[PRL] How to make sense

[Mitchell Wand]

From
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/01/sensemaking_2_w.html

Sensemaking 2: What I do to make sense

[image: Rugby_scrum]

I'm a professional research scientist. Research is what I do day in, day
out. So what I do for sensemaking might not be what you do at all, or it
might be really relevant. I don't know.

But I do know that sensemaking is a big, big part of my job. And I know that
there are sensemaking methods…and then there's what actually happens. I'm
going to ignore the sensemaking prescriptions for the moment and focus on
what really goes on.

The common conception of research is that a scientist first thinks up a
hypothesis, then collects data to test it, then writes up a neat analysis
confirming or disconfirming the hypothesis. That's beautiful, but it's also
almost completely wrong.

When I'm making sense of some complicated area, it's more of a full-contact,
sweaty, wrestling-around-with-data kind of thing. Trust me: it's not nearly
as antiseptic and passionless as the common conception would have it. This
is red-blooded science as played on the field. It's more of a rugby scrum
than a still-life chess game. Here's how it goes for me…
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