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Sensemaking is the process by which people give meaning to experience. While this process has been studied by other disciplines under other names for centuries, the term "sensemaking" has primarily marked two distinct but related research areas since the 1970s. At this time, sensemaking was introduced to organizational studies by Karl Weick and to information science by Brenda Dervin. In both cases, the concept has been used to bring together insights drawn from philosophy, sociology, and cognitive science (especially social psychology). Sensemaking research is therefore often presented as an interdisciplinary research programme.

Sensemaking in organizations

In organization studies, the concept of sensemaking was first used to focus attention on the largely cognitive activity of framing experienced situations as meaningful. It is a collaborative process of creating shared awareness and understanding out of different individuals' perspectives and varied interests. The work of Weick (1988, 1993, 1995, 2005) in particular has dealt with sensemaking at the organizational level, providing insight into factors that surface as organizations address either uncertain or ambiguous situations.

Sensemaking and information systems

Dervin (1983, 1992, 1996) has investigated individual sensemaking, developing theories underlying the “cognitive gap” that individuals experience when attempting to make sense of observed data. Because much of this applied psychological research is grounded within the context of systems engineering and human factors, there exists a strong desire for concepts and performance to be measurable and for theories to be testable. Accordingly, sensemaking and situational awareness are viewed as working concepts that enable us to investigate and improve the interaction between man and information technology. Within this perspective, it is recognized that humans play a significant role in adapting and responding to unexpected or unknown situations, as well as recognized situations.

Klein et al. (2006b) have presented a theory of sensemaking as a set of processes that is initiated when an individual or organization recognizes the inadequacy of their current understanding of events. Sensemaking is an active two-way process of fitting data into a frame (mental model) and fitting a frame around the data. Neither data nor frame comes first; data evoke frames and frames select and connect data. When there is no adequate fit, the data may be reconsidered or an existing frame may be revised. This description resembles the Recognition-Metacognition model (Cohen et al. 1996), which describes the metacognitive processes that are used by individuals to build, verify, and modify working models (or "stories") in situational awareness to account for an unrecognised situation.(Such notions also echo the processes of assimilation and accommodation in Piaget’s (1972, 1977) theory of cognitive development.)

Other Applications

Sensemaking is central to the conceptual framework for military network-centric operations (NCO) espoused by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) (Gartska and Alberts, 2004). In a joint/coalition military environment, sensemaking is complicated by numerous of technical, social, organizational, cultural, and operational factors. A central hypothesis of NCO, however, is that the quality of shared sensemaking and collaboration will be better in a "robustly networked" force than in a platform-centric force, empowering people to make better decisions. According to NCO theory, there is a mutually reinforcing relationship among and between individual sensemaking, shared sensemaking, and collaboration.

In one application, sensemaking is approached as the ability or attempt to make sense of an ambiguous situation. More exactly, sensemaking is the process of creating situational awareness and understanding in situations of high complexity or uncertainty in order to make decisions. It is "a motivated, continuous effort to understand connections (which can be among people, places, and events) in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively" (Klein et al., 2006a).the ability or attempt to make sense of an ambiguous situation. More exactly, sensemaking is the process of creating situational awareness and understanding in situations of high complexity or uncertainty in order to make decisions. It is "a motivated, continuous effort to understand connections (which can be among people, places, and events) in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively" (Klein et al., 2006a).

In defense applications, sensemaking theorists have primarily focused on how shared awareness and understanding are developed within command and control (C2) organizations at the operational level. At the tactical level, individuals monitor and assess their immediate physical environment in order to predict where different elements will be in the next moment. At the operational level, where the situation is far broader, more complex and uncertain, and evolves over hours and days, the organization must collectively make sense of enemy dispositions, intentions and capabilities, as well as anticipate the (often unintended) effects of own-force actions on a complex system of systems.


See also

References

  • Brickner, M.S. & Lipshitz, R. (2004) Pilot Study: System Model of Situation Awareness: "Sensemaking" and Decision Making in Command and Control. AFRL-HE-WP-TR-2004-071. Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio: U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.
  • Cohen, M.S., Freeman, J.T. & Wolf S. (1996) Meta-recognition in time stressed decision making: Recognizing, critiquing, and correcting. Human Factors, 38(2):206-219.
  • Dervin, B. (1983). An overview of sense-making research: Concepts , methods and results. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association. Dallas, TX.
  • Dervin, B. (1992). From the mind’s eye of the user: The sense-making qualitative-quantitative methodology. In Glazier, J. and Powell, R. (Eds.) Qualitative research in information management. (pp.61–84). Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
  • Dervin, B. (1996). Given a context by any other name:Methodological tools for taming the unruly beast. Keynote paper, ISIC 96: Information Seeking in Context. 1-23.
  • Endsley, M. R. (1995) Toward a theory of situation awareness in dynamic systems. Human Factors, 37(1), 32–64.
  • Garstka, J. and Alberts, D. (2004). Network Centric Operations Conceptual Framework Version 2.0, U.S. Office of Force Transformation and Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration.
  • Klein, G., Moon, B. and Hoffman, R.F. (2006a). Making sense of sensemaking I: alternative perspectives. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 21(4), 70-73.
  • Klein, G., Moon, B. and Hoffman, R.F. (2006b). Making sense of sensemaking Ii: a macrocognitive model. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 21(5), 88-92
  • Leedom, D.K. (2001). Final Report: Sensemaking Symposium. (Technical Report prepared under contract for Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications & Intelligence). Vienna, VA: Evidence Based Research. Inc. http://www.dodccrp.org/files/sensemaking_final_report.pdf
  • Snowden , D.J. and C.F. Kurtz (2003). The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world, IBM Systems Journal, Volume 42, Number 3, 462.
  • Snowden, D.J. (2005). Multi-ontology sense making – a new simplicity in decision making in Informatics in Primary Health Care 2005:13:00
  • Snowden, D.J. and Boone, M. (2007). A Leader's Framework for Decision Making. Harvard Business Review, November 2007, pp. 69-76
  • Piaget, J. (1972). To Understand Is To Invent. New York: The Viking Press, Inc.
  • Piaget, J. (1977). The Development of Thought: equilibration of cognitive structures. (A. Rosen, Trans.) New York: Viking
  • Weick, K. (1979). The Social Psychology of Organizing. New York: McGraw-Hill.
  • Weick, K. (1988). Enacted sensemaking in crisis situations. Journal of Management Studies, 25, 305-317.
  • Weick, K. (1993). The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 628-652
  • Weick, K (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.
  • Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking. Organization Science, 16(4), 409-421

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