The SenseMaker method
SenseMaker is a narrative research method: people share short, real experiences and interpret them themselves. Meaning comes from the storytellers, not from external interpretation. Hundreds of stories add up to a map of the organisation. Developed by the Cynefin Company.
Last updated: 29 August 2026
What surveys don't see
A 3.7 on the satisfaction scale. What do you know now? The average hides the distribution: one team that loves its work and one that has quietly given up add up to an unremarkable middle. And the scale narrows the answers: people report what the form allows, not what happened. The experience that has been on someone's mind for weeks doesn't fit a box from 1 to 5.
On top of that sits an uncomfortable point many HR leads know from their own experience: in many organisations, nothing visible follows the survey. Nobody reliably knows how many organisations this affects; our impression from conversations is that action is the exception, not the rule. That is not an accusation aimed at individuals. An average simply doesn't point in any direction you could act on.
In 2026 this weighs heavier than it used to. The job market is frozen and resignations have become rare. That removes the classic early-warning signal: attrition. Quiet withdrawal turns invisible because people stay and the numbers look calm. The annual survey is then often the board's only instrument, and it is precisely the one that sees the least.
How SenseMaker works
It doesn't open with a question about opinions but with an invitation to tell: “Describe a situation from the past few weeks that stuck with you.” What comes back are micro-narratives: short, real experiences, a few sentences each, not polished case reports. A single story proves nothing. It doesn't have to.
The decisive step is called self-signification: the storytellers place their own story, right after telling it. Was this about trust or about control? Was it a one-off or everyday life? Meaning comes from the people who lived the situation, not from us as external analysts. Nobody interprets afterwards what might have been meant.
Hundreds of stories placed this way become the map: every placement is a dot, and where many dots sit together, a pattern becomes visible. You see clusters, outliers, gaps. And because a real story sits behind every dot, you can jump from the statistics back to the experience at any time: what is inside this cluster? Read the twelve stories behind it.
SenseMaker is a tool by the Cynefin Company. How we set up a study with it, from the opening prompt to the meta retrospective, is described on our page on SenseMaker study design.
SenseMaker or survey?
Both have their place. The question is what you want to know: a score for the benchmark, or a picture of what actually happens in the organisation.
| Classic survey | SenseMaker | |
|---|---|---|
| What is collected | Agreement with predefined statements | Short, real experiences |
| Who decides the meaning | Whoever designed the questionnaire | The storytellers themselves |
| What you end up with | Averages and benchmarks | A map of stories and patterns |
| What happens to surprises | Falls through the scale's grid | Shows up as its own pattern |
| Rhythm | Once a year, then silence | A running feedback cycle |
| When it fits | Benchmarks, audits, comparability | Understanding before you decide |
Case studies
SenseMaker in a school: parent and pupil stories as one map
The school leadership stopped triaging individual conversations one at a time and started reading the school as a whole, with parents’ and pupils’ accounts sitting side by side in the same map.
SenseMaker in customer research: 300 customer stories at CandleScience
About 300 crafters described what actually happened after the ingredients arrived. New patterns came to the surface, and hypotheses the team had held for years finally had the qualitative and quantitative material behind them.
What you hold after six weeks
Not a slide deck at the end of the quarter. The study goes live in week 2, and every stakeholder watches stories arrive as they are told. The first experiences are in the system a few days after launch. You don't wait for a final report, you watch the map take shape.
After six weeks you hold three things: the collection instrument, which keeps running; the growing map of the organisation; and a date that is already set. In week 8, 3 to 10 people from your organisation read the patterns together in the sensemaking workshop. Month 4 brings the stakeholder workshop, and its result is a “more of this, less of that” decision: not a prescribed measure, but a direction your team can actually act on.
Our promise is deliberately limited: within six weeks you see what actually happens. What you make of it is your decision.
When it isn't worth it
SenseMaker is not always the right instrument. Four cases where we advise against it:
- You need benchmark scores for a certification audit. Then a classic, standardised survey is the right instrument, and we are the wrong people to ask.
- You are a team of twelve. Talk to each other. At that size, one good conversation a week beats any structured study.
- Leadership has no intention of acting on what becomes visible. A study that surfaces patterns nobody responds to damages trust more than no study would.
- You want to retroactively justify a decision that has already been made. Stories are unreliable for that: they show what is, not what was wished for.
Frequently asked
What is self-signification?
Self-signification means whoever tells a story places it themselves, right after telling it, for instance between poles like trust and control. Meaning comes from the storytellers, not from external analysts. That is the core of the SenseMaker method and the reason the map holds up: nobody has interpreted anything into it after the fact.
Is SenseMaker anonymous?
The collection can be set up anonymously, and in most studies that is the right choice. One caveat has to be stated honestly: a very specific story can stay recognisable in small units, even without a name. That is why study design clarifies which questions trigger what, and how people can tell their stories protected.
How long does a SenseMaker study take?
In our format the study goes live in week 2, week 8 brings the sensemaking workshop with 3 to 10 people, month 4 the direction decision with the stakeholders, and the end of month 5 the meta retrospective. The instrument can keep running after that: many organisations keep it as a running feedback cycle.
How many participants does SenseMaker need?
What matters is the number of stories, not of people. From a few hundred experiences onwards, patterns become reliably readable; at CandleScience it was around 300 customer stories. For a team of twelve the method is oversized: a direct conversation is the better instrument there.
What does a SenseMaker study cost?
There is no list price, and we won't invent one here. The effort is driven mostly by the number of stakeholder groups, the languages, the channels into the collection, and the workshops across the roughly six-month runtime. An intro call first clarifies whether the method fits your question; after that, the effort can be quoted seriously.
How is SenseMaker different from an employee survey?
A survey measures agreement with statements someone formulated beforehand and returns averages. SenseMaker collects short, real experiences, and the storytellers place them themselves. You don't get a score, you get a map of stories in which patterns become visible. For benchmarks, the classic survey remains the right instrument.