Sensemaking in the Park – Keeping the Story Alive

Humans make sense of situations they are in. They attach meanings to events and act according to these meanings. They do the same in the case of projects. To begin with, in order to make sense, projects have to be ‘talked into being’ (Clegg, 2005). However, processes of sensemaking are ongoing and new insights or unforeseen situations can alter the initial sensemaking of a project by the participants. Although these ongoing processes can undermine projects, they can also strengthen them, if done properly. In this paper we demonstrate the importance of these ongoing processes of sensemaking in the case of the renovation of the Vondelpark pavilion in Amsterdam.After the introduction and research question, sensemaking is presented as a theoretical framework for examining the case. This is followed by a description of a crucial incident in the case. After a short description of the methodology used during the research, this incident is analysed on the basis of the theoretical framework, after which we discuss the development of sensemaking in the project. The article is concluded with an affirmative answer to the research question.