Sensing Journey
Small teams leave their usual context to visit people and places that matter to their challenge, often at the edges of the system: a frontline team, a partner, a community, a competitor. They go with open questions and listen to the host's world in its own setting. Right after each visit the team does a disciplined debrief before anyone checks a phone.
Use in a strategy or innovation programme when the group keeps describing the system from its own desk and needs to see it through the eyes of other stakeholders.
Solves: Leadership teams design change for a system they mostly know from reports and meetings with people like themselves.
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Step 1: In the full group, list places and people at the edges of the system you want to understand (30 min).
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Step 2: Form teams of three to five, each preparing for one visit: context, who they will meet, what they most want to learn (30 min).
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Step 3: Visit. Observe the setting, listen more than you talk, follow your curiosity with real questions (90-180 min).
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Step 4: Debrief right after the visit, before switching on phones: what struck us, what surprised us, what did we feel, what does the system look like from there? (30 min)
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Step 5: Back with the full group, share across teams and look for patterns (45-60 min).
- Ask hosts to show you their place and work rather than present slides.
- Brief teams to suspend judgement; questions like 'how do you see...' work better than 'why don't you...'.
- Build travel and accessibility into the plan; visits fall apart when logistics are improvised.
- Short local version: one-hour visits to departments in the same building.