Organizational Problems are Wicked Problems A wicked problem is one that is just too complex and messy (comprising multiple problem-elements) to be easily defined. As it can’t be defined, it can’t be resolved using regular analysis methods, such as those
Appreciative Design & Soft Systems
Appreciating The Context of Organizational Activity Human-centered design requires that we understand – or rather, appreciate – the need for changes to a “real-world” situation that is viewed as a governed by business logic and goals – rather than the
Human-Centered Design
In the last few years, the terms human-centered and user-centered have become synonymous in HCI and IT design, with a focus on disciplines such as “user experience” and “interaction design.” Here I will argue that neither discipline really deals with
Why is design improvisational?
Why is design improvisational? We talk about design as if it were fixed: as if there were one best way to design everything. We celebrate designers who produce especially elegant or usable artifacts as if they were possessed of supernatural powers.
Coordination, Cooperation, and Collaboration
I was musing about the differences between these three concepts. They are not explained clearly in any resource I could find (although many people take a stab at this), so I thought I’d try bending my brain around the problem.
Improvising Design
Why is design improvisational? We talk about design as if it were fixed: as if there were one best way to design everything. We celebrate designers who produce especially elegant or usable artifacts as if they were possessed of supernatural powers.
The Co-Design of Business & IT Systems
Business analysts, change managers, and IT systems analysts are in a no-win situation. They are expected to understand myriad interpretations of the business strategy, reconcile conflicting viewpoints on how business processes work, and – somehow – define a coherent set
Design Methods as Performative Objects
Brown and Duguid’s (2001) concept of a “network of practice” has been niggling away at my consciousness. The idea is that a collection of people are enabled to understand each others’ work because of commonalities in practice, but not to
Responsive Web Design
I manage the website for an Animal Rescue shelter. I have been struggling with the design of the site for some time now, as I have some users who are still using IE6 under windows XP (on an SVGA screen),
On Realizing The Relevance of Actor-Network Theory
A recent emphasis on sociomateriality appears to have entered the IS literature because of discussions by Orlikowski (2010) and the excellent empirical study of Volkoff et al. (2007). Now that people have been sensitized to the literature on material practice,