[Gitcoin 3.0] Complexity-Informed Sensemaking Pilot

[zhgnv]

Background

Gitcoin is taking on a bold challenge with its Sensemaking Season: identify Ethereum’s most meaningful, urgent, and solvable problems through community insight. To meet that challenge, it’s essential to start with real stories.

We’re proposing to pilot a lightweight, high-signal process that would allow to listen to the Ethereum community at scale. Rather than asking each contributor to produce a formal report, we invite them to share a concrete experience — a moment where something in the ecosystem either worked well or fell short.

By collecting these stories and synthesizing them into patterns, we can illuminate what’s truly happening on the ground and where Gitcoin is uniquely positioned to make a difference. This narrative-led method draws on the Cynefin framework, which emphasizes sensemaking in complex environments by amplifying weak signals and allowing patterns to emerge organically.

In doing so, we set up a minimum viable sensemaking (MVSM): fast, participatory, and deeply grounded in lived experience. It complements existing GG24 framework by lowering the barrier to entry for contributors while giving stewards a clearer view of what genuinely matters, and why. Internalizing this approach within the community should help Gitcoin to more deeply align its theoretical understanding of complexity-informed sensemaking with its operational reality.

Approach

Pilot: July–August 2025

This short-term pilot is designed for quick implementation and high signal in a constrained time window. Our goal is to prototype MVSM system that supports Gitcoin’s domain formation process with real insight from community contributors.

Participant Recruitment

• Targeting 50–100 contributors, depending on time and budget constraints.
• Participant recruitment will include three approaches:
  1. Recruitment of aligned DAOs and communities who compete in a week-long story collection sprint with the possibility to win prizes for the greatest percentage of community participation.
  2. Recruitment of a “Delphi” panel of experts or prominent voices within the Ethereum ecosystem who can provide deeper insights.
  3. General recruitment participation with a focus on “unheard voices” that might be less prominent within Ethereum discourse.
• Participant recruitment materials and information for future outreach will be collected and stored to ensure that further rounds can be conducted more quickly than this pilot phase.

Collecting Narrative-Based Responses

Rather than requiring each contributor to submit a long-form markdown report, we’ll use a micro-narrative model:

• Participants answer a focused prompt such as:

  “Describe a specific moment when something in Ethereum either worked exceptionally well or broke down.”

• Each response (~150–200 words) is lightly structured and tagged to enable synthesis and clustering.

• The micro-narratives can be collected by using ad-hoc prompts, with metaphors for understanding the experience, and multiple choice questions to gather demographic information and relevant categorization of experience.

This supports Gitcoin’s emphasis on surfacing root-cause problems, authentic meaning, and practical validation, as outlined in GG24’s framework.

Portfolio Management

• Take the experiences/patterns synthesized in stage 1
• Map them into the Cynefin framework
• Identify boundaries between different problem types
• Use Estuarine Mapping to see how to operate / experiment in different environments
• Monitor experiments and report back

Different approaches for different environments:

• Simple/Complicated: “Just hire somebody to take care of it” - direct technical fixes
• Complex: “We might have several ideas that are good enough” - tested through multiple experiments / probes in parallel

The portfolio approach recognizes that complex environment requires many “safe-to-fail” experiments rather than betting everything on one solution, allowing the ecosystem to discover which approaches work best and amplify what works while dampening what doesn’t.

Tooling

This pilot introduces a participatory sensemaking process built on the principle that meaningful insight comes from structured narratives — not just opinions — and that these experiences must be interpreted collectively. Achieving that requires a specialized stack of tools and methods. The scale of the Ethereum ecosystem makes traditional workshop approaches impractical.

However, the web3 context allows to use more sophisticated technical solutions. Platforms like Harmonica can gather narratives more effectively than static surveys. Harmonica is an AI-facilitation tool that guides participants through structured 1:1 dialogues, captures narratives, and enables rapid pattern recognition. Harmonica is designed to scale the kinds of deep listening and mutual interpretation that traditional forms miss. We might also harness additional tools like Pol.is for the synthesis process.

Another tool we want to mention is dLogos, also built by members of Sensemaking Scenius - it can be used to organize deep conversations or debates between prominent thought-leaders from Ethereum ecosystem and beyond.

While we are confident in our tools’ potential, we are not dogmatic. Our team is fluent in a wide range of sensemaking technologies and frameworks — including Cynefin’s SenseMaker, Spryng, JokeRace, participatory research tools, and visual synthesis / mapping. We will adapt to Gitcoin’s needs and technical requirements to ensure the process runs smoothly and delivers actionable results.

