Creativity and the design of sociotechnical processes

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Creativity and the design of socio-technical
processes
Thomas Herrmann Information and Technology
Management (IMTM) Institute of Applied Work
Science (IAW) University of Bochum www.imtm-iaw.ru
b.de
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Overview

• Introduction Background
• Semi-structured Modelling
• case studies
• The socio-technical Walkthrough
• Socio-technical Walkthrough and Creativity
  Support

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Problem, we try to solve

• How can IT-systems be introduced which include
  features of collaboration support and require the
  change of collaborative work processes
• ?Integrating the design of work processes and the
  development and introduction of IT-Support
• ?Helping to develop organizational rules /
  conventions to coordinate the activities of a
  collaborative work process and the usage of the
  IT-system

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Aspects of the Design ofsocio-technical Processes
Work procedures and processes
Features of the technical component
Interplay between technical components
Communication, information flow, cooperation,
awareness
Conditions, events, exceptions
Human-computer interaction
Resources, objects
Competences, learning memories
Roles and actors
Commitments, conventions, rhythm
Interests, conflicts, histories
Spatial arrangements dependencies between
actions, objects and roles
Needed a type of documentation which takes all
these aspects systematically into account and
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Basic Elements of the Notation(SeeMe
semi-structured, socio-technical modelling Method)
Mainly duties and rights of persons, teams,
organizations ? social aspects
Behaviour which leads to change
Ressources which support activities (technology,
)
Further information SeeMe in a Nutshell
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Specific structuresEmbedding, incompleteness
Documenting knowledge
structuring
eliciting
updating
database
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Freedom of decision
assistant
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Empirical investigation of the STWT explorative
case studies

• Where we were taking part
• Documenting a print workflow
• Development of several knowledge management
  solutions
• Developing of an organizational solution for
  using a new library software
• The introduction of mobile communication devices
  for logistics services of steel delivery
  (Spiw-Com)
• The development of a system to manage the
  selection of literature from scientific
  periodicals and mutual awareness about the
  topics of interest.
• Preparing CSCL-courses
• Where our method was applied by others
• A medical practice conducting radiography for
  diagnosis and treatment introduction of a new
  patient information system to support the
  communication between the administrative
  personnel and the doctors and in between these
  groups.
• Introducing knowledge management in small or
  midsized enterprises

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STWT in practice Case Study

• Supporting the delivery of steel-products
• with mobile devices to improve
• communication, awareness and
• the coordination between
• drivers and dispatchers

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Mobile Application

• Communication between drivers and dispatchers
  happens
• Early in the morning /in the evening.
• In irregular cases using cell phones.
• Paperwork as coordinating artifacts
• A mobile application should deliver useful
  information about
• the state of work to both groups.

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Typical phases of our projects

• Phase 1 Ethnography
• Phase 2 Requirements Elicitation Workshops
  using prepared and completing diagrams as
  models of the current work-processes
• Development of Prototypes
• Phase 3 Evaluation of the prototypes in relation
  to organizational structure of the future work
  processes
• Phase 4 Training (the process and the system)

Continuous Documentation
Participants 2 drivers, 2 dispatchers,
manager, software-engineer, facilitator
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Integration of material
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How to get the models of the solutions?
intervention through communication in
participatory settings

• Intervention through
• structured ? focused ?facilitated
• ?continuous ? sustainable

communication and documentation to integrate
social and technical aspects

• Socio-technical Walkthrough
• (STWT)

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Socio-technical Walkthrough Core elements
Task of the facilitator and supporters
Preparing workshops
Work- shop 1
Work- shop 2
Work- shop n
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Critical success factors (Spiw)

• Finding appropriate questions for the walkthrough
• relating new work design and current work
  practice
• stimulates imagination Thinking about concrete
  work situations in the process.
• Strategies to refocus the contributions (Can
  you relate this story to the diagram)
• Starting with an appropriate overview
• Choosing the appropriate level of granularity
• Aesthetic improvement of modified diagrams
  without changing their content, the content
  should still be recallable
• Sociotechnical Walkthrough Designing Technology
  along Work Processes, PDC 2004
• Workshops with SeeMe perform superiorly CSCL 2005

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Controlled experiment Two types of groups
Condition With graphical process models
Condition Without graphical process models
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Controlled experiment Two types of groupscontd
Condition With graphical process models
Condition Without graphical process models

• More commitments with respect to the usage of the
  knowledge management system
• Higher degree of shared knowledge
• More intensive use of the systems functions

