SenseMaker

Summary

SenseMaker supports distributed capture and self-interpretation of micro-narratives so that patterns can be explored without reducing all meaning to an external coding scheme.

Implications for practice

It links narrative and quantitative pattern exploration while retaining participants' own interpretation. Claims about a tool's design should remain distinct from evidence about what it achieved in a particular intervention.

Key distinctions

• self-signification vs researcher coding alone
• micro-narrative vs survey response
• pattern exploration vs predictive certainty
• tool capability vs project outcome

Historical development

• narrative knowledge management
• distributed ethnography
• Cynefin

Ideas it depends on

• narrative
• distributed participation
• interpretation
• pattern

Further developments

• narrative landscapes
• participative monitoring
• weak-signal inquiry

Connections to practice

• evaluation
• community research
• strategy
• monitoring
• organisational listening

Common confusions

• software removes interpretation
• large narrative collections are automatically representative
• visual patterns explain themselves

Further checks

• add technical and methodological documentation
• include independent evaluations
• map ethical and data-governance questions

Recorded connections

Check the wording, direction, scope, sources, and status of a connection before relying on it.

• The Cynefin Company develops and maintains SenseMaker

  Status: accepted · Relation: maintains

  The statement is limited to the named sources and their evidential role. First-party definition, authorship, historical development, application and independent evaluation remain distinct claims.

  Locator: Release 0.14 public primary, official, institutional and publisher sources

  • The Cynefin Company (checked)
  • SenseMaker — The Cynefin Company (checked)

• Dave Snowden originated SenseMaker

  Status: accepted · Relation: developed

  The statement is limited to the named sources and their evidential role. First-party definition, authorship, historical development, application and independent evaluation remain distinct claims.

  Locator: Release 0.14 public primary, official, institutional and publisher sources

  • Dave Snowden — The Cynefin Company profile (checked)
  • SenseMaker — The Cynefin Company (checked)

• Naturalising sense-making includes SenseMaker

  Status: accepted · Relation: includes

  The statement is limited to the named sources and their evidential role. First-party definition, authorship, historical development, application and independent evaluation remain distinct claims.

  Locator: Release 0.14 public primary, official, institutional and publisher sources

  • Naturalising sense-making — Cynefin.io (checked)

• SenseMaker supports Distributed ethnography

  Status: accepted · Relation: operationalises

  The statement is limited to the named sources and their evidential role. First-party definition, authorship, historical development, application and independent evaluation remain distinct claims.

  Locator: Release 0.14 public primary, official, institutional and publisher sources

  • Dave Snowden — The Cynefin Company profile (checked)
  • SenseMaker — The Cynefin Company (checked)

Sources and passage locators

• SenseMaker — The Cynefin Company (checked)
• Dave Snowden — The Cynefin Company profile (checked)
• The Cynefin Company (checked)
• Naturalising sense-making — Cynefin.io (checked)

Cite this entry

Taylor, B. P. (2026). SenseMaker. The Necessary Tangle, release 0.35. https://transduction.systems/entries/tool_sensemaker/

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