Sensemaking Tool Research Articles

Trouble — In, around, and between narratives

This essay defines narrating in terms of trouble — narrators’ interaction in the structure of narratives, with the (often troubling) contexts around narratives, and management of expectations and possibilities in the process between narratives. I frame this discussion about the narrating process as an urgent concern for designers of developmental research and practice in the rapidly changing, diverse human environments of this global era. Since narrating in a tool for individual and societal sense-making, developmental activities engage relational complexity and tension.

Gestural sense-making: hand gestures as intersubjective linguistic enactments

The ubiquitous human practice of spontaneously gesturing while speaking demonstrates the embodiment, embeddedness, and sociality of cognition. The present essay takes gestural practice to be a paradigmatic example of a more general claim: human cognition is social insofar as our embedded, intelligent, and interacting bodies select and construct meaning in a way that is intersubjectively constrained and defeasible. Spontaneous co-speech gesture is markedly interesting because it at once confirms embodied aspects of linguistic meaning-making that formalist and linguistic turn-type philosophical approaches fail to appreciate, and it also forefronts intersubjectivity as an inherent and inherently normative dimension of communicative action. Co-speech hand gestures, as linguistically meaningful speech acts, demonstrate both sedimentation and spontaneity (in the sense of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s dialectic of linguistic expression (2002)), or features of convention and nonconvention in a Gricean sense (1989). Yet neither pragmatic nor classic phenomenological approaches to communication can accommodate the practice of co-speech hand gesturing without some rehabilitation and reorientation. Pragmatic criteria of intersubjectivity, normativity, and rationality need to confront the non-propositional and nonverbal meaning-making of embodied encounters. Phenomenological treatments of expression and intersubjectivity must consider the normative nature of high-order social practices like language use. Reciprocally critical exchanges between these traditions and gesture studies yield an improved philosophy that treats language as a multi-modal medium for collaborative meaning achievement. The proper paradigm for these discussions is found in enactive approaches to social cognition. Co-speech hand gestures are first and foremost emergent elements of social interaction, not the external whirring of an isolated internal consciousness. In contrast to current literature that frequently presents gestures as uncontrollable bodily upsurge or infallible imagistic phenomenon that drives and dances with verbal or “linguistic” convention (McNeill 1992, 2005), I suggest that we study gestures as dynamic, embodied, and shared tools for collaborative sense-making.

Making sense in a complex landscape: how the Cynefin Framework from Complex Adaptive Systems Theory can inform health promotion practice

Health promotion addresses issues from the simple (with well-known cause/effect links) to the highly complex (webs and loops of cause/effect with unpredictable, emergent properties). Yet there is no conceptual framework within its theory base to help identify approaches appropriate to the level of complexity. The default approach favours reductionism--the assumption that reducing a system to its parts will inform whole system behaviour. Such an approach can yield useful knowledge, yet is inadequate where issues have multiple interacting causes, such as social determinants of health. To address complex issues, there is a need for a conceptual framework that helps choose action that is appropriate to context. This paper presents the Cynefin Framework, informed by complexity science--the study of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). It introduces key CAS concepts and reviews the emergence and implications of 'complex' approaches within health promotion. It explains the framework and its use with examples from contemporary practice, and sets it within the context of related bodies of health promotion theory. The Cynefin Framework, especially when used as a sense-making tool, can help practitioners understand the complexity of issues, identify appropriate strategies and avoid the pitfalls of applying reductionist approaches to complex situations. The urgency to address critical issues such as climate change and the social determinants of health calls for us to engage with complexity science. The Cynefin Framework helps practitioners make the shift, and enables those already engaged in complex approaches to communicate the value and meaning of their work in a system that privileges reductionist approaches.

Making sense of innovation: A future perfect approach

AbstractThe idea of this paper is to develop a sensemaking tool that can help managers to generate a more asserted approach to innovation. A tool can be defined as something which is needed to perform an action – like innovation. We see innovation as ‘an improvisational dynamics of “moving to” the future’ (Pye, 2005) and use the concept of future perfect thinking (Weick, 1979, 1995), which has been lately debated in studies of project management (Pitsis, Clegg, Marosszeky, & Rura-Polley, 2003; Winch & Kreiner, 2009), to develop a tool that can reduce the perceived uncertainty of innovation. The key in future perfect thinking is to treat the future as something that has already happened in the past and thereby reducing the perceived open-endedness of the future. We suggest, more particularly, that verbal reflections on future challenges by relevant employees can help state the future as something that has a deeper, more stable and more practical meaning. The sensemaking tool is illustrated in a recent case of software development.

Making sense of innovation: A future perfect approach

AbstractThe idea of this paper is to develop a sensemaking tool that can help managers to generate a more asserted approach to innovation. A tool can be defined as something which is needed to perform an action – like innovation. We see innovation as ‘an improvisational dynamics of “moving to” the future’ (Pye, 2005) and use the concept of future perfect thinking (Weick, 1979, 1995), which has been lately debated in studies of project management (Pitsis, Clegg, Marosszeky, & Rura-Polley, 2003; Winch & Kreiner, 2009), to develop a tool that can reduce the perceived uncertainty of innovation. The key in future perfect thinking is to treat the future as something that has already happened in the past and thereby reducing the perceived open-endedness of the future. We suggest, more particularly, that verbal reflections on future challenges by relevant employees can help state the future as something that has a deeper, more stable and more practical meaning. The sensemaking tool is illustrated in a recent case of software development.

“Fairy Rings” of Participation

Individuals participate in many different ways in online communities. There is an extensive body of research describing participation as a key metaphor in communities of practice and stressing that participatory mobility is influenced by underground multidirectional activities, directed away from the notion of periphery to the centre practices and taking the shape of expansive swarming and multidirectional pulsations. This article describes an ongoing observational study proposing a model that attempts to determine how users participate in online communities and what influences them to alter the way in which they participate. We performed daily observations on user participatory behaviour in 50 online communities using public domain – anonymous data available in the communities. The specific communities were selected because they are related to learning and support learning activities within their networks. The data observations collected were analysed using Compendium, a hypermedia knowledge mapping and sense-making tool, to represent and structure the data, make complex cross data queries, test hypotheses and build representation of real examples to support our claims. Initial findings indicate that users connect, participate, contribute and collaborate on a shared objective, transferring information and pooling knowledge within and between communities in four different modes. During their online journey, users switched between modes of participation or even remained in one specific mode, implying that the way in which users participate in an online community is not just related to the mode of participation and the level of engagement with the community but it is also due to hidden reasons or motivations, an invisible network of interactions of elements that affect the willingness of the user to participate. This layer is not immediately evident in the user actions but can be inferred by analysing user reactions. It is argued that user participation in online communities occurs in two layers; the “visible” layer of participation with the different modes; and the “invisible” layer of element interactions, similar to formations observed in nature when a radically spreading underground network of fungi activity results in a ring or arc formation of mushrooms, also known as a “fairy ring”. These underground multidirectional activities influence participation and participatory mobility. Following an open scientific inquiry approach and an open research paradigm we plan to share these observations with a wider audience of practitioners, researchers and theorists for all to test or contest our arguments, and to enrich, question, or support our model.

Collaborative Sensemaking Tools for Task Forces

Our work addresses the needs of multiple information workers collaborating on joint projects, which typically require finding, analyzing, and synthesizing information from heterogeneous sources. We report on iterative design, implementation, and assessment of collaborative tools for sensemaking tasks. Our goal is flexible, lightweight tools that both facilitate the activities done individually and lower the costs of effective collaboration. We suggest several approaches to enhance such collaborative sensemaking tools. These approaches include explicit representation of multiple team activities, integrated support for synchronous communication, and views of collected information that are tuned to both the reading and organizing phases of sensemaking. We present an integrated pair of tools, ContextBar and ContextBook, which illustrate these approaches, and describe the results from a formative evaluation of these tools.

Collaborative Sensemaking Tools for Task Forces

Collaborative Sensemaking Tools for Task Forces

Futures signals sense-making framework (FSSF): A start-up tool to analyse and categorise weak signals, wild cards, drivers, trends and other types of information

This article introduces future signals sense-making framework (FSSF), an alternative philosophy towards weak signals, emerging issues, drivers, and trends, that is in contrast to the traditional single signal or path extrapolation approach. The philosophy of FSSF is based on the principles of environmental scanning and pattern management, which state that if there is a grand transformation process on the way or if there is a new emerging pattern or phenomenon, such a process will certainly be reflected in many different ways. Therefore, in this philosophy, futures knowledge is believed to be fragmented between various simultaneous and overlapping sources. Here, a researcher's task is to carry out a sufficient environmental scanning process and to cluster and sense how to create the emerging future through a pattern management process where FSSF plays a role as the first start-up tool. Alternatively, FSSF can also be used as a general knowledge management and sense-making tool for any kind of analyses.