• More contributions at all

? Improving the Coordination of Collaborative
Learning with Process Models. CSCL 2005
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Critical success factors contd - Knowledge
Management Cases

• The history of the development of a diagram
  should be comprehensible and therefore be
  documented or recorded
• Development and documentation should be
  intertwined
• challenge people have differing rhythms some
  want to rapidly continue with design, others use
  the time of documenting to catch up
• An extra person (draftsman) is needed to support
  the facilitator with drawing the diagrams
  smooth non-verbal coordination between
  facilitators and modeler

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Core elements of the STWT

• Usage of a semi-structured representation scheme
• Only few types of elements
• Multiple relations
• Nesting
• Incompleteness indicators? what has to be
  specified later
• Step-by-step consideration and intertwining of
  documentation and discourse
• Integrating several perspectives into one type of
  representation ? providing a large picture
• Facilitator helps to transform contributions into
  documentation

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STWT and creativity?

• semi-structured representation scheme
• Step-by-step discourse documentation
• Integrating ideas in a large picture
• Facilitator helps to transform contributions into
  documentation

Do the core elements of STWT support social
creativity? help to evolve new ideas of how to
introduce and use new technologies

• ? Barriers have to be overcome on the
• Individual level
• Group level

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Creativity

• Emergence of new, appropriate ideas
• No anticipatable sequence of activities which
  guarantees them
• new in relation to a particular context (group,
  organization, domain)
• appropriate in relation to a particular
  context needs, challenges,

Phases
Data collection Data combination, variation of
combinations Synthesizing of ideas Prioritizing
of ideas with respect to their appropriateness
Divergence convergence
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Individual and group barriers

• Individual level
• Well established paths of associations
• Cognitive overload
• Group level
• hidden profile problem you prefer what you
  already know
• Motivational aspects(getting to an end,
  following a role model, )
• Divergence as a trigger for fragmentation others
  are blamed for the wickedness of the problem

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1. semi-structured scheme
Disadvantage

• Too indirect compared with
• Sketching
• natural language
• touchable object
• translation work is needed
• too abstract
• Increases cognitive load

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1. semi-structured scheme
Disadvantage

• Too indirect compared with
• Sketching
• natural language
• touchable object
• translation work is needed
• too abstract
• Increases cognitive load

• Nesting on different levels
• Hide and show of sub-elements as well as
  super-elements
• Flexible combination of sequenced and
  non-sequenced activities

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Infusion of uncertainty and incompleteness

• SeeMe allows the participants
• Pars-pro-toto expressions
• Leaving gaps which are filled in later
• Rough indication of relationships
• Meandering between different parts of a concept
• jumping from one idea to the next without being
  hindered by requirements of complete
  specification

• Problem Incompleteness
• is feasible for communication
• but not as basis for control and commitments

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2. Intertwining documentation and discourse
Disadvantage

• Documentation requires additional cognitive load
• Slows the process of idea finding down

Support of explicit incompleteness as a compromise
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3. Integrating ideas into a large picture
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4. Intermediation by facilitation
Disadvantage

• Facilitators perspective is a filter
• Reduced directness

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Design in use

• Incompleteness indicators leave a lot of space
  for design in use and appropriation
• ??
• Needed sufficient reliability and stability so
  that commitments can become conventions
• the discontinuity of cooperation and
  feedback, plus the flexibility of actions allowed
  by the system, made it difficult for the users to
  learn relationships between behaviors, and
  consequently to form conventions.Gloria Mark
• ? An appropriate rhythm has to be found
• for the alternation between adoption and
  adaptation of new systems and conventions

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Creativity barriers
New vocabulary or methods of representation

• Individual level
• Well established paths of associations
• Cognitive overload
• Group level
• hidden profile problem you prefer what you
  already know
• Motivational aspects(getting to an end,
  following a role model, )
• Divergence as a trigger for fragmentation others
  are blamed for the wickedness of the problem

visualization
Facilitation Dialogue mapping (Conklin, 2006)
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Conclusion

• STWT and semi-structured modelling have the
  potential to support creative design of
  socio-technical processes
• What has to be improved
• Strategies / rhythms to intertwine flow of
  thoughts, communication and documentation
• Strategies to foster a higher degree of
  variations and to produce more choices
• Modifying the modelling method and the editor to
  allow more directness of expression
• Still unsolved How to adjust representation
  methods to an appropriate balance between
  directness and adoption of new frames/vocabulary