A synthesis of Cense’s approach to evaluation for learning and strategic innovation
We’ve published many articles over the years on Developmental Evaluation, learning systems and how to integrate design thinking into the process and as part of the outcomes. In this article, we outline how we practice this and what it means to do strategic design with a lens to learning about how we innovate as we do it.
Innovation in complex human systems requires more than good intentions and clever ideas—it demands systematic ways to learn, adapt, and create value through intentional design. Over the years, our work at Cense has evolved from implementing developmental evaluation as an alternative approach to creating what we now call design-driven evaluation: an integrated methodology that weaves evaluation directly into the fabric of innovation and strategic development.
The Evolution of Our Thinking
From Evaluation to Strategic Learning Infrastructure
Traditional evaluation assumes stability—that the program being evaluated remains constant while users might change. Developmental Evaluation (DE) flips this assumption, recognizing that in complex systems, everything is in motion. Programs exist within dynamic environments where “the river I stand in is not the river I step in,” as Heraclitus reminds us.
But our understanding has deepened. We’ve moved beyond viewing DE as simply “evaluation for innovation” to recognizing it as fundamental infrastructure for organizational learning and strategic development. When properly embedded, evaluation becomes the nervous system of an organization—providing continuous feedback that enables real-time adaptation and learning.
The Design-Driven Evolution
This evolution led us to design-driven evaluation, where evaluation and design are intimately connected throughout the innovation process. Rather than bolting evaluation onto existing programs, we embed evaluative thinking from ideation through implementation, creating what we call “learning pathways” that capture insights at every critical juncture.
Design-driven evaluation recognizes that learning is both a journey and a destination. By approaching this journey through the lens of service design, we create systematic touchpoints for data collection and sensemaking that support continuous innovation and adaptation.
Core Principles That Guide Our Practice
Innovation as Learning Transformed into Value
At Cense, we define innovation as learning transformed into value through design. This isn’t about incremental improvement—it’s about fundamental development that creates new possibilities for organizations and the people they serve. Developmental evaluation provides the structured means to capture this transformation and guide it strategically.
Complexity as the Starting Point
We assume complexity from the beginning. Our evaluation frameworks are designed for organizations operating in conditions of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). This means creating evaluation systems that can adapt and evolve rather than rigid measurement frameworks that break under pressure.
Strategy and Evaluation as Inseparable
In our approach, evaluation is not separate from strategy—it’s a critical component of strategic development. This requires close integration between strategy development and evaluation, with bi-directional information flow ensuring that strategy informs evaluation and evaluation informs strategy simultaneously.
The Design-Driven Difference
Embedding Learning Throughout the Journey
Design-driven evaluation maps learning opportunities throughout service journeys rather than focusing solely on endpoints. By building evaluation layers onto service journey maps, we identify critical touchpoints where systematic data collection can provide insights into both process and impact.
This approach allows us to:
- Identify activities and behaviours throughout the entire innovation journey
- Provide user-centered perspectives on services and programs
- Map the systems, processes, and relationships that users navigate
- Anchor data collection to service transitions and critical decision points
- Test and refine theories of change in real-time
From Reactive to Proactive Learning
Traditional evaluation often operates as a post-hoc assessment. Design-driven evaluation embeds feedback loops from the beginning, incorporating “the feedback, learning, and evidence-guided adaptation capacity into the fabric of the plan.” This transforms evaluation from a retrospective judgment into a proactive guidance system.
What This Means in Practice
The Three Essential Components
Successful developmental evaluation requires three integrated elements:
- Mindset: A complexity-ready orientation that embraces uncertainty and views programs as part of living systems
- Skillset: Facilitation, sensemaking, and developmental design capabilities that enable collaborative learning
- Toolset: Multi-method approaches that can capture the richness of complex system interactions
Resource Integration
Effective implementation requires both external perspective and internal knowledge. External evaluators bring the emotional and perceptual distance to see patterns hidden in plain sight, while internal evaluators provide crucial context and nuance. This collaborative model ensures both rigor and relevance.
Strategic Planning Integration
Design-driven evaluation transforms strategic planning by embedding learning mechanisms directly into implementation plans. Rather than creating static five-year plans, we develop adaptive strategies with built-in sensing and sensemaking capabilities that allow organizations to navigate uncertainty with confidence.
The Value Proposition
Evidence for Innovation
Without systematic evaluation, innovation remains wishful thinking rather than demonstrated impact. Our approach ensures that organizations can document not just what they’re doing, but what’s working, why it’s working, and how to replicate or scale successful innovations.
Quality Assurance for Design
Design-driven evaluation assesses not just whether programs achieve their intended outcomes, but whether they’re designed well enough to achieve positive impact in the first place. Many innovations fail not because they’re poorly implemented, but because they were never designed to succeed.
Organizational Learning Capacity
By embedding evaluative thinking throughout organizational processes, we help build internal capacity for continuous learning and adaptation. This creates resilient organizations that can thrive in complex, changing environments.
Looking Forward
As the complexity of challenges facing health and human service organizations continues to increase, the need for sophisticated learning systems becomes more critical. Design-driven developmental evaluation provides a framework for creating these systems—not as additional burden, but as essential infrastructure for innovation and impact.
The integration of design thinking with evaluative practice creates new possibilities for organizational learning and strategic development. By treating evaluation as a design challenge and embedding it throughout innovation processes, we transform evaluation from an external judgment into an internal capacity for wisdom and adaptation.
At Cense, we specialize in creating design-driven evaluation systems that support innovation, learning, and strategic development in complex organizational environments. Our approach combines rigorous evaluation methodology with innovative design thinking to create learning systems that guide transformation and demonstrate impact.
Ready to explore how design-driven developmental evaluation can support your organization’s innovation goals? Contact us to discuss how we can help you build systematic learning into your strategic development process.