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The Multifaceted Sensemaking Theory
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This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/systems11030145

There are several key sensemaking models and theories that have attracted a lot of attention among researchers and practitioners. The adaptation and application of sensemaking has varied by field of study, organizational type, and industry. Sensemaking has been acknowledged as the catalyst for shifting research focus from a system-centered to user-centered phenomena in the field of information sciences. Sensemaking has also shifted the focus away from sender and receiver transactions in communications studies to constructions that are entangled with time, places, and perspectives.

sense-making sensemaking sensing sensegiving synthesis

1. Introduction

Sensemaking has been acknowledged as the catalyst for shifting research focus from a system-centered to user-centered phenomena in the field of information sciences [1]. Sensemaking has also shifted the focus away from sender and receiver transactions in communications studies to constructions that are entangled with time, places, and perspectives [1]. Other shifts identified research as a practice in communication as found in Dervin’s [2] term “verbings,” the focus is on verbs rather than on nouns.
At the macro level, sensemaking as a methodology has been described as a “methodology between the cracks” [2]. Sensemaking has been portrayed as filling in the cracks between traditional academic disciplines (e.g., communication studies, information science, psychology, sociology). Filling in the cracks provides a more vivid picture of what is happening in circumstances where traditional theories and practices fail to shine a light.
At the micro level, sensemaking addresses the cracks or gaps in individual cognitions. These cognitive cracks describe one’s ability to make sense of situations and structures, how these understandings differ from current knowledge structures, and one’s ability to create new structures that frame the new situation around its constraints. This gap has been portrayed as the “Situation-Gap-Outcome Triangle,” representing the recursive relationship between structure and agency when practicing sensemaking [2].
The conceptualization of Dervin’s situation-gap-outcome triangle was described by Naumer, Fisher and Dervin [1]:
“The sense-making moment is the point in time-space when a person experiences a gap while moving through time-space. The situation and outcome, as experienced, are informed by the nature of the situation, its history, its constraints, its relevant external power structures and other situational, contextual, and personal factors. The person bridges this gap by experiencing questions and muddles that lead them to construct bridges consisting of ideas, thoughts, emotions, feelings, hunches, and memories. Sometimes these ‘bridges’ are repetitions from the past; sometimes they are entirely new; sometimes they are deliberate and planned; sometimes capricious; sometimes unconscious at the time of action but brought to consciousness in interviewing talk; sometimes tactic and unarticulated but alluded to in examples and stories.”
(p. 3)
While the field of sensemaking has grown over the years, it is still a young multidisciplinary field of study. Researchers who have grown both study and practice have contributed greatly to make sensemaking or sense-making what it is today. However, as with any emerging field of study, there is still much to be discovered relating to sensemaking. This expansion of new frameworks and theories often leads to ill-defined constructs and propositions. Maitlis and Christianson [3] explained that “the last decade has seen something of a proliferation of sensemaking-related constructs, which are not always clearly defined” (p. 108). Because sensemaking has grown into a multidisciplinary field, it contains streams of research from several distinct disciplines. When this occurs, as with any new focus of research, it becomes important to synthesize scholarship to find commonalities and differences from all disciplines involved. Urquhart, et al. [4] highlighted this need in the following: “Reviews emphasize the need for meta-synthesis of research” (p. 1). In Dervin and Naumer’s [5] review, they presented that there were “inconsistencies, even contradictions, between the various approaches” (p. 4121) to sensemaking.

