Study: Design principles for sensemaking support systems in environmental sustainability transformations
Problem:Information systems can assist organizational sensemaking, which is crucial as organizations seek to improve their processes. In making sense, people collaboratively frame and label problems and situations through communication, and they do so to understand the past and to prepare for the future. But how can organizations implement systems that support organizational sensemaking?
How it was studied:The proposed principles are based on a study on developing sensemaking support systems that support environmental sustainability transformations. These design principles were initially inspired by theories and then revised through three rounds of developing, demonstrating, and evaluating a prototypical implementation – the method widely known as design science research. The prototype was implemented at a University and used by students, teachers, and administrative staffs in their sustainability transformation initiatives. The research team observed their engagement on the system and analyzed the contents of their discussion. After a certain period of use, experiences and opinions where gathered throughfocus group sessions. These steps were repeated three times, each time resulted in refinement and revision of a set of design principles. The above recommendations are generalizations from these design principles.
Take away:Based on a study of how a sensemaking-support system was developed to enable an organization to improve the environmental sustainability of their processes, the following generalized recommendations can be made for developing sensmaking suppport systems:
A sensemaking support systems with these features can, for instance, be implemented through a web-based, interactive platforms.