Cense

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Designing care into your organization is not about being nice, it's about setting yourself up to be high-performing, innovative, and complexity-ready.

#strategicdesign #care #design

https://censemaking.com/2025/08/07/caring-by-design/

Profiles in burnout In their new book, leading experts Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter bring academic rigor to organizational responses to employee overload.

Profiles in burnout isn't an overly optimistic focus of an article, but doing this draws attention to something that is a critical factor in designing human-responsive organizations.

#burnout

www.strategy-business.com/article/Prof...?

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In the last post of the summer series on strategic design and complexity we put it all together and set the table for what we hope will be a wonderful meal. Happy Summer! #strategicdesign #complexity #systemsthinking

https://censemaking.com/2025/08/01/setting-the-table-the-making-of-strategy/

Developmental Evaluation Preparedness Pilots have a pre-flight check before they fly a plane. A developmental evaluation journey requires the same kind of preparedness. Developmental Evaluation (DE) is an approach to strategic learning…

Developmental Evaluation is a way of approaching learning, innovation, and accountability that is suited to innovation, complexity, and uncertainty.

The best way to use it is to prepare yourself first, not just try it "out of the box" (it's never out of the box).
www.cense.ca/developmenta...

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Design-driven evaluation is a way to embed learning into your organization, prime yourself for innovation, and build in a compass for navigating complexity.

#strategicdesign #evaluation #innovation

https://censemaking.com/2025/07/24/design-driven-evaluation-and-strategic-design/

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Foresight is one of the features of strategic design that sets it apart from traditional plans, by helping you envision futures and the systems needed to get you there. #strategicdesign #foresight #systemsthinking

https://censemaking.com/2025/07/18/strategic-foresight-and-design/

Circle on "What Can SystemThinkers Learn from Public Transit Planning" with #AndrewMiller + #SergioDeLara, moderated #ZaidKhan . Public accounting discourages government hiring experts, private sector contractors assuming risk. Plans for urban transport need political will. #SystemsThinking (OCADU)

Design Skills for The Present #image_title If you wish to create something new or transform something, you’ll need to design. You must design well if you want that change to achieve something meaningful. What does that me…

What are the design skills for the present moment? This short list outlines what we think designers need to be successful. These are the technical skills, but the thinking and strategic ones where #strategicdesign fits

www.cense.ca/design-skill...

#designer

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How do we connect systems thinking with our intentions? Strategic design is the means to connect where we're sailing to, our journey and where we dock and this is where we connect it together. #strategicdesign…

https://censemaking.com/2025/07/11/systems-thinking-strategic-design-and-transformation/

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What does strategic design look like? It's about connecting intention, imagination, production and learning using systems thinking to achieve sustained change. In this article, we look at what…

https://censemaking.com/2025/07/03/strategic-design-bridging-complexity-planning-evaluation-for-impact/

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Strategic design will always require leadership to translate ideas, inspiration and strategy into action. In complex conditions, this means setting a leadership course that involves humility, agility, and…

https://censemaking.com/2025/06/26/leadership-for-complexity-humility-inquiry-and-agility/

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Strategy making is the intentional way of charting your ship across the seas of complexity and arriving safe and sound. In this latest in the Censemaking summer series, I take a closer look at the strategy…

https://censemaking.com/2025/06/14/strategy-for-leadership-by-design-a-brief-introduction/

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The metaphor of sailing is a way to articulate what strategy is (and what it isn't). Complexity requires us to explore strategy and navigate it differently than with mechanical systems. In this post, we look at what…

https://censemaking.com/2025/06/10/from-complexity-to-action-the-role-of-strategy/

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What are some practical ways to address complexity? In this second post in our Summer Series, we look at the metaphor of navigation and how it applies to complexity and taking strategic action, by design.

https://censemaking.com/2025/06/05/navigating-complexity-using-strategic-design/

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Dealing with complexity first means knowing what it is. In this first post in the 2025 Summer Series dealing with all we're dealing with, I begin with a look at complexity.

https://censemaking.com/2025/06/03/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-complexity/

How AI Is Creating Self-Healing Business Networks As supply chain disruptions show no signs of becoming more predictable, let's explore how cognitive supply chains can transform the way businesses manage uncertainty.

What happens when AI, systems thinking, and supply chains meet up? Here: www.forbes.com/councils/for... #systemsthinking #AI

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Is it time to retire the term systems change? It might be worth considering. Just look at a butterfly and we might see a new idea take flight.

https://censemaking.com/2025/05/14/from-systems-change-to-transformation/

Design, Systems and The Settings That Influence Us Space shapes systems, so systems change requires we understand space. In this post, I’m going to use two contexts to illustrate why and how settings affect so much of our lives and why any systems change must account for them if we are to be successful. Take two examples: education, and healthcare. In an educational context, the setting might be the classroom. In both cases, consider the following physical features that both influence the experience within a care or educational context: Windows (access to natural light to see and refresh)

Design, Systems and The Settings That Influence Us

Space shapes systems, so systems change requires we understand space. In this post, I’m going to use two contexts to illustrate why and how settings affect so much of our lives and why any systems change must account for them if we are to be…

Developmental Evaluation and Strategy When undertaking strategic planning for organizations operating in the complex space of health and human services, how do you account for creating meaningful ways to learn and adapt? Developmental …

Developmental evaluation and strategic planning can work very well together if you design the conditions for both to come together.

