Note-Taking for Learning and Innovation

2022-07-14 by cense

Do your notes bore you? They shouldn’t if you’re serious about learning.

Note-taking is among the most powerful, accessible, and portable means to support innovation and learning. Yet, most of us do it poorly. Do you review your notes after you take them? Do you know why you are taking notes in the first place?

There is an art to good note-taking and to using notes effectively. Notes capture what happens, what is discussed or observed, and record insights and commentary — but only if we use them.

Let’s look at ways to improve this.

Tools of the Trade

Fast Company has a remarkably detailed and useful guide to selecting a notebook. The New York Times annually reviews the best pens. Your choice of both can make a big difference to your willingness to use them. That is the key. The best tools are the ones you use.

If pen-and-paper isn’t your thing, consider using one of many apps. In his new book, Building Your Second Brain, Tiago Forte explores how apps and systems can help us better record and retain information. The secret is that the best app is the one that matches the way that you learn and use notes in your practice.

Forte has conducted research into the use of note-taking apps by canvassing the thousands of people who attend his workshops and he’s found that the top tools are:

These aren’t the only ones out there, but they are the most used. Each of these map on to three different note-taking styles such as those suggested by Anne-Laure Le Cunff, which we’ll explore below.

Note-taking Styles

Anne-Laure Le Cunff from Ness Labs has written extensively on note-taking — read her detailed explanation here. She reviews the literature and suggests a variety of strategies that work depending on your goals and preferences. She also provides recommendations on which app to use based on the kind of note-taker you are.

Le Cunff proposes three main note-taking styles:

The architect. They enjoy planning, designing processes and frameworks, and need a note-taking tool that allows them to easily structure their ideas.
The gardener. They enjoy exploring, connecting various thoughts together, and need a note-taking tool that allows them to easily grow their ideas.
The librarian. They enjoy collecting, building a catalogue of resources, and need a note-taking tool that allows them to easily retrieve their ideas.

The best way to learn is to design your systems to match your needs, preferences, and style of note-taking.

Systems of Use

Once you’ve got tools and matched them to your preferences, the next is building an actual use system. This means getting serious about learning. Learning will fail in bad systems as illustrated in a post over on Censemaking.

We suggest asking yourself the following questions ahead of any learning-based activity like a course or webinar:

Will I create the time to review, integrate or reflect on what I am exposed to?
Is the delivery of this course suited to the ways in which I make sense of the world and develop new skills?
Am I invested in the product — a certificate, degree, or outcome — or the process?
Am I engaged with this program (course, webinar, tutorial) to escape from asking myself difficult questions about my work?
Do I have a system in place to revisit, re-work, and apply what I’ve learned in place before I start?

A good learning system involves the following:

A good learning system is something that:

Reduces distraction (preserves and hones attention to find, gather, synthesize and sense-make the most useful information)
Protects/creates/utilizes time (is fit-for-purpose in connecting our knowledge to our purpose and our strategy)
Articulates care (creates principles for practice)
Fits the culture of your organization (creates space for integration)

Learn By Design

As you can see, any good learning experience involves good design. Our choice of tools, motivation, and systems all shape what we learn, what we retain, and whether it’s of practical value.

Learning is easy to say, more complicated to do. But it is something we can design into our organization.

You can learn to learn better by design. Remember: the best system is the one that you use.

If you want help creating a learning system for your organization to help get the most out of what you do every day, reach out and let’s grab a coffee and learn from one another.

Photo by Jan Kahánek on Unsplash

Thinking Frameworks

2022-05-19 by cense

You might have heard or read about concepts like Systems Thinking and Design Thinking (both with and without capital letters) and asked yourself: what do they mean?

We see both of these are frameworks for thinking about problems. It’s somewhat confusing, but both systems thinking and design thinking are more than just ways of thinking, they often refer to a constellation of methods, tools, and approaches to problems.

For that reason, we tend to prefer using the terms systems practice and design instead. However, as frameworks for understanding problems, situations, and issues we see much benefit in using the term thinking.

Just like the image above: our thinking frameworks can help us determine whether we’re looking at the land, the sea, or both, together.

Why Thinking Frameworks?

Our mindset — the mental models, habits of mind, or ways of thinking about something — is the primary factor influencing what we do (or do not do). It shapes how we see the world around us, what we attend to, and determines what has value. When we become aware of how we think we reveal the biases (everyone has them) that direct our attention so we’re better able to direct them to where we want intentionally.

We use thinking frameworks in our work by starting out with identifying what kind of ones our clients are using. Ask yourself: what central ideas are useful to us in doing our best work?

This might include concepts such as: evidence-based practice, learning organizations, ethics stances (e.g., ‘green’), values-based frameworks, use-centred (e.g., words like ‘practical’ and ‘user-centred’). Any of these provide guides to what is valued in an organization. There are many more of these.

Exploring Thinking Frameworks

Once we’ve done that, we start to interrogate it (see what we mean by that narrative here). This process involves asking questions that connect what someone says, what they do, and what they accomplish. This helps to see where there might be alignment or misalignment.