The utilisation of network pictures to examine a company's employees' perceptions of a supplier relationship

Network pictures have been perceived as providing a picture of a company's position within a network ([Ford, D., Gadde, L.E., Håkansson, H., and Snehota, I. (2002), “Managing Networks,” IMP Group in Asia, 11th–13th December.]; [Ramos, C., Ford, D. and Naudé, P., (2005), “Developing Network Pictures as a Conceptual Device,” First Annual IMP Journal Seminar.]). This exploratory paper aims to investigate the application of network pictures at the dyadic relationship level. Taking the perspective of employees from a single company, this research examines the perceptions of a specific supplier relationship. The study takes the network pictures of three key individuals and examines the boundaries of their network pictures, their lines of communication, their perceived relationship atmosphere and the impact of environmental factors. Unsurprisingly, the boundaries of each network picture, the frequency of communication and perceptions of the relationship atmosphere varied systematically with their managerial level and function. In this regard, the findings suggest that network pictures may act as a useful sense-making tool for developing and sharing relationship information both internally, between employees and externally, with the supplier. Further research is required in order to confirm whether these findings are applicable to other dyadic relationships and to investigate the implications of network pictures as a tool for managers.

Children's graphical notations as representational tools for musical sense-making in a music-listening task

This article tries to answer two related questions: (i) what do children hear while listening to and making sense of music? and (ii) what kind of representational tools can be used to assess this sense-making? To answer these questions, we set up two empirical studies in which 89 children – 8–9-year-olds and 11–12-year-olds (first study) – and 331 children – 8–10-year-olds and 11–13-year-olds, with and without extra music training (second study) – were exposed to a music listening task. The aim of the studies was to get an overall picture of the variety of children's musical representations by means of their graphical notations, and to investigate the impact of age, formal musical training and the characteristics of the musical fragment on these notations. A major finding of the first study was the emergence of two main categories of notations, namely ‘global’ and ‘differentiated’ notations, with a very strong dominance of global over differentiated ones and a negligible impact of subject and task variables. The second study, in which we presented researcher-generated instead of existing musical fragments, yielded a larger number of differentiated notations, and a considerable impact of age and formal musical education as well as of the musical characteristics on these notations. Both studies were ascertaining studies with the aim to describe and analyse the development of children's graphical notations under given instructional conditions. To account for some of the limitations of these studies, some additional design-based research is suggested. Extensive findings/exemplars of both studies can be found on the Cambridge University Press website.

Market segmentation in managerial practice: a qualitative examination

This paper offers an examination of the ways in which managers implement market segmentation. Market segmentation practices are examined in the context of the UK apparel retail sector. A qualitative research framework, which draws on Weick's (1995a) sensemaking approach, is adopted. Managerial insights are evidenced through a key-informant interviewing method within 10 case-organisations. The results indicate a number of plausible, managerial reasons for not pursuing sophisticated segmentation solutions. An underlying issue is a widely held belief in the adequacy and manageability of gross-level, descriptive segmentation approaches. Market segmentation was also seen as a managerial concept from which to inform decision-making but not for determining it or supplanting it. Segmentation thus represents an important sensemaking tool, often for communicative purposes. According to evidence revealed in this inquiry, contemporary applications and uses of market segmentation no longer provide synergy with the methodological and conceptual foundations of the concept.

Similarity perception as a cognitive tool for musical sense-making: Deictic and ecological claims

This is a programmatic paper. It elaborates on the concept of similarity as a cognitive tool for sense-making in music. Taking as a starting point the definition of similarity as a relational concept, it tries to provide a description in terms of standard and goal that can be applied to the delimitation of elements as well as to the comparison of these elements with each other. As such it focusses on three major topics: (i) the delimitation of elements, (ii) the comparison of these elements to themselves (self-reference) and to each other, and (iii) an operational framework for the delimitation of these elements. The latter is considered from the position of deixis and ecological perception, relying on the “deictic” act of mental pointing to elements that are eligible for deliberate attention as well as on the “ecological” principles of event perception and cognitive economy. It is possible, further, to conceive of pointing as an internal construction of an external operation, and to consider pointing as a predication process which can be applied to focal points as well as to events with at least some extension through time.

Supporting Sense-making with Tools for Structuring a Concept Space: A Proposal for Design and Evaluation

This paper describes a research proposal to investigate sense-making processes in complex situations with the assistance of information systems. It presents the design of a sense-making tool to be integrated with a news retrieval system. The proposed user study aims to understand how users use this tool to establish and organize their conceptual models of a network of concepts and relationships.

