Talking Work language games organizations and computer supported

Talking Work: language – games, organizations and computer supported cooperative work Written by: Andy Crabtree

Abstract • Practical strategy towards producing realworld understandings of work and organizations within the constraints of design. • How might CSCW design obtain and be informed by real-world, real-time understanding of work and organization on any occasion of work-oriented design?

What is CSCW? Computer Supported Cooperative or Collaborative Work Definition: the study of how people work together using computer technology, CSCW looks at the way people interact and collaborate with each other, and attempts to develop guidelines for developing technology to assist in the communication process.

Difference between Cooperation & Collaboration in CSCW Cooperative work – focus is on small groups of people that share a common goal and have the need for communication in order to achieve this goal Collaborative work – focus is on organizational systems and large project management

Introduction Principle issue: how systems design ‘go about’ getting ‘hands on’ on practice and language-games? Language-games – different practices (ex. military, legal, medical) employ district ‘grammars’. ‘Grammars’ are described as ‘language games’

Introduction (cont’d) Problem: developing procedures towards understanding practice – and relating those understandings produced in a useful way to designers Two approaches: 1. procedural approach 2. language-game approach

Introduction (cont’d) Language-game approach - intended to work in ‘parallel’ with other approaches to work-oriented design, particularly cooperative design. • Author goes into detail and gives examples employed in the design of a global customer service system (GCSS), how workplace language may be oriented to and utilized in securing a realworld reference for design.

Two Fundamental Attitudes to Organizations These attitudes have been put to work in the design of cooperative systems. Organizations as objective structures which order activities. 2. Organizations are orderly accomplishments produced through the embodied work of an organizational staff. 1.

Orderly Accomplishments Staff perform specific activities, when activities are accomplished, work is passed on to another in order for further action to be taken. l Daily business is achieved and so it is in practical details of doing the work and coordinating individual activities with others that organizational structures emerge. l Practical details of doing and coordinating activities of work consist of instructed actions. l

Instructed Actions Definition: Organizational practices for accomplishing specific activities Relevance to design – practices productive of activities of work

Instructed Actions (cont’d) Practices are instructed in the sense that they are: 1. Tied to accomplishment of specific activities 2. What members learn and must learn in order to get the job done again in a competent manner 3. Make the job observable/recognizable to practitioners and outsiders alike

Formal Account Definition – organizational descriptions of conduct Example – freight quotes (calculation of costs for shipping containers) very detailed 2. step-by-step procedure 1.

Ethnographic Account • • • Abstract description of conduct Makes visible the instructed actions in and through which staff comply to formally prescribed rules of conduct Actions such as identifying add-ons through the use of cheat sheets or negotiation tips (absent from the formal account)

Instructed Actions l An organization’s staff does not follow rules in a step-by-step fashion l Staff avoid formal rules l Improvised practices, made routine and modified over the course of time, are the instructed actions tied to any particular job l Instructed actions can’t be discovered on a container view.

Good Design Practice Of work accomplished on a daily basis relies on: 1. Real-world practice 2. Attention to practice 3. Component activities 4. Instructed actions in and through which work ‘gets done’ in real-time

Dragon Project to develop a production version prototype for a global customer service system supporting the commercial activities of a large geographically distributed shipping company l 250 offices located in 70 countries on 6 continents l Company provides world-wide coverage l Company elected to develop a cooperative system supporting global implementation of ‘improved’ business processes (BPI) l

Dragon Project (cont’d) l BPI was to streamline work processes l GCSS was not part of the BPI, it provided support for BPI objectives and procedures l The prototype was founded on the notion of ‘flexibility’

Biggest Problem with the Dragon Project How will they ‘go about’ getting an adequate informative handle on practice in general, and across widely distributed sites in particular?

Procedure 1 Working division of labor describes a organizations daily work 2. Widely distributed organizations deal with the same work only in different physical places 3. Grammatical web of interlocking concepts tie to specific activities in and through instructed actions THEREFORE……. No need to conduct a wide range of studies in understanding work for design purposes. 1.

Procedure 1 (cont’d) Practitioners who were familiar with the organization of work were asked to elaborate on the working division of labor in different regions.

Procedure 2 Since differences occur in the regional and local achievement of work, mapping the grammar of the language game must be done Example: documentation is accomplished differently in Asia than Europe. Procedure Requirements: 1. Go out and look at practice 2. Make web of activities tied to language-game concepts visible

Mapping Grammar of the Language-Game l Identify each primary concept and its relational concepts l Mapping individual grammatical features

Mapping Grammar of the Language-Game (cont’d) Describe in observably happening detail, the instructed actions in and through which each relational concept assumes its situated sense – by doing this – it makes available ‘just how’ the activities described by those concepts are accomplished in real-time.

Language-Games, Instances & Implications for CSCW l Instances are employed as a means of relating real-world working practice to system developers l Inform design through real-world communicative-analytic practices of ‘trading stories’ in the formulation of requirements

Language-Games, Organizations, and CSCW Effective CSCW design depends on an appreciation of the instructed actions in and through which practical arrangements of compliance are constituted and the working division of labor produced l Working division of labor delineates what has been described as a grammatical web of interlocking concepts and activities tied together in and through instructed actions l

Language-Games, Organizations, and CSCW (cont’d) Procedures towards generating an adequate real-world understanding of work and organization were outlined: § Treating work and organization as distinct language-game

Language-Games, Organizations, and CSCW (cont’d) § § Mapping the grammar of the languagegame Informing design through the provision of instances of language-game concepts describing the instructed actions in and through specific activities ‘get done’