Consultancy

Anecdote Circles

Our clients

  • Bank Negara Malaysia
  • British Council
  • Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore
  • Defence Science & Technology Agency
  • Housing & Development Board
  • Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore
  • Institute of Technical Education
  • Jardine Group (Hong Kong)
  • Maxis (Malaysia)
  • Ministry of Law
  • Ministry of Manpower
  • National Library Board
  • Public Service Division
  • Singapore Customs
  • Singapore Sports Council
  • SUT Sakra Pte Ltd
  • Yokogawa Engineering Asia Pte Ltd

Anecdote circles are a little bit like focus groups, and typically involve 12-15 people. Unlike focus groups they are not guided by a structured series of pre-determined questions. In an anecdote circle the facilitator asks participants to share anecdotes of their experiences in the particular focus area of the project. After the stories have been volunteered, we normally work with the participants to process them and extract issues, themes, values or behaviours.

Anecdotes, together with the material we extract from them, provide very rich material that communicates the natural working contexts of the environments from which they come. They are powerful complements to more analytical data collection methods and can be used in culture analysis, issue identification, change management, communication planning, customer research.

The anecdote circle is one of a suite of tools for knowledge capture and is pioneered by the Cynefin Centre. Straits Knowledge consultants Patrick Lambe and Edgar Tan are trained Cynefin practitioners.