Sense-Making in Complex Adaptive Systems

The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants

University of Bath

None

Director at ThinkClarity - Working with decision-makers to navigate change and address challenges in complex situations

Rolling contract to provide support as an expert practitioner for the CPPR team using SenseMaker® - engaged in review and development of their flagship ‘Our Tomorrows’ project that explores lived experience of families who are thriving or just surviving.  Also provided design and technical support with the use of SenseMaker® projects on childcare, child protection and education.   Facilitated the skills development of new members of staff by sharing Emergent Design as an approach to designing SenseMaker® frameworks in a way that creates engagement and uses both emergence and embodiment.

Kansas University - Center for Public Partnerships & Research

Expert Practitioner in SenseMaker

Instrumental in building and supporting a worldwide network of practitioners with expertise in the use of SenseMaker® to collect, map and explore the way that people make sense of their everyday lives at home,  work and in their communities.   Collaboration among members of the network enables greater reach and increased capacity to deliver significant projects.

Member of Network of SenseMaker® Practitioners

See LinkedIn Summary for an overview of the services I provide through ThinkClarity.

ThinkClarity

Director and Principal Consultant

Part-time contract role tasked with starting to mobilise a social movement that became known as “Oxfordshire on the Move”.  The purpose of this movement was, and is, to encourage organisations, groups and individual advocates to work together across Oxfordshire to increase the level of everyday physical activity.  Energy was focused through the development of a set of shared ambitions.  My work started with designing and facilitating a series of innovative and well-attended exploratory online workshops and moved on to designing and leading two unusual and memorable face-to-face events.  These events took place at the Story Museum in Oxford and used physical movement to enable creative and useful conversations.  Feedback from both events was universally positive.

Active Oxfordshire

Systems Facilitator - Oxfordshire on the Move

Fixed-term part-time employment with the Council’s Community & Wellbeing Team.  Tasked initially with having informal conversations with local groups in the West and North of the District to ask them about their experience in providing mutual aid to their communities during the pandemic.   This role created strong connections with community activists at a local level and identified factors that were of interest and value to the Council and to organisations in the voluntary, charitable and statutory service sector.  Knowledge built through these conversations led to engagement in Test & Learn development of Ripple-Effects Mapping to evaluate change and the use of Kumu to build a relationship map to help individuals and organisations in the district to understand, more clearly, who was doing what, where and with whom.

West Oxfordshire District Council

Healthy Communities Officer

A UK-based Adjunct Professor at the Nigerian Institute of Social & Economic Research wanted to use SenseMaker to explore lived experiences in various parts of Nigeria to assess support for and against separatism.  There was an insufficient budget for this to be carried out as a project, so I offered and provided mentoring so that the Professor and colleagues at the Institute could lead work to design and implement the project and to analyse and explore the results.  My role was limited to providing guidance on the use of Emergent Design of SenseMaker signification frameworks and running a few online workshops to test the framework and train data collectors.  Overall, I provided about 20 days of mentoring during a 12 month period.

Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research

SenseMaker Expert & Mentor

This small pilot project was commissioned by the North East and North Cumbria Applied Health Sciences Network  (NENC AHSN) on behalf of the NHS England Northern Clinical Network.  Its purpose was to use SenseMaker to carry out a brief evaluation of the Trauma-informed Community of Action (TICA) that had been forming over the previous 12-18 months and which was receiving seed funding from NHS England. 
 The work was taken on to test and continue to develop the process of Emergent Design of SenseMaker Frameworks.   Responses were requested by email from members of TICA.  Due to the pressures that Covid was putting on clinicians, it was not appropriate to chase for responses.  This meant that relatively few responses were received.  Nonetheless, interesting and useful patterns were identified and a well-received report was written.  This is available on line via https://bit.ly/TC_TICA_Evaluation

