We see ourselves as a practical sensemaking approach. In order to do sensemaking in a complex context, skills and practices have proven useful which allow you to check and evaluate what you know. Our focus is on language. Spoken language contains several layers, which mix factual with relational and structural information. In order to do sensemaking in moments of discovery, it's useful to be able to strip content of the relational and situational layers. Basically, to access the mechanics underneath. Once you have that, you can start to think. On the other hand, once you have a good idea, it's necessary to clad it with appropriate layers of storytelling to make it connect with the people in the situations you target. For both, being able to understand language at the layer of culture helps. 

However, you can't always do that, as you don't have the vantage point to gather all the necessary information. That's where the participatory approach comes in. It was developed to access and make use of what they call "local knowledge". That is the same as experience in any context, the nonverbal layers. As this information cannot be fully extracted, working together with knowledge owners or experts in the decision making process is crucial. Furthermore, making decisions is needed for some types of intuitive experiential knowledge to surface, as it is stored contextually and not in abstract form. It is not subject to the will of the owner. 

// Distributed cognition?

Complex contexts cannot be done "right". There are too many aspects which contradict and complement each other to consider. The key lies in continuous decision making appropriate to the situation at hand. The problem in true complex context which are new is that "decision" does not mean, selecting between options. It implies the very process by which "options" are identified. If you get to select between predefined options, other frameworks and practices apply. We call that "navigation" to differentiate the decision making layers. 

How does one find options? You have to be able to learn quickly. Our approach is to support using local knowledgee 

Es gibt eine Lücke zwischen klassischer Research und Design Thinking.

Ethnographische Methoden sind tief aber produzieren lange Texte. Fragebögen sind beschränkt und schwierig. Daten haben ihre eigenen Probleme. 

Es gibt ein Methodenset das als Werkzeugkasten die Lücke schließen kann.  Zusammen mit Prinzipien und Vorgehensweisen ("Framework") kann damit in kurzer Zeit ....

Um effektiv zu funktionieren brauchen die Methoden Orientierung. Dafür haben wir einen interdisziplinären Ansatz um ein praktisch nützliches Kontextmodell erarbeitet, um Anwendern Orientierung zu bieten. 

Statt einem festen Vorgehen oder Framework setzt Context Navigator auf Heuristiken, Prinzipien und Praktiken.