In dynamic markets or communities it’s easy to see how an organization can be misaligned. Policies, strategies, and organizational practices are designed for a certain time and place using a certain kind of thinking framework and as things change so does the potential utility of what we’ve created.

By identifying how we think, we are better able to determine the benefits of it and make modifications.

A great tool is using visual thinking and simple sketch notes to illustrate our thinking. By visualizing what we think about we can better tell how we think.

Tools like the Cynefin Framework can also focus our thinking (in this case about systems) to help refine our mental models.

Don’t make this complicated. There’s no need to worry about coming up with the correct terms, language or model for how or what you think about. The key is to simply identify and become more acquainted with how you think, see the benefits that confers, and understand its limitations. By seeing the blind spots, you’re better at seeing opportunities.

Cense helps our clients see things differently so they can do things differently. If you want help seeing or doing things differently, reach out and let’s talk about how we can be of service.

Image Credit: Xhulio Selenica on Unsplash

Practical Systems Thinking: The Cynefin Framework

2022-05-10 by cense

The Cynefin Framework is among the most widely used frameworks for understanding how systems are organized. It might be the most practical means of bringing systems thinking to life. A system, after all, is simply an organization of things within some constraint or boundary.

We rely on The Cynefin Framework (pronounced /kəˈnɛvɪn/ kuh-NEV-in) as a central platform in our training and consulting work for strategy, evaluation, and design. The reasons are many, but its utility is the most important of them.

What makes the Framework so useful is that people can relate to the stories we tell about systems using it. Perhaps the best story comes from the Framework’s founder and chief advocate, Dave Snowden in describing how to organize a children’s party using systems thinking*.

This video has been our most widely-referred source for teaching the fundamentals of systems thinking since it was first made.

The Framework has also been an inspiration informing the development of a centre for studying and intervening in complex systems based in Wales. It’s also developed into a burgeoning practice and learning community centred around the model.

The video below adds detail to help explain how the Cynefin Framework functions and where it came from.

We recommend reading Chris Corrigan’s excellent update on the Cynefin Framework. Chris has been one of the leading practitioners contributing to the thinking on the Framework’s use and development.

Using the Framework

Unlike many other Frameworks, Cynefin is useful throughout a project life cycle, not just at a particular stage.

In the beginning, we recommend using it to orient yourself to the situation you’re facing. What kind of problem situation do you find yourself in? What elements of the situation are complicated, complex, or simple? These questions aided by the Framework can help you identify key aspects of the system and complement systems mapping work.

As you move through the project, the Framework can help serve as a wayfinding tool. When you know where you are, it is easier to see where you are going. Social systems are dynamic, so while we may find ourselves in a quadrant at one stage, this can shift during the project or at particular moments.

The Framework can also be used as an evaluation tool by helping frame the questions you ask and the strategies that link your actions to your outcomes. By inquiring about the way your work and activities are organized within systems, we can ask better questions and assess real influence and possible impact.

We recommend starting any evaluation with the Cynefin Framework.

We also recommend using the framework as part of a strategic assessment approach to planning and sensemaking. The framework can help you to determine the role of evidence and practice — when to look for ‘best evidence‘, practice-based evidence, and innovative problem-solving options.

Moving Forward with Cynefin

We recommend using Cynefin Framework to anyone working in applied systems thinking, check it out. There is a global community of scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers who are working on advancing, testing, and documenting the use of it in practice. A recent book has been published that provides further examples and can be of use to anyone looking to get into Cynefin.

It’s worth the effort to explore – and we think you’ll agree.

* It is worth noting that our use of the term systems thinking is just that: thinking about systems and how they are organized and function. We recognize there are many different definitions and models of systems thinking including those used by Dave Snowden that may not fully subscribe to ours.

If you want help in applying lessons from the Cynefin Framework or building up your systems thinking capacity for action and strategy, reach out and let’s have a coffee meeting. We can help.

Image credit: Mitchell Luo on Unsplash; Snowded, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Using Decision Canvases

2022-05-04 by cense

You might have noticed that the world seems to be awash in canvases these days. The canvas model owes much of its popularity to the work of Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur and their Business Model Canvas.

A canvas is a form of system mapping that visualizes critical aspects of a system and organizes them. A canvas uses visual conventions like boxes and arrows to lay out key assumptions, resources, actors, and value claims.

Three examples of popular canvases include:

Andi Roberts has pulled together a massive list of fifty different types of canvases that cover issues ranging from value chain analysis, ethics, and strategy, to project management and more.

Some popular canvases like the Business Model Canvas are even pre-loaded as templates in visual thinking tools like Miro and Mural.

There is even a tool called Canvasizer that can help you create your own personalized canvas.

But how do we use these in practice?

Canvas Application

Most of these canvases rely on a similar structure. The simple form of using 8-12 boxes organized in an essentially linear format. This is a strength and weakness of the approach. The reason? It reduces complexity and interdependence, favouring a simplified organizational approach.

The simplification makes it attractive to people and relatively easy to use. The difficulty is the risk of oversimplifying the situation and confusing the model with reality.