NHS England - Northern Clinical Network

SenseMaker Practitioner:  Evaluation of Trauma-informed Care Community of Action

The DFID South Sudan Peacebuilding Opportunities Fund (POF) used SenseMaker as a core part of its exploration of the values and identity of Cattle Camp Youth in the Lakes State. (NB. 'Youth' includes everyone that is not yet an elder).  While there is a normalisation of violence that permeates the reality of the cattle camps there is also rich tradition, legacy, community, discipline, organisation and an aspiration for a peaceful and prosperous future.  The SenseMaker framework designed for the project focused on the experience of violence and also of its intersection (where applicable) with traditional values.  The project was highly unusual in the level of attention paid by the POF programme team to establishing relationships and building trust.  It was also unusual because I decided that rather than collecting data directly on computer tablets, respondents would be asked to signify what their experience meant to them by walking around each triangle/rectangle on the ground and placing a piece of wood to indicate their answer.  These answers were then input into the computer and validated by the respondent.  This embodied approach to the collection was highly successful.  Overall the project provided insights and led to safe-to-fail actions that significantly reduced (and in some places stopped) people killing each other.  Details of the project and the actions that followed are described in an excellent report written by the POF Programme Lead and available online at https://bit.ly/TC_POF_SenseMaker_SouthSudan.   My role in the project focused on preparing and leading five days of practice-based training for the data collectors, on monitoring data as it was collected and analysing the results.  I was fortunate to be able to visit South Sudan and work with the programme team in Rumbek.

Oxford Policy Management

SenseMaker Practitioner - Peacebuilding amongst Cattle Camp Youth in South Sudan

The project commissioned by the Australian Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) evaluated the impact of a number of training programs on youth development outcomes.  SenseMaker was chosen as the way to identify significant changes that youth had experienced through participation in the different training programs.  I worked with a close colleague to design a relevant SenseMaker signification framework, provide remote training for data collectors and provide an initial analysis of the results.   I carried out 14 days work over a period of 4 months.

Oxford Policy Management (Australia)

SenseMaker Practitioner - Evaluation of Youth Training in Papua New Guinea

The 2018 Afghan drought displaced hundreds of thousands of people and left millions acutely malnourished.  This was exacerbated by the continuing conflict between the Taliban and the Government.  While some progress had been made by humanitarian and development agencies, far too many internally displaced people were still sheltering in informal settlements, unable to rebuild their lives; and many of those who have returned to their land were coping with crushing poverty, debt and destitution.  The UNDP Livelihoods Team in Afghanistan wanted to use SenseMaker® to complement previous surveys, focus groups and interviews on the impact of the drought with insight into the lived experience that underpins how people make decisions and choose to act.  The work was also intended to create a better understanding of people's resilience to cope with continuing problems and pressures.   Overall 1,300 responses were collected in Herat and Badghis provinces.  I worked for about 90 days over a 19-month period to co-design the SenseMaker® framework, support the training of the data collectors, manage the project, analyse the results and write the report.  A copy of the report is available at https://bit.ly/TC_UNDP_AF_DroughtResilience.

UNDP

SenseMaker Practitioner: Making Sense of Drought & Resilience

The UNDP’s Anti-Corruption Project in Afghanistan wanted to use SenseMaker® to inform, monitor and enable adaptive management of small local safe-to-fail initiatives that could reduce the impact of bribery and abuse of power in rule of law and human security.  It was anticipated at the outset of the project that SenseMaker® would be used in 3 rounds in selected areas in Kabul City and Herat City.  In round 1, approximately 2,200 responses were collected and used to provide an aggregate evaluation of the corruption landscape.  It was intended that this would help guide the design of a larger collection in Round 2 to identify and enable the implementation of local small safe-to-fail initiatives.  Round 3 would then have monitored the impact of these initiatives and enabled them to be managed in an informed and adaptive way.  In the event, the context changed after round 1 and it was not possible to continue with rounds 2 & 3.    In total, I worked for about 100 days over the 17 months to co-design the SenseMaker® Framework, support the training of the surveyors, manage the work, analyse the results and write the report; this included three 10-day visits to the UN compound in Kabul.

