The impact of individual, collective and structural Sensemaking on the usefulness of business intelligence data

The aim of this paper is to discuss how individual, collective and structural sensemaking influences the use of Business Intelligence in decision-making. Building on previous research we explore three patterns of sensemaking, individual, collective and structural. From this examine the impact these patterns have on Business Intelligence. Specifically we found that existing patterns of sensemaking hindered the data quality of the BI system because of how key people made sense of their work. We argue that because there was divergence in sensemaking patterns in the social systems, the data collected may not represent a true picture of ‘business intelligence’. We discuss the outcomes of a work in progress case study.