How Sentient Can Help to Empower Your Institution

On this page: transparency & governance • holistic functional modeling • knowledge-informed decisions • assessment & planning • change management • reduced duplication of effort.

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Transparency, Stakeholder Education, and Improved Shared Governance

In complex organizations, only a small number of people have a truly holistic view of how everything works—and as leaders move up, they can lose sight of day-to-day operational detail.

Sentient helps bridge this gap by making institutional structure, relationships, resources, metrics, and supporting information easier to find and understand across stakeholder groups. This is especially valuable for shared governance, where decisions are stronger when participants can work from a mutually shared understanding of the institution and its data.

Benefits

• Stakeholders understand the institution’s mission, goals, and how work fits together.
• Shared governance improves through clearer context and more constructive input.
• People feel more informed, empowered, and less dependent on informal channels.
• Reduced speculation and “the rumor mill.”
• Over time, culture becomes more trusting of decisions and decision-makers.

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Holistic Functional Modeling

A comprehensive institutional map is more than a static org chart. When it captures how key elements connect, it becomes a functional model of the institution.

Sentient supports holistic modeling that can include (as applicable):

• Organizational structure, offices, and responsibilities
• Roles, people, committees, and key stakeholder groups
• Processes, procedures, services, and products
• Resources, budgeting/accounting relationships, and workflows
• Physical plant and space allocation
• Assessment measures, performance metrics, and underlying data
• Plans, initiatives, and proposed changes

Benefits

• Leaders gain a “view from the balcony” to appraise complex, intertwined operations.
• Managers gain a clearer map of dependencies that drive effectiveness and efficiency.
• Teams understand how their roles connect to others and to institutional outcomes.

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Knowledge-Informed Decision Making

Data analysis produces information. When information is connected through relationships and context, it becomes knowledge. The Sentient Knowledge Map supports this associative “how-things-relate” view—so people can move beyond isolated numbers and toward informed action.

For knowledge to drive decisions, data must be easy to:

• Find
• Interpret
• Connect to related metrics, drivers, and operational realities

Because dependencies between elements are explicitly mapped, a high-level metric can be followed to contributing measures—and then to the drivers beneath them. This makes root-cause analysis faster and more precise. For example, improving six-year graduation rates may depend heavily on strengthening first-to-second-semester retention—an important “downstream” metric that becomes obvious in the map.

Benefits

• Decisions improve because data is easier to use in context.
• Stakeholders understand the rationale behind decisions and are more likely to support them.
• Root causes are identified more quickly and addressed more precisely.

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More Effective Assessment and Planning

Two of the most complex institutional processes—accreditation self-studies and strategic planning—depend on selecting meaningful metrics. For assessment, metrics demonstrate evidence. For planning, metrics test whether tactics are working and whether investments are justified.

Institutions are often blindsided by:

• Not knowing what they do not know
• Missing (or mis-selecting) the best metrics for a performance area

Sentient addresses this by providing a shared, inter-institutional library of metrics that can prompt better measures and support local adoption/adaptation.

It also supports clearer reporting and alignment by mapping:

• Self-study claims → standards → metrics → supporting data
• Mission/vision → goals → objectives → tactics → metrics

Benefits

• Assessment and planning teams increase impact through clearer alignment and evidence.
• Institutions invest in more meaningful metrics and reduce guesswork.
• Assessment and strategic planning become more integrated and mutually reinforcing.

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Change Management

Change is uncomfortable. Anxiety often stems from fear of the unknown, loss of control, or a sense of loss when familiar work is replaced. Change is even more disruptive when it happens “invisibly” or without clear communication.

Sentient can reduce this friction by providing visual flags that highlight where change has occurred, where it is being proposed, and where input is being requested—then rolling that view up so users can quickly see where change is happening across the institution.

Benefits

• Managers anticipate impact before committing to changes.
• Proposals are easier to understand, discuss, and refine.
• Institutions build a more proactive change-management culture over time.
• Trust in leadership and change initiatives increases with transparency and clarity.

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Reduced Duplication of Effort

Leaders often suspect that the project they’re tackling has already been done elsewhere. Sharing resources—and, in some cases, institutional models—across university systems and peer institutions can dramatically improve efficiency and outcomes.

Sentient supports cross-institutional collaboration by enabling:

• Finding institutions with similar profiles or challenges
• Sharing resources and models across institutions
• More precise discovery through robust classification of higher-ed resource types

Benefits

• Improvements at one institution can be leveraged by others (“a rising tide raises all boats”).
• Adopted/adapted initiatives are more likely to succeed when they come from similar contexts.
• Less time spent reinventing the wheel—more time for innovation.

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