Strategic Design For Health: Systems to Service to Impact
Cense supports health-seeking leaders in navigating transformation through strategic design, evaluation, and systems thinking.
You’re leading through unprecedented challenges.
You have problems that require different approaches and new ways to think about them.
You need pathways forward and to make sense of what’s happening.
You need to learn, adapt and build evidence to guide your actions.
We are here to help.
Health leaders face mounting pressures, including community engagement, workforce shortages, system restructuring, financial constraints, technology adoption, and equity challenges—all while maintaining high-quality care and staff well-being. Whether direct healthcare, health promotion, or supporting community wellbeing, the challenges for leaders are many, complex and require solutions that are fit for purpose.
At Cense, we help you design strategies that adapt and thrive in complexity and systems, not in spite of them.
Helping You Move From Reactive to Adaptive Leadership
We’ve been part of the health and social innovation sector for over 25 years as consultants, designers, academics, and leaders. At Cense, under the leadership of Dr. Cameron Norman, we offer:
Strategy That Works in Complexity & Crisis
Our participatory, engaged approach recognizes systems issues and provides you with:
- Decision and sensemaking tools that recognize stakeholder and system complexity
- Actionable strategy and plans built for uncertainty and resource constraints
- Innovation frameworks that direct resources where they matter most
Systems Change That Sticks
We help you create services, systems, and practices that work and are sustainable through:
- Interventions grounded in behavioural psychology and systems thinking
- Organizational learning systems that adapt and evolve
- Culture building strategies that improve how your teams serve patients, clients and support each other
Evidence You Can Act On
Our design-driven developmental evaluation approach generates real-time insights that help you course-correct quickly and demonstrate impact using:
- Real-time insights gained through developmental and complexity-oriented evaluation methods
- Learning systems that help you course-correct quickly and spot opportunities early
- Impact-oriented evaluation findings that are designed for use.
Leadership Support When You Need It Most
- Advising and coaching on strategies for engaging staff, stakeholders and clients
- Team resilience building and vision maintenance to bring strategic plans to life
- Systems that keep you focused and well amid daily “firefighting”
How We Help Health Leaders
Strategic Planning & Foresight
Develop robust strategic plans that guide your organization into the future while respecting complexity, not denying it. We create impact by design—marrying ambition with pragmatism and creativity to help you achieve your goals in uncertain environments.
Leadership Development & Coaching
Build adaptive leadership capabilities through practical training, coaching, and facilitation support. We help you navigate delivery tensions, strengthen team resilience, and maintain strategic vision while managing daily operational demands.
Service Design & Innovation
Transform how your organization learns, adapts, and delivers care using behavioural psychology and systems thinking. We design sustainable interventions and service models that are fit-for-purpose and built for lasting impact.
Evaluation & Learning Systems
Generate real-time evidence and actionable insights through our Credentialed Evaluation services. Our design-driven developmental evaluation approach creates learning systems that help you course-correct quickly and demonstrate impact to stakeholders.
Implementation Support
Bridge the gap between strategy and action with hands-on implementation guidance. We provide the tools, training, and ongoing support needed to ensure your transformation initiatives succeed and create measurable change.
The Complete Cycle of Organizational Excellence
We can help you with any and all aspects of the journey from strategy clarifying through to impact assessment by designing a system that supports you at every step.
Strategy Clarification → Actionable Planning → Service Design → Implementation Support → Learning & Adaptation → Measurable Impact
Our work connects service design, organizational psychology, and complexity science, ensuring sustainable change that serves both your people and your systems—organizational, network, client, and partner.
Ready to Transform How You Lead Through Complexity?
Health system transformation doesn’t just happen; it requires strategic design. We’ll help you do that.
“Strategic design for leaders who refuse to choose between people and performance.”
Explore Our Services
We bring over 25 years of experience in healthcare, public health, health services, social innovation and evaluation.
Whether you’re building strategy, leading transformation, or cultivating innovation, we offer practical tools, training, and insights that come through strategic design. Our Credentialed Evaluation services support the evidence you need to demonstrate impact and learn. We bring it all together.
Want to learn more? Click the button below to book your free, no-obligation consultation to discuss your challenges and needs.
Learn and Listen
Explore our services to learn how we can support your work, and subscribe to our learning resources to stay inspired. Visit our blog and Censemaking for insights on strategic design for innovation and impact. Learn even more by listening to Cense’s profile on the Deep Dive interview.
We acknowledge that our office is located on the ancestral and traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation. We pay our respects to the Elders, past and present, and to future generations who continue to care for this land. We commit to supporting Truth and Reconciliation through ongoing action, advocacy and education.