2. Sense-Making/Sensemaking

The first bibliographical entry in the “Oxford Bibliographies” on sense-making/sensemaking identified five main researchers, namely Dervin, Weick, Russell, Snowden, and Klein who have been instrumental in evolving the field of sensemaking [4].
As a field of practice, sensemaking aims to design practices and frameworks that are meaningful and contextual, rather than continued reliance on frameworks rooted in “expertise imposed on users” [1]. This design comes from agents utilizing sensemaking methods as they navigate their environment while balancing between structure and agency to develop relevant frameworks for their time and space. This practice is represented in the literature as “[humans] users as theorists and knowledge-makers in their worlds” [1][6]. Sensemaking provides the tools and methods that allow agents to be creative and innovative autonomous agents.
While there is no universally agreed upon definition for sensemaking in the literature [7]. Sensemaking assumes humans live in an ever-changing reality and necessitates a perpetual process of bridging information gaps while informing our actions. The researchers create sense by creating, seeking, using, and rejecting information and knowledge to guide and inform our actions and behaviors.
A general definition for sensemaking includes the following from Golob [7]: “sense-making allows humans to be in a constant process of learning and seeking knowledge when confronted with different kinds of challenges.” (p. 1). For this study, the author provided the following definition of sensemaking: The process of interpreting ambiguous, complex, unknown, or unexpected events involving multiple processes and interactions resulting in representative actions.
Sensemaking has emerged through the work of five main major research streams:
(1) Dervin’s sensemaking in user studies, human information behavior.
(2) Weick’s sensemaking in organizational communication.
(3) Snowden’s organizational sense-making in knowledge management.
(4) Russell’s sensemaking in HCI.
(5) Klein’s sensemaking in cognitive systems engineering [4][7][8][9].
A summary of sensemaking definitions is provided in Table 1. These definitions are listed by Discipline/Theory to represent sources outside of the five major research streams previously identified (e.g., Oxford Bibliographies, General).
Table 1. Sensemaking Definitions.
Table
Discipline/Theory Definition
Oxford Bibliographies The process through which people interpret and give meaning to their experience [4].
The Learning Power of Listening (Sensemaker Guide) The process of describing, summarizing, analyzing, making sense of, and communicating data and emerging knowledge to make decisions and act on the findings [10].
General (Individual) Sensemaking is defined as meaning creation based on current and prior interpretations of thoughts generated from three sources: external stimuli, focused retrieval from internal memory, and seemingly random foci in working memory; such sense making is constructed on cultural pilings held unconsciously in long-term memory [11].
General Sensemaking is related to acquisitions, interpretations, understandings, and actions, which are a result of processes on the cognitive level [7].
General (individual, group, societal) A communicative process that occurs through social interaction and relies not only on interpretations but emerges in conversations and dialogues on different levels-internal and external as well as on individual, group, and societal level [7].
General Sensemaking is the process through which people work to understand issues or events that are novel, ambiguous, confusing, or in some way violate expectations [3].
General 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 [3].
General Sensemaking refers to processes of meaning construction whereby people interpret events and issues within and outside of their organizations that are somehow surprising, complex, or confusing to them [3][12].
General Sensemaking is a constant process of acquisition, reflection, and action. It is an action oriented cycle that people continually and fairly automatically go through in order to integrate experiences into their understanding of the world around them [9].
Dervin Focuses on how messages are understood by receivers of information and communicated in their life contexts recognizing that there are differences in people’s understandings, expertise, social positions, situations, and other factors that impact sense-making [1].
Dervin Understand ambiguous and puzzling issues and events [7].
Dervin Sense-making is related to the processes by which humans attempt to understand ambiguous and puzzling issues and events or to bridge the gaps of realities [7].
Dervin To find a way of thinking about diversity, complexity and incompleteness that neither drowns us in a tower of babel nor composes homogeneity, simplicity and completeness [6].
Klein Sensemaking is motivated, continuous effort to understand connections (which can be among people, places, and event) in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively [8].
Klein How people make sense out of their experience in the world [13].
Klein A means of achieving a “state-of-knowledge, or, in other words, some kind of mental model representation of the state of affairs in the world [7].
Klein Sense-making is both a backward-looking (forming mental models that explain past events) and forward -looking process (forming mental simulations on how the future event might unfold) [7].
Russell Sensemaking is the process of searching for a representation and encoding data in that representation to answer task-specific questions [14].
Russell Sense-making is about choosing, using, and shifting between different cognitive and external resources that are available and with which a sense-maker is able to reduce the costs of information processing [7].
Snowden How we make sense of the world so we can act in it [8].
Snowden Sensemaking or sense-making is the process by which people give meaning to their collective experiences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensemaking (accessed on 12 July 2022)
Weick Sensemaking involves the ongoing retrospective development of plausible images that rationalize what people are doing [15].

