If you ever need to explain SenseMaker to someone who does IPSC or likes to shoot, I believe this could be a nice comparison.

SenseMaker is used to understand what is really going on and what could be done in a complex environment. One of the elements of SenseMaker, and probably the most interesting one, are triads.

Here is one example from a SenseMaker research on business networking in Bosnia and Herzegovina done by Eda from Banja Luka. Each dot is a story, told by a decision maker in an enterprise. Here we can see that most of the business cooperation is done thanks to enterprises themselves. But, we can also see that there are some enterprises that benefit from being part of associations and networks (clusters, Chamber of Commerce, etc). If we want to see more business cooperation being done as a result of networks or associations, this triad tells us that in this environment, that is possible. As a roadmap, we could then analyze a cluster of stories located in between these two answers (adjacent possible) and ask a question: “How do we have more stories like this?”

In IPSC or shooting in general, you don’t have stories but have bullet holes (hits). Even though each hit is a story in a way. When you are finished with shooting, let’s say, 50 shots, you could have something like this.

This has some similarities to triads. It tells you what is really going on and what to do next. If hits are grouped or clustered, that’s a good news, because you aren’t shooting randomly and we can see patterns emerging. If there are patterns, there is a way to improve your shooting. If hits are clustered left of the center, you are most probably not pressing the trigger with the tip of your index finger as you should. If hits are grouped beneath the center of the target, you are probably pushing the gun away from you due to anticipation. If they are grouped above a center, you are probably shooting too fast, and so on…

Just like SenseMaker’s triads, you use hits as a map to help you orient yourself where are you now and where to go next.

edit: Target I posted above is not an IPSC target and I posted it in the absence of a close-up photo. This is how IPSC targets look like: