Exploring team sensemaking in air traffic control (ATC): insights from a field study in low visibility operations

Abstract

Sensemaking helps teams coordinate their efforts to understand and anticipate events in uncertain situations. While it is recognized that breakdowns in team sensemaking can lead to incidents, next generation air traffic management (ATM) projects have not paid serious attention to this research topic. This article presents findings from an exploratory field study of team sensemaking in air traffic control for low visibility operations. The study uses the critical decision method and the data/frame model of sensemaking (Klein et al. in Expertise out of context: proceedings of the 6th international conference on naturalistic decision making. Erlbaum, Mahwah, 2007) as a theoretical basis for examining Tower and Approach operations that will be transformed by next generation ATM projects. The findings concern the elicitation of explanatory frameworks for making sense of low visibility operations, the identification of domain-specific strategies that shape sensemaking and the presentation of emergent requirements for team sensemaking. Implications are made for embedding operational experience into future ATM systems to improve collaborative decision making.