2.1. Commonalities

These definitions of sensemaking have commonalities that include:
  • Sensemaking can be labeled as a process.
  • Sensemaking emerges when something that needs explanation occurs.
  • Sensemaking is individual but can also be social because individuals are embedded in the social.
  • Individuals’ actions constitute their environment [7].
Sensemaking involves multiple processes (cognitive, emotional, feelings, intuition) [7] and involves multiple levels of analysis: individual, group, organizations, societal [7]; individual and intersubjective [16]; individual, collectivity, organizational micro and macro [17]; self, collective, organizational [18]. Sensemaking is also contextual and involves representational shifts. Representational shifts account for the various techniques that are required for different levels of analysis considering the context or environment [5][8].

2.2. Contrasts

While there are commonalities in these sensemaking definitions, there are also some contrasts between the different schools of thought. There are differences in the claims and approaches/methods that are practiced by each school of thought [2]. Snowden and Weick viewed sensemaking as an interpretive and collaborative process whereas Dervin viewed it as being interpretive and individually focused [7]. Some researchers and practitioners view sensemaking as an activity with a beginning and an end, while others view it as being a long-term iterative process [9].
In a review of the different sensemaking theories and practices, Kolko [9] summarized the similarities and differences in a table. This table is provided in Table 2.
Table 2. Sensemaking Methods Comparisons.
Table
  Positions
Sensemaking as		 Style of
Engagement		 Effective for Length of
Engagement		 Highly Dependent on
Hoffman, Klein, and Moon A process of problem solving Both personal and shared Long-term socialization of complex problems A long period of time Participant’s perspective and interpretation
Dervin A process of education Personal and contingent on experience Learning Continually and forever Participant’s perspective and interpretation
Russell A process of modelling Personal Specific tasks A finite period of time Participant’s perspective and interpretation
Snowden A quality of an artifact Highly collaborative Early stages of problem solving Formal and finite period of time Participant’s perspective and interpretation
Weick A conversational process Highly collaborative Organizational growth and planning Both short and long term Participant’s perspective and interpretation
Note: From [9]; available as open access through https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1848&context=drs-conference-papers (accessed on 5 August 2022).

2.3. Why It Is Needed (When Faced with Uncertainty and Ambiguity)

Sensemaking is triggered when events or situations become ambiguous or uncertain, when the flow is disrupted, when our understanding is interrupted [3], and when our understanding of our world becomes challenged. In general:
The researchers find that sensemaking begins when people experience a violation of their expectations, or when they encounter an ambiguous event or issue that is of some significance to them. Often this involves a threat to taken-for-granted roles and routines, causing those in organizations to question fundamental assumptions about how they should act [3].

2.4. Sensemaking Ontological Roots

Sensemaking has two essential ontological roots, individual and social. At the individual level, sensemaking is viewed as an individual process grounded in social cognition that examines various frameworks for making sense of environments/situations: schemes, representations, mental maps [3][7], schema, schemata, and interpretive schemes [3]. This distinction between individual and social ontological roots highlights each as being ontologically dependent entities where social cannot exist without the individual. These two entities are also created in that reality is socially created, requiring the social to inform the individual. The individual ontology is grounded in social cognition and can be represented by frameworks, schemes, representations and mental maps. The social ontology is translated through communicating via conversations, storytelling, and narrative [7].

