Consultancy

Anecdote Circles

Our clients

  • Association of Information and Image Management (USA)
  • Bank Indonesia
  • Bank Negara Malaysia
  • British Council (global)
  • CapitaLand
  • Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore
  • Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore
  • Defence Science & Technology Agency
  • Department of Transport (Abu Dhabi)
  • DesignSingapore Council
  • Food and Agriculture Organisation (Italy)
  • Health Promotion Board
  • Housing & Development Board
  • Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore
  • Institute of Technical Education
  • IE Singapore
  • International Fund for Agricultural Development (Italy)
  • Islamic Development Bank (Saudi Arabia)
  • Jardine Group (Hong Kong)
  • Keppel Land
  • Maxis (Malaysia)
  • Ministry of Law
  • Ministry of Manpower
  • Ministry of Trade and Industry
  • Monetary Authority of Singapore
  • National Library Board
  • National Science Foundation (USA)
  • PETRONAS
  • Public Service Division
  • Singapore Army
  • Singapore Customs
  • Singapore Exchange Regulation
  • Singapore Sports Council
  • The Revenue Commissioners, Ireland
  • SUT Sakra Pte Ltd
  • Workforce Development Agency
  • 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 Cognitive Edge network. Straits Knowledge consultants Patrick Lambe and Edgar Tan are trained Cognitive Edge practitioners.