Notes
Outline
Sense Making
Environments:
Some preliminary judgments
Dr. Paul S. Prueitt
presented at
e-Gov KM Conference, Washington D.C.
April 13, 2000
Sense-making is about evaluating a situation and deciding if it is real and what to do about it.
“It” is our perception of the situation.
If “it” is generated by a self image, we may deceive ourselves.
If “it” is generated by an information technology system, ...
we may mistake that tapestry, woven by the computers, to be real when the reality is something very different.
“Reliance on a single, uncontradicted data source can give people a feeling of omniscience.” (Karl Weick, Sensemaking in Organizations).
Data that is gathered, organized and interpreted in a mechanical fashion can lead to an illusion of sense, even when there is no real sense-making.
We have a common notion of what sense-making is for us in everyday living.
Sense-making is perceived as simple because the brain - behavior system provides to us the means to make “sense of the world”.
Sense-making is not (yet) a technology, it is a human ability.
So.... how does individual sense-making evolve into a collaborative activity within communities sharing common practices?
Method of Descriptive Enumeration
For any situation, it is possible to create a set of descriptive phrases that have the following properties:
1) each phrase is relatively independent of the others
2) the total set is complete in some sense
3) consistent views (interpretations) about the situation can be generated using narrative that binds the phrases together in some fashion.
Exercise
1) Imagine that you have a paper and pen.
2) write down one phrase that is descriptive for you, of the situation that you are in presently.
3) write down a second phrase that is also descriptive of the situation - and yet is as different as possible from the first.
4) continue to build this set of descriptive phrases, until you feel satisfied.
Refinements of Enumeration
For Individuals:
A) Consider removing phrases from your set or making substitutions
B) Observe how the set of phrases evolve over time as your view of the situation changes or the situation actually changes
For Groups:
A) Collect all of the papers and sort into stacks those that are considered similar in nature.
B)
Develop a textual view of each of the points of view so as to establish the community¹s various interpretation of the nature of the (same) situation.
Enterprise Knowledge Management
is about:
Notes