2.5. Characteristics of Sensemaking

Depending on the school of thought, sensemaking has been described as consisting of several characteristics. The basic characteristics involve the cognitive processes of acquisition, interpretation, understanding, and acting [7]. Sensemaking is practiced through communication and through conversations, storytelling, and narratives [7].
Dervin and Naumer [8] identified characteristics for information-related behaviors, diverse behaviors, internal and external behaviors, and cognitive work. Klein introduced a set of characteristics for his cognitive task analysis (CTA) method and Weick introduced characteristics for organizational communication. Snowden provided a set of methods for practicing sensemaking and Dervin provided a set of characteristics for the Library and Information Sciences (LIS) [8].
The different characteristics from the literature are provided in Table 3.
Table 3. Sensemaking characteristics.
Table
Classification Characteristics
Cognitive Processes Acquisitions, interpretations, understandings, actions [7].
Translated Through Communication Inner and outer conversations, storytelling, narratives [7].
Distinct Aspects Comprehending, understanding, explaining, attributing, extrapolating, predicting [3].
Information-related Behaviors Processing, retrieving, searching, gathering, foraging, using, web-browsing, rejecting, collaborating, risk-facing [8].
Diverse Behaviors Internal: cognitive, emotional, spiritual. External: seeking, finding, foraging, retrieving [8].
Cognitive Work Thinking: knowing, understanding, planning, deciding, problem solving. Cognitive Work: interplay between perception, cognition, action [8].
Cognitive Task Analysis (Klein) Understand what goes on inside their heads, how they think, what they know, how they organize and structure information, know what they seek to understand better [8].
Organizational Communication (Weick) Comprehending, constructing meaning, searching for patterns and frameworks, redressing surprise, interacting with others, common understandings, narratives, storytelling, focus on failures and successes [8].
Snowden Focus on narratives, analyze narratives, naturalized sense-making (humanistic approaches), action research, story circles, knowledge discourse points, connecting frameworks, contextualizations, narrative databases, convergences, alternative histories [8].
Library and Information Sciences (LIS; Dervin) Attend to: context, time, space, movement, gap, horizon, energy, power, history, experience, constraint, change (flexibility, caprice, chaos), constancy (habit, inflexibility, rigidity) [8].
Dervin’s Sensemaking Triangle Changing as moving through time and space, navigating certainty and uncertainty, exploring gaps between certainty and uncertainty, confused, doubting, sure and unsure, struggling with structures, constraints, agency, being acted upon [8].
Individual Sensemaking External stimuli, focused retrieval from internal memory, seemingly random foci in working memory [11].
Processes Ongoing, social, retrospective, driven by plausibility (not accuracy), grounded in identity construction [8].
Frameworks Frameworks, comprehending, redressing surprise, constructing meaning, interacting, mutual understanding, patterns [19].
7 Characteristics (Weick) Grounded in identity construction, retrospective, enactive of sensible environments (socially constructed), social, ongoing, focuses on and accomplished by extracted cues, driven by plausibility rather than accuracy [7].
Verbings (Dervin) Feel, experience, be aware, comprehend, grasp, ascribe meaning to, understand, interpret [5].
Experts and Decision Making (Klein) Understanding the current situation, how it got there, where it is going [5].
SIR COPE (Weick) Social, identity, retrospect, cues, ongoing, plausibility, enactment [17].
6 Themes (Weick) Redoing, labeling, discarding, enacting, believing, substantiating [17].
Organizing Processes (Weick) Organize flux, noticing and bracketing, labeling, retrospective, presumptions, social, systemic, action, communicative [17].
4 Conditions (Weick) Stay in motion, have a direction, look closely and update often, converse candidly [17].
Key Principles (Snowden) Describing, mapping, using new language, focusing, metaphor, perspective-taking, dynamic [20].
Sensemaking Learning Loops (Russell) Search for representations, instantiate representation, shift representation, consume encodons [14].

2.6. Researching Sensemaking

According to Dervin [6], when researching sensemaking, one must be able to identify/represent the foundational concepts of time, space, movement, and the gap. Researching how sensemaking has been accomplished involves noticing or perceiving cues, creating interpretations, and taking action [3]. Communication and individual-level research studies have focused on cognitive, emotional, and physical processes that explain the sensemaking processes [7]. Other research studies concentrate on the bifurcation between structure and agency [2], while others focus on power, verbings, and utilize the situation-gap-outcome triangle [1]. Sensemaking also crosses the multi-level divide in that it can be viewed from the individual level of analysis, at the social level of analysis, or both.
Sensemaking is a process in theorizing where agents become theorists [1]. Methodologies for researching sensemaking, beyond theory building, include qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method research methods. Some of the more common methods identified include case studies, ethnographic techniques, conversation, discursive analysis, interviews, observations, narrative analysis, grounded theory, mathematical modeling, social network analysis, action research, and storytelling [7]. Naturalized sensemaking can involve action research, narratives, story circles, knowledge discourse points, the Cynefin framework, contextualizations, narrative databases, convergences, alternative histories, and Sensemaker [8].
Guijt, Gottret, Hanchar, Deprez and Muckenhirn [10] highlighted four processes for conducting research on sensemaking: primary analysis, collective interpretation, comprehensive analysis, and communication in use. Russell, Stfik, Pirolli and Card [14] identified learning loops for making sense of problems that included: searching for representations, instantiating representations, shifting representations, and consuming encodons (coded information that emerges from data).
Other sensemaking studies concentrated on events that trigger sensemaking. For example, Maitlis and Christianson [3] highlighted triggering events for sensemaking: “issues, events, or situations-for which the meaning is ambiguous and/or outcomes uncertain” (p. 70). Some triggers listed involved environmental change (unplanned change), organizational crises, threats to identity (individual and organizational), and planned change initiatives [3].