We explore this in our latest post: www.cense.ca/developmenta...

#evaluation #design #strategicdesign #DE

Rhinoceros In The Wild: System Models and Reality Most of us have not seen a rhinoceros in the wild. We might have seen a rhino at the zoo and maybe on television. Only a few of us who live outside Africa have been fortunate enought to see one of these beautiful creatures in its natural habitat. Imagine we’d never seen a rhinoceros in any form? Dürer's Rhinoceros is an example of what we get if we have good information without sightlines on the actual thing being described. The name is based on the work of German artist…

Rhinoceros In The Wild: System Models and Reality

Most of us have not seen a rhinoceros in the wild. We might have seen a rhino at the zoo and maybe on television. Only a few of us who live outside Africa have been fortunate enought to see one of these beautiful creatures in its natural habitat.…

What Is Strategic Design, And Why Might I Need It? #image_title Strategic Design is the application of design methods, principles, thinking, and approaches to an enterprise. It combines aspects of systems design, service design, and design thinking…

What is strategic design and why might you need it? Our post reflects on this concept of creating the future and organization that you want (using design, systems thinking and behavioural science) www.cense.ca/what-is-stra... #strategicdesign #systemsthinking #design

If you're looking to transform your career and learn the art and science of how to design for health, the MDes program at @ocaduniversity.bsky.social in Design for Health is still accepting applications for next year's term gradadmissions.ocadu.ca/program/DHEA #designforhealth

Healthcare’s Earth Day Challenge Earth Day allows us to reflect upon the opportunities and challenges healthcare faces when dealing with its environmental responsibilities. Will it rise to meet them? This is Earth Day. It's when we consider the health of the planet alongside our life on this planet. For healthcare, an environment of its own, the opportunity to bring the messages we embrace on this one day to every day present a design challenge that aligns well with the mission of our health systems. I'd argue its not a nice to have, but a leadership imperative.

On this Earth Day, consider how we can create a healthier planet through leadership within healthcare. We are perfectly positioned to lead for health and for enviornmental innovation and impact by considering how we can integrate the mission of our work in planet-healthy ways.

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Developmental Evaluation and Strategy

When undertaking strategic planning for organizations operating in the complex space of health and human services, how do you account for creating meaningful ways to learn and adapt?…

https://censemaking.com/2025/04/15/developmental-evaluation-and-strategy/

Monitoring for Motivation Maintaining focus and motivation within many health and human service-sector roles can be difficult. Clients continue to show up with issues that demand care and attention often without the means f…

The outline for how to develop performance monitoring and evaluation systems as part of a learning and innovation plan. Part one of a series www.cense.ca/monitoring-f... #learning #motivation #healthsystems #strategicdesign

Monitoring as Motivator: Harnessing the Progress Principle If you're stuck in the daily grind of human services delivery, leveraging evaluation data can help you see and chart your progress. Among the most difficult things healthcare and human services professionals deal with is progress. Whether you're an ER nurse, a front-line social worker, or a palliative care doctor, seeing progress is something that is often elusive because the nature of the job is reactionary. Even primary care physicians struggle with their work on prevention and health promotion among the many issues that they are presented with. While the work of care is important, it can also feel a little…

Monitoring as Motivator: Harnessing the Progress Principle

If you're stuck in the daily grind of human services delivery, leveraging evaluation data can help you see and chart your progress. Among the most difficult things healthcare and human services professionals deal with is progress. Whether…

An Opportunity to Build, In the Crisis (SSIR) As philanthropy rallies to the defense of the nonprofit sector, how money is spent is as important as how much.

"As indispensable as providing more of philanthropy's core product will be, how that money is spent represents, perhaps, an even larger opportunity."

Cense Ltd. Design For Living Systems

Strategic design is all about connecting where you are, where you want to go, and creating the conditions to connect the two. This means focusing on 1) strategy, 2) feedback and learning (evaluation, evidence), and 3) designing for what you want. www.cense.ca

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Learning is Not a Luxury

In times of uncertainty, disruption, and change it's easy to view intentional learning as a luxury. It is not. Complexity -- situations when the relations between causes and consequences are unclear and dynamic…

https://censemaking.com/2025/03/08/learning-is-not-a-luxury/

"If you can't do it with feeling—don't." - Patsy Cline