories like these...“ and “Fewer like those...“ Dave Snowden and The Cynefin Company (formerly Cognitive Edge) are offering impactful ways to visualize culture, and communicate direction in a manner that is customized to where each subculture is now and where their next best step is. Watch this video until 48:48 for more on the science and method (Link at 44:33) https://lnkd.in/emuAzp6E Stories collected using The Cynefin Co's Sensemaker tool.

MATE tool

The most common tool, methods, processes, and deliverables that designers use throughout the digital product design process.

The Paradox Process is a model for brand development that when applied works for many brands facing complex challenges. Its primary purpose is to get insight into consumer pain points or contradictions that need solving, and it works by using contrary perspectives to arrive at new conclusions.

resources for mapping, assessing and weaving networks

Agenda for market research project kickoff meeting

Guide to outcome evaluation and development of logic models

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Using Google Trends to identify patterns in the conversation about your product