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]:

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.

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. We 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).

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].

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.

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:

We 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].

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].

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.

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].