Sensemaking and SCUBA Diving
As divers, we love the aquatic environment. We spend our hard-earned money, travel to exotic locations, and may even continually engage in new diving activities. For many, SCUBA diving is an extremely liberating activity, one that provides enormous enjoyment, fascination, and wonder. Those of us who engage in this sport, however, are choosing to enter the aquatic world on life-support equipment, playing in a potentially unforgiving medium, and subjecting ourselves to a large physics and physiology experiment — each dive we take exposes our bodies to complex interactions that may prevent our adherence to a dive table, or even the best computer from eliminating all risks.
In searching for a topic of interest to the diving community, I've decided to start a discussion around a fundamental skill for safe diving and safe diving practices in what can be a complex and uncertain environment: sensemaking.
So how do we dive safely? This first blog post sets to lay out the fundamental requirement for safe diving operations.
VUCA
In any given SCUBA diving scenario, how do we as divers know how to react? How do we interpret the challenges that the aquatic environment may throw at us? At the most basic level, interpretation involves how we see information, understand it, formulate a plan, and then act. The mental process by which this occurs is through sensemaking. I believe that the faster we can engage in accurate sensemaking, the safer our diving operations will be within a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment (VUCA).
In 1987, the US Army War College coined the VUCA term to help warfighters effectively engage in a post cold-war multilateral world. At its heart, the pursuit of understanding the VUCA world shapes our capacity to:
1. Anticipate the environment
2. Understand consequences of actions
3. Better anticipate complex interactions
4. Prepare for alternative realities
5. Interpret and address relevant opportunities
In translating this concept for SCUBA diving, the realization that the VUCA world exists shows us that our journey into the water subjects us to a myriad of different factors. Each of these factors experienced individually could probably be easily understood and overcome, but due to the complexity and interconnectedness of the undersea environment, all factors ping pong off each other to create a whole range of potentially unforeseeable interactions.
As divers, it’s imperative that we begin to understand the VUCA world. And we do this through sensemaking.
There are many models for successful sensemaking, but in short, most of these are designed to enhance our ability to interpret incoming information, thus allowing for a better prepared plan of action to be created.
The OODA Loop
After studying successful aerial combat battles of the Korean War and less successful aerial battles of the Vietnam War, US Air Force Col. John Boyd developed a model of sensemaking that helps to improve reaction times for warfighters. His model, termed the “observation, orientation, deciding, and action loop” or “OODA Loop,” is based on his understanding of how people register and process information and is diagramed in a manner that allows the warfighter a means to better understand incoming information (observation). This understanding comes from enhancing a person’s ability to instantaneously interpret (orient) the information.
Though a person cannot necessarily choose what information is coming at them, they can arm themselves with a more robust orientation towards that incoming information — thus better decisions can be made faster, resulting in more effective action.
This loop doesn’t just end once a decision or action has been taken; this loop also explains how a person then observes and interprets their decisions and actions (feedback) thus maintaining their ability to make refinements to their decisions and actions. OODA is a continuous process.
How does sensemaking play out for the SCUBA diver?
As divers in the VUCA world, we are bombarded by information: tides, weather, equipment interactions, dive partner relations, dive site specifics, etc. Our ability to understand incoming information is based upon not only our training and experience, but also our understanding of local customs (visiting North Sentinel Islands — may not be a good idea), understanding of marine biology (which aquatic species may be dangerous), as well as our awareness of common human biases and their impact on our orientation (e.g., optimism bias may prevent us from thinking a hazardous scenario is too risky).
By increasing our body of knowledge and furthering our education and experience in diving-related subjects, we can not only dramatically expand our abilities to correctly observe, orient, decide, and act on incoming information, but we can do so at a faster pace.
As an example, gaining more experience as regular dive partners can allow us to better and more quickly recognize potentially hazardous situations that may be unfolding through a shared understanding of body language and behavior. Knowing how a buddy reacts in certain situations may provide enhanced knowledge to the dive partner.
Feedback also plays an important role in the sensemaking process. Imagine the following scenario: You have many dives with a favorite computer. The computer is a simple non-illuminated screen, and it provides you with all of the information that you need. Your dives up until this point are all during the day and in good visibility waters. As you want to further your sensemaking abilities you decide to attend an advanced course which offers you the ability to perform a night dive. On this dive you take your computer. How does your non-illuminated computer perform on the night dive? What was the experience you had with this equipment? Did the inability to view the computer alter the actions you took on your dive. Your ability to alter your dive behavior on this dive was due to the observations of feedback.
What can we do to enhance our ability as divers to improve upon our sensemaking?
As divers, perhaps our best means of furthering our orientation abilities is by continuing on in our training and regularly seeking out new and diverse diving opportunities. By seeking out new challenges in a controlled manner and regularly practicing our skills, we can become more aware of how to safely navigate the water column. The role of simulation may also benefit the diver. Simulations can easily be performed by working through alternative scenarios (alternative realities) with your team in advance of a dive. Working through these alternative realities prior to entering the water may help us process new incoming information faster during a dive. For example, when planning a shore dive, a discussion on how a potential change in weather conditions or swell may have an impact on the dive can better prepare a team to address real world changes.
It is my goal in these blog posts to provide easily digestible topics that are relevant for the diver. This brief introduction on sensemaking will set the stage for further topics and help you and your dive team better prepare for the VUCA diving world. Furthering your training, practicing frequently, using simulations, and picking up on signals that result from your actions will collectively improve your sensemaking abilities.