Outputs & Deliverables

• 50-100 micro-narratives addressing Ethereum’s biggest challenges and opportunities gathered by Harmonica
• Recruitment insights: Brief notes on which outreach or incentive models (individual participants, DAO contests, expert panels) worked best
• Cynefin Sensemaking workshop: The Gitcoin community will be invited to an online Cynefin sensemaking workshop to interpret the collected experiences / narratives with Estuarine Mapping. This will educate the Gitcoin community about the Cynefin domains and how to align project funding to alternative project structures based on the type of system and problem.
• Synthesis / Season Report with emergent domain clusters grounded in real user stories.
• Database of sensemaking tools and frameworks that will be available for further Gitcoin sensemaking rounds

Long-Term Vision

If the pilot proves effective, this approach can scale into a repeatable, community-powered sensemaking cycle for Gitcoin.

• Recurring cycles (e.g. bi-annual or quarterly) of narrative collection and synthesis
• Larger contributor pools as familiarity grows and participation is streamlined
• Template scaffolds for effective sensemaking activities

This long-term architecture aligns with Gall’s Law: starting with a simple, robust foundation that can evolve into a mature system over time. It enables Gitcoin to make better domain decisions not just once, but consistently — by listening to the wisdom of the network.

The broader web3 ecosystem suffers because of limited sensemaking capabilities. Tools like Snapshot and Discourse focus on voting and commenting rather than narrative formation. The dominant decision-making process is based on proposals, encouraging “power games” before establishing a coherent understanding of the underlying landscape.

At the same time, web3 offers unique opportunities for incentivizing participation through token mechanisms, creating feedback loops that allow to collect more inputs for sensemaking. By piloting our state-of-the-art sensemaking methodology with Gitcoin, we hope to set a precedent and inspire other web3 organisations to embrace complexity and strengthen their governance systems.

Team

This pilot is led by members of the Sensemaking Scenius, a multidisciplinary community of practice exploring collective intelligence, protocols, relationality, and tooling for navigating complex environments. Our team brings a mix of deep experience in product design, knowledge management, facilitation, and sensemaking at scale.

Artem Zhiganov

Founder, Harmonica — Artem is a researcher and builder of Harmonica, an open-source tool which has been partially funded through multiple Gitcoin rounds. His Arbitrum-funded research identified sensemaking as the biggest bottleneck in DAO governance, and he curated the DeGov track at ZuVillage in August 2024. He’s currently leading the “AI facilitation” group within Metagov Interop project.

Keil Eggers, PhD

Peacebuilder & Sensemaking Practitioner — — Keil is a conflict transformation researcher and practitioner with deep expertise in complexity-informed methods. He holds a PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution, and has adapted SenseMaker methodology in both academic and field settings — including work in the U.S., Southern Thailand, and Basque Country. Keil has led statewide narrative projects, co-taught one of the first university courses on peace engineering, and collaborated with institutions like the Cynefin Company (f.k.a. Cognitive Edge) and OECD. His work bridges participatory storytelling with strategic systems change.

Andrea Farias

Designer & Facilitator — With a background in product design and digital strategy, Andrea now focuses on place-based organizing and collective action. She brings a systems lens to research and facilitation, and contributes deep experience in designing collaborative processes and sensemaking tools for networked communities.

Together, our team represents a convergence of technical tooling, real-world facilitation, theoretical grounding, and community engagement — uniquely suited to deliver a high-impact, low-friction sensemaking process for Gitcoin 3.0.

Examples of Past Work

Keil’s sensemaking project in Kansas https://oecd-opsi.org/innovations/our-tomorrows-a-community-sensemaking-approach/

Keil’s PhD dissertation “Us Against When”: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nzijdk1fa410gh8xkr5db/Eggers-Us-Against-When-distribution-copy.pdf?rlkey=nien58asaj55gskx1icpr8eu7&dl=0

Keil is also working on Cynefin-based participatory storytelling project marking the USA’s 250th anniversary, where Americans are invited to write a postcard to any other American they admire https://www.onemilliontruths.com

Harmonica’s advisor and RnDAO co-founder Drea Gallagher moderated a panel with Dave Snowden (creator of Cynefin and SenseMaker), Kaitlin Beegle (Filecoin Foundation) and Antoine Vergne (Missions Publiques): Notion page with summary / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcHWEG5UpUw

Harmonica was used to generate seed statements for Pol.is conversation at Edge Esmeralda in June 2025

Let’s Start a Conversation

We are truly excited to see Gitcoin exploring sensemaking as a key strategic capability. This represents a significant opportunity not just for Gitcoin, but for the entire web3 ecosystem that often looks to you for leadership.

We understand that GG24 is approaching rapidly, leaving just 2-3 weeks for recruitment and methodology implementation. We also recognize that @MathildaDV has already proposed a framework, and we don’t want to disrupt your existing timeline or processes.

However, we believe this project is far too important for the web3 ecosystem for Gitcoin to approach it lightly. The decisions you make about how to conduct community sensemaking will likely influence how other organizations approach similar challenges. Getting this right matters beyond just GG24.

This is fundamentally an invitation to conversation. Even if Gitcoin chooses not to engage us for Sensemaking Season, we believe laying the proper foundations now could transform how you approach sensemaking for GG25 and beyond. The infrastructure, methodology, and community relationships we could build together would compound across future rounds, creating genuine strategic advantage.

