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Making Sense of Sensemaking
way for a more complete account for all relevant factors contributing to an accident,
not merely individual judgment or “ human error”. It promotes a view of humans as
“ good people struggling to make sense” rather than “ bad ones making poor decisions” ( Snook, 2000, p. 207).
Sensemaking also differs from the widely used concept of SA ( Endsley, 1995). SA
is an individually achieved state of knowledge, based on the perception of elements
in the environment and the comprehension of their meaning, which is used to make
predictions about the future ( Endsley, 1995). In contrast, the study of sensemaking is
about the process of achieving these kinds of outcomes. Where SA seems to describe
a more passive perception of data, sensemaking is about how people actively construct what counts as data in the first place ( Klein, Phillips, Rall, & Peluso, 2007).
The SA construct has been important within human factors research; it has been
widely studied across many different domains. Still, it has been regarded as problematic that missing cues or displayed information is commonly described as “ loss
of situation awareness”. This way of representing SA as a construct in the mind has
made it possible to blame sharp-end operators for mishaps because they made the
mistake of losing their SA ( Dekker, 2015).
SenSemaking Definition
There is no unified definition of sensemaking. In the research literature it is often
used without an associated definition, and when explicitly defined it is given a variety of meanings ( Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). In their comprehensive literature
review, Maitlis and Christianson ( 2014, p. 67) developed a definition of sensemaking
rooted in recurrent themes across sensemaking definitions:
a process, prompted by violated expectations, that involves attending to and bracketing
cues in the environment, creating intersubjective meaning through cycles of interpretation and action, and thereby enacting a more ordered environment from which further
cues can be drawn.
The various aspects on sensemaking from this definition will be discussed below.
THE SENSEMAKING PROCESS
Sensemaking understood as a cognitive process has been described as consisting
of three interrelated processes: creation, interpretation and enactment (Sandberg &
Tsoukas, 2015). The creation process involves noticing and extracting cues from our
lived experience, creating an initial sense of the situation. In the interpretation process, the initial sense is then interpreted to a more complete and narratively organized
sense of the situation. Following the interpretation process, the enactment process
involves acting on the sense made. The actions create a slightly different or new environment to continue to make sense of ( Maitlis & Christianson, 2014; Sandberg &
Tsoukas, 2015). This me aning-action process is an ongoing cycle and sensemaking
never starts or stops as people are in an “ almost infinite stream of events and inputs”
( Weick et al., 2005, p. 411).
Making Sense of Sensemaking
way for a more complete account for all relevant factors contributing to an accident,
not merely individual judgment or “ human error”. It promotes a view of humans as
“ good people struggling to make sense” rather than “ bad ones making poor decisions” ( Snook, 2000, p. 207).
Sensemaking also differs from the widely used concept of SA ( Endsley, 1995). SA
is an individually achieved state of knowledge, based on the perception of elements
in the environment and the comprehension of their meaning, which is used to make
predictions about the future ( Endsley, 1995). In contrast, the study of sensemaking is
about the process of achieving these kinds of outcomes. Where SA seems to describe
a more passive perception of data, sensemaking is about how people actively construct what counts as data in the first place ( Klein, Phillips, Rall, & Peluso, 2007).
The SA construct has been important within human factors research; it has been
widely studied across many different domains. Still, it has been regarded as problematic that missing cues or displayed information is commonly described as “ loss
of situation awareness”. This way of representing SA as a construct in the mind has
made it possible to blame sharp-end operators for mishaps because they made the
mistake of losing their SA ( Dekker, 2015).
SenSemaking Definition
There is no unified definition of sensemaking. In the research literature it is often
used without an associated definition, and when explicitly defined it is given a variety of meanings ( Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). In their comprehensive literature
review, Maitlis and Christianson ( 2014, p. 67) developed a definition of sensemaking
rooted in recurrent themes across sensemaking definitions:
a process, prompted by violated expectations, that involves attending to and bracketing
cues in the environment, creating intersubjective meaning through cycles of interpretation and action, and thereby enacting a more ordered environment from which further
cues can be drawn.
The various aspects on sensemaking from this definition will be discussed below.
THE SENSEMAKING PROCESS
Sensemaking understood as a cognitive process has been described as consisting
of three interrelated processes: creation, interpretation and enactment (Sandberg &
Tsoukas, 2015). The creation process involves noticing and extracting cues from our
lived experience, creating an initial sense of the situation. In the interpretation process, the initial sense is then interpreted to a more complete and narratively organized
sense of the situation. Following the interpretation process, the enactment process
involves acting on the sense made. The actions create a slightly different or new environment to continue to make sense of ( Maitlis & Christianson, 2014; Sandberg &
Tsoukas, 2015). This me aning-action process is an ongoing cycle and sensemaking
never starts or stops as people are in an “ almost infinite stream of events and inputs”
( Weick et al., 2005, p. 411).