Getting familiar with SenseMaker®

If you're thinking about running a project exploring complex issues like culture, there's another chance to kick start a project with the SenseMaker® trainings in Seattle from 11-13th March 2015.

As many people know, I've been using SenseMaker® software to understand populations and design and monitor programmes for the past six years.  In recent years, more and more people are exploring it - but it can be a daunting beast to start with.

So earlier this year, I started running new courses specifically designed to help people run SenseMaker® projects - the subjects have been as varied as culture change, customer insight, population understanding and real-time feedback from passengers.  Singapore and London were great successes - we're keeping the numbers small so that we can focus on people's real projects - and so far we've built a bunch of frameworks as part of the two-day Building and Testing Signification Frameworks course:

• Exploring the possibilities for spreading innovative use of technology
• Understanding blockages to use of Agile software techniques
• Real-time feedback from rail passengers - with the potential for crisis handling built-in
• Investigating citizens' concerns around cost-of-living, including what social elements can mitigate perceptions of problems

The course, therefore, is much more than just information - it's actual framework-building.  Two of these are rapidly moving into testing and will start work soon.

So if you're thinking about it, but not sure where to start ... see you there.

(And there will be more of these later this year - the full schedule was almost finished on last week's flight when my laptop went awol, taking six hours of planning with it... Ho hum!)