Problematizing Received Categories

In this article, the author's objective is to problematize a number of categories that constitute the intellectual heritage of students of Hinduism. Social science approaches to analysing Indian society, including religion in general, and Hinduism, in particular, have generated an anthology of sense-making tools – a body of categories, concepts, schemas and dichotomies. It is instructive to ask if these received categories continue to be appropriate. The author embarks on such questioning by focusing on the categories ‘folk Hinduism’ and ‘Sanskritization’. These have been pivotal in sociological and anthropological accounts of India and continue to provide an analytical framework for studying Hinduism today. Yet, these categories have been neither historicized sufficiently nor received rigorous, intellectual attention, but continue to be accepted rather uncritically. The categories ‘folk Hinduism’ and ‘Sanskritization’ share a historical and analytical relationship and thus must be appraised jointly. In these discussions, it is also important to historicize the category ‘folk’ and assess its conceptual utility. The author's approach here is to deconstruct these categories utilizing ethnography to raise questions about the continued value of using the named categories for making sense of empirical, everyday manifestations of ‘Hinduism’ in contemporary societies, especially among Hindu communities in the diaspora.

Sensemaking tools for understanding research literatures: Design, implementation and user evaluation

This paper describes the work undertaken in the Scholarly Ontologies Project. The aim of the project has been to develop a computational approach to support scholarly sensemaking, through interpretation and argumentation, enabling researchers to make claims: to describe and debate their view of a document's key contributions and relationships to the literature. The project has investigated the technicalities and practicalities of capturing conceptual relations, within and between conventional documents in terms of abstract ontological structures. In this way, we have developed a new kind of index to distributed digital library systems. This paper reports a case study undertaken to test the sensemaking tools developed by the Scholarly Ontologies project. The tools used were ClaiMapper, which allows the user to sketch argument maps of individual papers and their connections, ClaiMaker, a server on which such models can be stored and saved, which provides interpretative services to assist the querying of argument maps across multiple papers and ClaimFinder, a novice interface to the search services in ClaiMaker.

Sensemaking About Business-to-Business Strategies and Relationships: A Commentary on Reid and Plank's Review

ABSTRACT Weick (1995) describes retrospection as a distinguishing characteristic of sensemaking: “people can know what they are doing only after they have done it” (p. 24) and “how can I know what we did until I see what we produced” (p. 30). While each of us engages in sensemaking implicitly, applying explicit sensemaking tools-such as written retrospection-helps to clarify and deepen our understanding of phenomena. Reid and Plank's business-to-business marketing retrospection of more than 2,500 journals, proceedings, and book references from 1978–1997 serves well as a sensemaking tool. A strength of Reid and Plank's retrospection is its breadth of coverage of topics and sources. Limitations of their review include the lack of coverage of key findings from the cited empirical studies and the failure to develop theoretical propositions on relationships and strategies. By reading Reid and Plank's review, both new and lifelong students of business-to-business marketing will find useful references and insights for improving sensemaking capabilities.

Proportional Reasoning among 7th Grade Students with Different Curricular Experiences.

Contextual problems involving rational numbers and proportional reasoning were presented to seventh grade students with different curricular experiences. There is strong evidence that students in reform curricula, who are encouraged to construct their own conceptual and procedural knowledge of proportionality through collaborative problem solving activities, perform better than students with more traditional, teacher-directed instructional experiences. Seventh grade students, especially those who study the new curricula, are capable of developing their own repertoire of sense-making tools to help them to produce creative solutions and explanations. This is demonstrated through analysis of solution strategies applied by students to a variety of rate problems.

Visualizing retrieved information: a survey

Clearly, the presentation method for information retrieved from the global information infrastructure (GII) makes a big difference to users. The NCSA Mosaic interface, for example, with its point-and-click multimedia page presentation, swelled popular interest in the World Wide Web. This experience suggests the possibility of increased usefulness if we apply visualization techniques to information retrieved from the GII. Note that, although the term "information visualization" is coming into use, the goal is really "information perceptualization". The latter implies a richer use of many senses, including sound and touch, to increase the rate at which people can assimilate and understand information. In discussing the visualization of retrieved information, it helps to consider four functional levels: (1) the infosphere, (2) the workspace, (3) sense-making tools, and (4) the document. This simple classification lets us separate the functions served by the visualizations from the techniques themselves, which can be applied across functional levels.

The Design and Analysis of a Mathematical Microworld

Educational computing has much to offer mathematics education, particularly when software is designed which provides students with the opportunity to go beyond practicing basic skills and solving routine problems, and instead supports mathematical discovery and exploration. Although drill and practice is still the category of software employed most frequently by mathematics and science teachers who use computers [1], software which functions as a cognitive tool for exploration and sense-making is becoming more evident in both classroom and research environments [2, 3]. The purpose of this article is to report on the results of a research study involving an exploratory learning environment, or mathematical microworld, for transformation geometry. The goal is to outline the principles underlying the design of the environment as well as to present an analysis of the learning of a group of middle school students who interacted with the microworld over a period of several weeks.