Cognitive Edge is focused on rejuvenating management practices to better equip organisations when addressing intractable problems or seizing new opportunities in uncertain and complex situations. Where traditional approaches have failed to deliver success, Cognitive Edge techniques enable the emergence of fresh and insightful solutions seen from multiple perspectives.

Cognitive Edge solutions, comprised of open source methods, original research and the Cognitive Edge SenseMaker® Software Suite, are delivered through the Cognitive Edge Network. The Cognitive Edge Network is a widely dispersed, cohesive Network of experienced professionals in private and public sector organisations from diverse disciplines with deep-rooted experience in both business and science. It includes academics and practitioners, in house and commercial consultants. Membership of the Network is attained through participation in an Accreditation programme.

The Cognitive Edge SenseMaker® Software Suite provides a set of tools designed to enable informed decision making in organisations using both structured and unstructured data in a common environment. The Suite is fully integrated with a coherent body of formal methods is the outcome of several years of research into human based organizational complexity, sensemaking, decision making, knowledge sharing and narrative.

Narrative Research: Linking Quantitative with Qualitative

Theme

The quotation from Prof. Lakomski below illustrates some of the issues or problems with traditional forms of research.  To her criticism could be added concern about aspects of narrative research which involve the active engagement of the researcher with narrative, or the deconstruction of that narrative.

"The model of the human mind has been assumed to be akin that of a symbol processor, a computer-like engine that allows us to manipulate successfully a range of symbols of which language is deemed the most significant.
This view of the human mind is very limiting because it assumes that what we know, and are able to know, is expressible in symbolic form only
… because intangibles cannot be captured in the grip of such symbolic representations as questionnaires or surveys.  It might rightly be pointed out that there are qualitative means of assessing transformational leadership in terms of interpreting certain leader behaviors, or by applying leader self-reports.  These are imbued with their own problems because of the inability of differentiating between competing interpretations, a core problem of interpretive social science and hermeneutics, and by the endemic unreliability of self-reports."

Prof Lakomski in “Managing with out Leadership “ 2004

We are homo narrans - the story-telling ape, not the rational actors and respondents assumed by questionaires and focus groups.  The fragmented anecdotal patterns of human knowledge provide the filters through which we see the world.  The capture of self interpreted, fragmented narrative provides a new set of research tools which are also capable of providing impact measurement and knowledge databases.

Who should attend

  • Cognitive Edge practitioners wanting to gain an increased understanding o the theory behind SenseMaker® as a research tool, together with an appreciation of advance applications;
  • Academics and professional researchers seeking to understand Cognitive Edge narrative research tehniques and their applications.  Attendance enables these groups to use the SenseMaker® tools.

Notice:  SenseMaker® is a research tool created by Cognitive Edge, the use of which requires payment of fees.  This seminar is not part of the open source methods otherwise taught by Cognitive Edge

 Programme

  • Issues with hypothesis based research and a critical review of current narrative techniques;
  • Links between narrative and cognitive science, the fragmented nature of human sense-making;
  • Basic design principles of SenseMaker® including the nature of self-signification;
  • The application of narrative to the measurement of impact and disintermediation of decision making;
  • The operational capabilities of narrative research and the link to knowledge management;
  • The use of narrative based research in strategy and distributed decision making and coherence tests.

Outcomes

By the end of the seminar delegates will:

  • have acquired an understanding of the use of Sensemaker® and associated methods for narrative research;
  • understand the positioning of Cognitive Edge methods and tools to other research approaches;
  • have a list of applications and case histories together with an ability to design and run their own projects.

Tutor

Dave Snowden is the founder and chief scientific officer of Cognitive Edge. His work covers government and industry looking at complex issues relating to strategy, organisational decision making and decision making. He has pioneered a science based approach to organisations drawing on anthropology, neuroscience and complexity.

Well known for his work on the role of narrative and sense making, he is an entertaining speaker and a formidable realist, and one of the few thought leaders who can bring together the academic and practitioner perspectives into a single, comprehensible purview.

His Harvard Business Review cover article with Mary Boone A Leader's Framework for Decision-making, was selected as the 2007 Best Practitioner Paper by the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management. 

Upcoming dates and details for this course:

 http://cognitive-edge.com/calendar-seminars.php