Designing sociotechnical processes with the sociotechnical walkthrough

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Designing socio-technical processes with the
socio-technical walkthrough
Thomas Herrmann, Information- and
Technology-Management (IMTM) Institute of Applied
Work Science (IAW) University of
Bochum www.imtm-iaw.rub.de
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Overview

• Background
• Case Introducing mobile devices into a
  logistical process
• Socio-technical, semi-structured modeling
• Socio-technical Walkthrough
• Empirical results
• Creativity

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The Information and Technology Management Group
Practice and Theory of Socio-technical Systems
Methods
Practice
Theory

• Walkthrough for the Design of socio-technical
  systems
• Requirements elicitation
• Modeling notation
• and tool

• Projects to
• introduce
• Knowledge management
• Workflow
• Collaborative Learning
• CSCW in a library

• Characteristics of socio-technical systems
• Newer systems theory and constructivism
• Context-oriented communica-tion model

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Special type of projects Introducing CSCW to
support processes

• Introducing IT to support and coordinate
  cooperation and collaborative processes
• Developing a concept of a socio-technical process
  as a whole
• Integrating the design of work processes with the
  development and introduction of IT
• Taking multiple perspectives into account for
  process design and continuous improvement
• Leaving the focus of workflow-management in favor
  of the whole range of IT-based support for
  communication and cooperation (CSCW)

The projects goal is to innovate the
socio-technical processes of organizations
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Idea for solution the socio-technical
walkthrough
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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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Phases of the project

• Phase 1 Ethnography
• Phase 2 Requirements elicitation / construction
  Workshops using prepared draft-models of
  the current work-processes
• Development of Prototypes
• Phase 3 Evaluation of the prototypes
• Phase 4 Training (the process and the system)

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Participants

• Drivers usually on the road
• Dispatchers Planning delivery tours,
  communication between customers, drivers
  and contractor
• Managers
• 7 Meetings with varying numbers of participants,
  typical
• 2 drivers,
• 2 dispatchers,
• manager,
• developer , software-engineer
• facilitator

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Process diagrams as communication support

• Modeling the solution with diagrams

• Integration of formal and informal structures
• Integration of technical and social aspects
• Handling of incompleteness and vagueness
• Technical support for editing as well as
  presentation
• Flexible enough and yet consistent

The documentation supports mainly the process of
communication, and is secondly a means for
control (of the projects progress, the
software-development, )
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Example 1
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Example Graphical Modeling 2
Tasks and Processes
Tools
Information and Documents
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Integration of material
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The SeeMe-Editor
The examples above are produced with the
SeeMe-Editor It is freely available
www.seeme-imtm.de
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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
Low threshold high ceiling
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Specific structuresEmbedding, incompleteness
Documenting knowledge
structuring
eliciting
updating
database

• Indication of incompleteness supports the
  handling
• of tacit knowledge and
• freedom of decision

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Freedom of decision
assistant
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Methodical approach 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 (STWT) Core
activities during the workshops
Task of the facilitator
Developing or discussing the work process and
the models step-by-step
Preparing workshops
Asking prepared questions
Collecting problems comments, proposals, documents
Work- shop 1
Work- shop 2
Refocus on the diagram
modifying diagrams, visualizing notes
Outcome diagrams, notes, audio recording, Work
documents ? Ideas for first changes of work
practice
Work- shop n
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Socio-technical Walkthrough (STWT) Core
activities between the workshops

• Consultant
• Transcription of the audio recording
• Analyzing the collected work documents
• Extracting documents as drafts for a knowledge
  base
• Preparing or improving the diagrams of the work
  process

• Company
• Adding documents to the knowledge base
• Checking and improving documents
• First organizational changes

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Problem How to start to model elements

• Which activities have to take place initially
• Which activities will follow on or be prepared by
  another activity
• Who or which role will initiate and /or carry out
  relevant activities?
• Which objects or documents are needed?
• What is produced and are the produced results
  needed - by which activities?
• On which conditions does the decision to carry
  out an activity depend? Who will make the
  decision which conventions are relevant for the
  decision
• Other approaches
• What are the coordinating activities
• Regular vs. exceptional cases

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Finding useful questions

• Questions which guide STWT are needed
• A good question
• relates the KM-solution to the current work
  practice
• stimulates imagination Thinking about concrete
  work situations in the process which have to be
  improved

Of which task consists your job?
Which information is produced?
Which information is needed for this workstep?
Are there related documents?
What kind of software is used?
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Scope of important aspects of the work process

• STWT has to take into account all aspects of the
  work process which are relevant for the
  coordination of collaboration
• the technically supported activities can be
  highly interwoven with other activities which are
  not related to the technical collaboration
  support
• Example
• When is the departure from the customers site
  signaled? only when the truck is ready to go on
  the road, not when the customer has signed the
  delivery
• Contrast
• Especially the use-case approach is inappropriate
  if it pursues to "define a firm boundary around
  the system Kruchten, instead of taking its
  interplay with work processes and social
  structures into account
• Also the bp-view falls short by neglecting the
  relevance of non-value generating activities

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How to focus attention

• Discussion regularly drifts off-topic
• How do you get people back?
• How do you know whether it is related to the
  topic?
• Pattern of Interaction
• Ask them to propose additions or changes of the
  diagrams.
• Diagram is used as a focus.

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How to know whether the diagrams are understood

• People
• brought a print-out of the diagram to the next
  workshop meeting
• or had shown it to their colleagues when being
  back at their workplace
• have asked their colleagues whether they know
  what this diagram is and that the colleagues have
  recognized their job on the diagram
• stood up during the sessions, went to the
  presentation board, pointed to certain elements
  and made their comments
• Were involved in an intensive discussion about
  changes to be made (instead of just accepting it)
• told us that the work processes became more
  understandable
• one manager had immediately initiated some
  modifications of the process.

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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

The diagrams should be accepted as
self-descriptions of the organization and of the
expectations towards its roles (Kunau, 2006)
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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
• ? Socio-technical Walkthrough (STWT) a means for
  Knowledge Integration.

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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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Hypothesis 6 more intensive usage of the system
after the socio-technical walkthrough
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STWT and Creativity?

• semi-structured representation scheme
• Step-by-step discourse documentation of work
  activities
• 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,
breakthroughs, of how to introduce and use new
technologies

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

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Creativity 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 of perspectives is related to tension,
  problems of understanding convergence is harder
  to achieve

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What is needed to overcome the barriers

• Multiple circles of repetition
• Vocabularies / frameworks which
• stimulate new ways of thinking / paths of
  associations, connotations
• Give different perspectives an equal voice
• Are as direct as possible
• A facilitator who translates between the varying
  perspectives
• Permanent representation of ideas which should
  not be forgotten but be playfully combined in
  various ways
• A balance between retreated thinking,
  communication and documentation
• Openness and incompleteness which leave space for
  variations

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Semi-structured modeling scheme
Disadvantage

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

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Infusion of uncertainty and incompleteness

• Semi-structured modeling allows the participants
• Pars-pro-toto expressions
• Leaving gaps which are filled in later
• Rough indication of relationships
• Meandering from one idea to the next without
  being hindered by requirements of complete
  specification

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Conclusion

• Semi-structured modeling and STWT lead to
  successful patterns of collaborative usage
  andlead to diving into the work processes
  instead of staying with a birds-eye view
• What has to be improved with respect to
  creative process design
• 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 modeling 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
• Media- Enrichment Adding more pictures, textual
  descriptions, links to other information sources
  ? support smooth transitions between them as
  well as between different perspectives.