The web3 space desperately needs new approaches to leveraging collective intelligence. Gitcoin is well positioned to champion this. We’re here to support this vision, whether through immediate collaboration or longer-term partnership.

Andrea, Artem, Keil
on behalf of Sensemaking Scenius

[owocki]

@zhgnv

Even if Gitcoin chooses not to engage us for Sensemaking Season,

what does it mean to “engage you” for sensemaking season? i see some attributes of this plan “depending on time and budget constraints” but there isnt an ask for budget or resources in the post. are you asking for $$ or just telling us you’re going to do complexity informed sensemaking and whetting our appetite for the results in a month or two?

[keileggers]

Hi Kevin,
Yes, we are asking for money for a consulting project that pilots an approach to Gitcoin’s sensemaking seasons. This currently falls out of the scope of the current season, which is drafting a problem statement for the bounty. We think that there is a great opportunity here to develop several tools and processes that could gather experiences from the Ethereum community, visualize the patterns in the experiences, and provide the Gitcoin community with a shared understanding of the complex environment before moving to drafting ideas that would be funded as part of Gitcoin’s portfolio to solve ethereum’s problems. The main objective would be to 1. Adapt frameworks within tools like Harmonica or Spryng.io to fit Gitcoins context, 2. Create the story sharing infrastructure and partnership building strategy and 3. Create the sensemaking products from the results within these tools. The project could involve a serious time commitment of our team and data collection partners. Wee would want to have a more detail-oriented conversation with you and the team to understand what the constraints might be around such a project so that we can accurately draft the full budget (we were initially working off a $50,000 scope that would be over the course of a year) and project proposal (including timelines, outputs, etc).
Let us know how you would like to proceed. We weren’t trying to be coy about our ask and were just unsure how to best approach the conversation given the updates to your framework for the sensemaking season over the past few weeks.

[MathildaDV]

Thanks for the proposal. I have a few questions:

• How will these narrative insights actually get used in defining domains or setting round themes?
• Who on Gitcoin’s side owns turning the patterns into funded categories or challenge statements?
• How will these outputs merge with Gitcoin’s already existing sensemaking framework?

You’re asking for $50k (not outlined in your post but rather in a follow up comment), which I feel is rather high for a pilot. I wouldn’t be against you running this during our sensemaking szn as I believe that more input during sensemaking is key, but asking for $50k for an experiment is a bit steep, IMHO. I understand this is for a year, but do you have an alternative that you can propose for the GG24 season?

[abitrolly]

@zhgnv

identify Ethereum’s most meaningful, urgent, and solvable problems through community insight

1. What is the current cost and time to donate $2 to an Open Source project through Ethereum?
2. And then how to spend them on breakfast?

There is no other reason for Gitcoin to exist.

[zhgnv]

Hi Mathilda,

Thanks for the thoughtful questions. You’re absolutely right that we need to get more specific about integration and outcomes—and these are exactly the kinds of details that would benefit from a direct conversation rather than back-and-forth in forum comments

Quick responses to your questions:

1. Narrative insights → domains/themes: We’d facilitate a structured synthesis process where patterns from collected experiences directly inform category definitions. Think of it as moving from “we think DeFi needs funding” to “here are 5 specific DeFi challenges that emerged from 200+ builder experiences, with possible interventions / experiments for each.”
2. Gitcoin ownership: This is exactly what we’d want to clarify with you—our role would be methodology and facilitation, but the translation to funded categories should absolutely remain with Gitcoin’s team. We’d provide the scaffolding and synthesis, you’d make the strategic decisions.
3. Integration with existing framework: Rather than replacing your approach, we’d enhance it by providing the systematic input collection and pattern recognition that could strengthen whatever synthesis process you’re already planning.

Regarding budget and scope: You’re right that $50k for a pure experiment would be steep.
We see two potential paths forward:
Option 1: July-August Pilot ($20k) - A focused 6-weeks engagement designed specifically for this sensemaking season. We’d adapt our methodology to complement your existing timeline and provide immediate value for GG24 category definition. The cost includes rewards for participants.
Option 2: Strategic Partnership ($50k over 12 months) - A more comprehensive engagement that includes the GG24 pilot plus infrastructure building for GG25 and beyond. This would establish repeatable processes and community relationships that compound value across multiple rounds.
Both options would deliver concrete outputs for GG24, but Option 2 would also build the systematic capability for GG25 and beyond.

The challenge we’re facing: Without understanding your specific constraints, timeline, and decision-making process, we’re essentially guessing at what would be most valuable. We’d much rather have a focused conversation to understand your actual needs and propose something that genuinely fits.

We’re confident we can design something valuable within whatever parameters make sense for Gitcoin, but we need those parameters first. We’re genuinely excited about the potential here and want to get this right rather than continue guessing in public.