It is for both of these reasons that we use canvases with caution. Canvases can be helpful in the following circumstances:

When a project team is unsure where to start. A canvas reduces complexity and can help people start getting things on the page. Just getting started can be an enormously powerful reason to use canvases. Too often, organizations pause because they do not know where to begin. This can nudge that process forward.
When the research hasn’t been entirely done or organized while the need to move forward is high in its absence. Sometimes, there are holes in the research (what we know about a situation) and plotting key themes or issues on a canvas can help us to hypothesize more clearly what else we need, know, or ought to consider.
In times when there isn’t a budget to support in-depth research and sense-making. Canvases can help us to anticipate what a situation has present and available. In the absence of data, we can imagine what might be needed. This isn’t faking data and should be used when research is used to guide, not to prove or validate.
When the number of anticipated themes and key variables for consideration is relatively tiny. Massive systems with many variables don’t fit well, but in many situations, we are not dealing with large, massive, complicated systems — they are small and complex. There are a few key categories and for these, canvases can work well.
When there’s coaching time available. Canvases shouldn’t be used for client work without sense-making and coaching. We see many people confuse the map and model with the landscape and reality.. Plotting out data on a canvas is relatively simple and can be done with little time. What takes time is making sense of what it means and how it can inform strategy. Designing a strategy from a canvas takes time, care, and attention. Doing this is where the value of a canvas comes in.

Canvases are useful. Find or create one, and you can focus your team on what’s most important, organize it, and help foster the kind of conversations needed to assess what to do and how we might do it in the future. Canvases are design tools, and if you consider their advantages and limitations, you can become a great organizational designer.

We use canvases and many other tools. If you want some help setting this up, applying it, or learning other tools and methods, let’s have a coffee and talk about your needs and how we can help.

Practical Attractors

2022-04-21 by cense

Attractor mapping is a method we’ve written about before. It’s a visual means of tracking where we pay attention and where energy is created, sustained and organized.

Energy is represented through attention, action, activity, and interactions. Energy is dissipative and it’s dynamic. This means that we can’t ‘set and forget’ our exploration of attractors. What we learn about where energy is today is likely to change in the near future.

How do we practically use attractors?

Mapping is the key starting point. Mapping, as we’ve described elsewhere, involves paying attention to where patterns of activity are generated. These patterns may be beneficial, problematic, or neutral relative to our goals and needs.

Once the patterns have been identified, it’s important to engage in a sensemaking process to determine what we see and what we imagine might be happening. Sensemaking is a social process that involves looking at data, interrogating it (asking questions about its function, fit, completeness, and patterns), and then devising meaning from it. Ask: what is the significance of what it is that we see? How does what we see fit with what we know and what does it challenge?

Sensemaking is about learning-in-action and making sense of complexity.

Sensemaking, Evaluation and Attractors

With attractors, we are looking at new emergent patterns so it may not be obvious. Consider the example of the early days of the global Pokemon Go game that involved people taking their phones to parks and public squares to play with augmented reality actors. To the untrained eye, this looked bizarre (see the picture above). Yet, when we watch the patterns we see they are shaped by the game, but more importantly, it brings people literally together in the real world. Some of the emergent patterns that came from this were friendships, collaborations (around the game), and a burgeoning community of Pokemon Go players.

The next step is to take the insights we generate from our sensemaking process to align what we learn with what we seek to do. This is connecting strategy and data together. This means clarifying your intent and the desired impactthat your organization seeks.

This is where evaluation comes in. Evaluation can serve as a means to help clarify the strategic intent and take advantage of attractors. Evaluation links intent and action together. This is what the heart of a strategy is all about: aligning the resources, intentions, and actions together to produce an outcome.

Evaluation looks at what is happening through the lenses of strategy and data. It connects the two together.

Putting it into Practice

The lessons for attractors are:

Start with a system. A system is a set of boundaries that contain interactions. These boundaries might be geography, time, markets, populations, contexts or something that helps define the situation you’re looking at. If you look at a system and feel lost, you probably have boundaries that are too broad (try narrowing them, including more constraints). If you constantly are looking outside the system for explanations, you might want to broaden your constraints.
Pay attention. Build observation skills to start looking within a system. What’s happening? Use everything from observation to quantitative data points (e.g., customer numbers, counts, requests, etc..) to stories and more.
Sense make Come together with those who might have different perspectives on your team or beyond to help make meaning from what you see. What patterns did you expect? What surprises you? What’s unknown? What do you need more data on?
Strategize Develop a plan that fits the context. In highly dynamic situations this might mean developing a shorter-term plan. Consider what forces are influencing the attractors and amplifying their effects or whether or not you wish to avoid or dampen those effects if they are not beneficial.
Design Take the steps to design an approach, service, product, policy or overall organization plan to meet these needs. Using the steps in the Design Helix you can gather information and bring all of what you’re seeing together to shape things and create impact.

Repeat these often.

That’s bringing attractors to life in practice.

Do you want or need help in putting this into practice? Would some coaching or strategic advice help you out? If so, reach out and let’s chat over a coffee or tea about how we can help you.