References

  1. Naumer, C.M.; Fisher, K.E.; Dervin, B. Sensemaking: A methodological perspective. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Florence, Italy, 5–10 April 2008; p. 5.
  2. Dervin, B. Dervin’s Sense-Making Theory. In Information Seeking Behavior and Technology Adoption: Theories and Trends; Mohammed Nasser, A.-S., Ali Saif, A.-A., Eds.; IGI Global: Hershey, PA, USA, 2015; pp. 59–80.
  3. Maitlis, S.; Christianson, M. Sensemaking in organizations: Taking stock and moving forward. Acad. Manag. Ann. 2014, 8, 57–125.
  4. Urquhart, C.; Lam, L.M.C.; Cheok, B.; Dervin, B.L. Sense-Making/Sensemaking. In Oxford Bibliographies; Oxford: Oxford, UK, 2019.
  5. Dervin, B.; Naumer, C.M. Sense-making. In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences; CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL, USA, 2017; pp. 4113–4124.
  6. Dervin, B. Sense-making theory and practice: An overview of user interests in knowledge seeking and use. J. Knowl. Manag. 1998, 2, 36–46.
  7. Golob, U. Sense-Making. In The International Encyclopedia of Strategic Communication; Heath, R.L., Johansen, W., Eds.; John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2018; p. 9.
  8. Dervin, B.; Naumer, C.M. Sense-making. In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences; CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL, USA, 2017; pp. 4696–4707.
  9. Kolko, J. Sensemaking and framing: A theoretical reflection on perspective in design synthesis. In Proceedings of the Design and Complexity—DRS International Conference, Montreal, QC, Canada, 7–9 July 2010.
  10. Guijt, I.; Gottret, M.V.; Hanchar, A.; Deprez, S.; Muckenhirn, R. The Learning Power of Listening: A Practical Guide for Using SenseMaker; Practical Action Publishing: Rugby, UK, 2022.
  11. Woodside, A.G. Editorial: Sense making in marketing organizations and consumer psychology: Theory and practice. Psychol. Mark. 2001, 18, 415–421.
  12. Cornelissen, J.P. Sensemaking under Pressure: The Influence of Professional Roles and Social Accountability on the Creation of Sense. Organ. Sci. 2012, 23, 118–137.
  13. Klein, G.; Moon, B.; Hoffman, R.R. Making Sense of Sensemaking 1: Alternative Perspectives. IEEE Intell. Syst. 2006, 21, 70–73.
  14. Russell, D.M.; Stfik, M.J.; Pirolli, P.; Card, S.K. The cost structure of sensemaking. In Proceedings of the INTERACT ‘93 and CHI ’93 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 24–29 April 1993; pp. 269–276.
  15. Weick, K.E.; Sutcliffe, K.M.; Obstfeld, D. Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking. Organ. Sci. 2005, 16, 409–421.
  16. Gephart, R.P., Jr. The textual approach: Risk and blame in disaster sensemaking. Acad. Manag. J. 1993, 36, 1465.
  17. Weick, K.E. Making Sense of the Organization: The Impermanent Organization; John Wiley & Sons: Chichester, UK, 2009; Volume 2.
  18. Gioia, D.A.; Thomas, J.B. Identity, Image, and Issue Interpretation: Sensemaking during Strategic Change in Academia. Adm. Sci. Q. 1996, 41, 370–403.
  19. Weick, K.E. Sensemaking in Organizations; Sage: Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 1995.
  20. Snowden, D. Sense-Making in Strategy: Opening; The Cyneifin Co.: Conwy, UK, 2022; Volume 2022.
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