SenseMaker & Adaptive Management for Anti-Corruption Survey

Active Withernsea was one of 12 national Local Development Pilots selected by Sport England as part of its 'Towards an Active Nation' strategy.  The project received long-term funding for 3-5 years to build relationships in Withernsea that would enable collaborative work on increasing the level of physical activity, social engagement and mental health and thus help residents have happier and healthier lives.  This sought to raise aspirations and break the cycle of fatalism and negativity that had become the cultural expectation over the 50+ years since Withernsea lost its rail connection to other parts of the region.  The team's approach was based on systems and behaviour change, listening and learning, and a focus on asset-based community development.  SenseMaker was one of a range of tools and approaches that were developed and used to navigate the change and support the collective journey.  My role was to provide support and skills transfer in the use of SenseMaker in the wider frame of complex adaptive systems - I also provided a range of unusual ideas for the team to collect and make sense of lived experience, this included using beer mats in a pub quiz.   I worked for approximately 70 days over a period of 28 months.  During this time, I was able to start to develop a new approach to designing SenseMaker frameworks that enable active engagement and use both emergence and embodiment.  This approach has since been developed further and used in many other projects.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council

SenseMaker Expert - Active Withernsea Local Delivery Pilot

This elected and voluntary role has two responsibilities.  First to hold the Trust's Non-Executive Directors to account for their oversight of the Executive Team ; and second, to support engagement with members of the Trust and members of the public in relation to services provided by the Trust.

South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

Public Governor for Oxfordshire (Voluntary)

Designed and directed the use of SenseMaker® to assess the perception of citizens in two provinces in Pakistan on the delivery of public services; this was carried out as part of the Sub-National Governance Programme and involved the collection and analysis of self-interpreted narrative data from over 3,800 respondents.  The work required three visits to Pakistan and management of a project team.

Oxford Policy Management (Consultancy Assignment)

SenseMaker® Practitioner - Pakistan Sub-national Governance Programme

Appointed as Non-Executive Director on an unpaid basis to provide guidance and governance for one of the most active and respected Local Healthwatch organisations in England.   Each Local Healthwatch has a statutory duty to engage with people in their area and carry out research to hear what they say about their experience of health and social care services and to use these views to identify and influence improvements that need to be made by commissioners and providers.

Healthwatch Oxfordshire

Non Executive Director

Short-term assignment with Monitor’s Pricing Delivery Team to facilitate improved working relationships between organisations involved in defining and designing the National Tariff for the NHS and to enable collaborative review and simplification of pricing models for Best Practice Tariffs.

Monitor

Interim Consultant - Pricing Delivery

Designed, directed and built local capacity in the use of SenseMaker® to carry out narrative research in international development projects in Lebanon, Turkey and the Horn of Africa.   Two of the projects in Lebanon are now in their 3rd year of operation and are continuing to grow in scope and impact.

Associate at Aktis Strategy

SenseMaker® Practitioner

Contracted to review how scientific and diagnostic services are currently commissioned and to identify proposals for improvement in commissioning of these services.  Initial research included successful use of SenseMaker® to collect data from attendees at a national conference and analysis of Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Programme Budget Categories (PBCs) and Health Resource Groups (HRGs).  Work reframed to include assessment of the extent to which commissioners had confirmed access to information on commissioning of scientific and diagnostic services.

NHS England (Chief Scientific Officer Team)

Independent Consultant

Member of the NHS Interim Management & Support's (IMAS) team of independent contractors available for advisory and interim assignments with any NHS or related organisation.

NHS IMAS

Associate

Engaged via NHS IMAS and Guys and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust to provide expert advice to the Revalidation Support Team’s Director of Research and Quality Improvement (RQI) on designing and documenting research in to the early benefits and impact of medical revalidation of doctors in the first year of implementation.   The advice was well received and was seen as enabling the RQI team to prepare and publish higher quality deliverables than would otherwise have been possible.  Also: prepared a specification for continued (academic) research in to revalidation between October 2014 and September 2016.  This was funded by the Department of Health’s Policy Research Programme and issued as a call in January 2014.

Paul Ader