Spinuzzi network-6&7

How to improve information flow in organizations (c) 2011 Clay Spinuzzi

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Pulling It All Together

Clay [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


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Value

• Understand operations tables and apply them to microlevel breakdowns.

• Understand Contradiction-Discoordination-Breakdown tables and use them to develop systemic findings.

• Pull together the heuristics into a recommendation reports.

• Understand and identify learning techniques and challenges in net work.

• Understand implications of net work for managers, workers, and researchers/consultants.


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OPERATIONS TABLES


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About the Micro LevelLevel Focus Chars Time

scaleAware?

Disruption Heuristics

Macro Activity Culture, history

Year, decades

No Contradiction ASD, AND

Meso Goal Tool-in-use; tactics

Minutes, hours

Yes Discoordination CEM, GEM, STG

Micro Operation Rules, habits Seconds No Breakdown Operations Table


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More Operations


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Breakdowns


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OS/2 Warp’s Shredder


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1989: PC-ALAS


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Operations TablesParticipant Breakdown Recovery

Abel Entered information into wrong field

Hit Cancel

Bertha Entered information into wrong field.

Hit Backspace, retyped.

Cynthia Entered information into wrong dialog box.

Reopened dialog box and corrected.


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Ries, Eric. (2011). The Lean Startup. New York: Crown Business.


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CONTRADICTION-DISCOORDINATION-BREAKDOWN TABLES


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HeuristicsStrategic (activity;

macro) - contradictions

Activity system diagrams

Activity network diagrams

Co

ntra

dictio

n-D

iscoord

ination

-B

reakd

own (C

DB

) Tab

le

Tactical (action; meso) -

discoordinations

Genre Ecology ModelsCommunicative Event

ModelsSociotechnical Graphs

Operational (operations; micro) -

breakdowns

Operations tables


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Macro: ASD


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Macro: AND


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Meso: CEM


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Meso: GEM


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Meso: STGPrepare for call Contact customer and

discuss billRecord notes on call

Group A collections list, annotations on collections list, database screen for customer, database screen for customer's collections information, bankruptcy notices, spiral notebook, phone calls from coworkers

Phone call to customer, collections list, database screen for customer's collections information, bills

database screen for customer's collections information, fax cover sheet, sticky note, collections list, annotations to collections list, database notes, database screen for customer

Group B collections list, customer folder with contact information and last bill

Phone call to customer, customer folder with contact information and last bill, calendar

customer folder with contact information and last bill, Word template, email


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Micro: Operations TablesParticipant Breakdown Recovery

Abel Entered information into wrong field

Hit Cancel

Bertha Entered information into wrong field.

Hit Backspace, retyped.

Cynthia Entered information into wrong dialog box.

Reopened dialog box and corrected.


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Example: GIS-ALASContradiction Between representations of the

roadway system.

Discoordinations Between representations of county designations.

Breakdowns Students were unsure how to interpret theme names; they selected inappropriate themes; they had trouble distinguishing themes.


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For instance…For instance, if one finding is that two different texts are incompatible, you might• Show with an ASD and AND that the texts come from two separate

activities• Show with your GEM that people are using other, unofficial texts to help

them work between the two incompatible texts• Show with your CEM that people regularly have to relate the two

incompatible texts to get work done• Show with your STG that although people use a lot of different unofficial

texts as workarounds, they all do basically the same thing – they fit the same niche

• Show with your operations table that people frequently encounter breakdowns, across all participants, when they try to relate the incompatible texts – and that they find different ways to recover


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The result…

Macro (Contradictions)

AND: Dialog box and form come from two different activities.

Meso (Discoordinations)

GEM: Participants A and B use sticky notes to alter forms; Participant C uses a notebook to keep extra information; Participant D keeps correcting the dialog box.CEM: All participants show deviated sequences representing repairs when they deal with dialog boxes and forms.STG: Participants A, B, and C have all added unofficial texts and all show fewer disruptions than Participant D.

Micro (Breakdowns) Operations Table: all participants encountered breakdowns when dealing with dialog boxes and forms, but Participant D encountered far more.


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“Participants have trouble relating dialog boxes and forms.”


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“FINDING 1:Participants have trouble relating dialog boxes and forms.”


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IS OUR NETWORK LEARNING?


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Where do users go for help with applications?

1. Call someone2. Use online help3. Use trial and error4. Use a work-around5. Give up6. Consult the documentationSource: Novick, David G, Edith Elizalde, and Nathaniel Bean. 2007. Toward a more accurate view of when and how people seek help with computer applications. In SIGDOC ‘07: Proceedings of the 25th annual ACM international conference on Design of communication, 95-102. New York, NY, USA: ACM.


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At Telecorp…

• Operational conditions change rapidly• Team members circulate in, out, through the

organization (and the telecommunications industry)

• Team members engage in boundary crossing and develop horizontal as well as vertical expertise


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Vertical and Horizontal Expertise

• Vertical expertise: Developing more complex, detailed knowledge about a specific subject. – (Example: A switch tech learns more about

switches)• Horizontal expertise: Developing broader

knowledge about related subjects. – (Example: A switch tech learns a little about how

salespeople work so he can explain technical problems to them)


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Ricardo, CLEC Switch Tech

“the other groups really don't understand how our part of it works. And I'm pretty sure that, you know, we don't understand how some of their stuff works. I mean, they start talking about the ASRs, the provisioners, and FOCs … I have no idea what they're talking about. Now, when I go out in the field and we work on something and we're seeing like an, you know, an AIS condition for a circuit and what have you, they don't understand what we're talking about. So sometimes we can actually word it a different way so they can understand what we're talking about.”


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“The best way I learn”

• “Thrown to the wolves”• “Trial-and-error”• “Sink or swim”• “Hide and watch”• “We were just thrown into it”• “Fast and furious”• “Digging in”• “Get your hands dirty”• “This is a different kind of industry.”


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Apprenticeship: “You never ever do a partial connection”

• Apprenticeship: participating in an activity, first peripherally, then with increasing responsibility (Lave & Wenger).

• The most frequently mentioned form of training (51 of 84 interviews; 20 of 23 functional areas)

• Contingency based: Shadowing, work reviews.


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Formal Telecorp Training Sessions: “Nine Times Out of Ten”

• Two-week training sessions for Sales, CLEC Provisioning, Customer Service, NOC, Data Entry

• Training books full of sample printouts• Inquiry-Response-Evaluation (IRE)• Stories – emphasizing contingencies• Exercises


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Corporate Training Outside Telecorp: “No One Had Time to Listen to Her”

• Corporate training was provided by other telecommunications providers (such as BigTel), equipment manufacturers, and software trainers.

• Areas: Bill Verification, Translations, and Alarm Management.

• Products: manuals, three ring binders.• Provided linkages across companies.• Benefited individuals more than teams.


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Documentation: “I Need to Do It from This Day Forward”

• Documentation was sometimes self-generated, sometimes from third parties.

• Documentation could also be a byproduct of other work.

• Some documentation was difficult to find and poorly publicized.


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Computer-Based Training: “Basically It’s a Crash Course”

• Computer-based training tended to focus on industry-level rather than local concerns and fixed concepts rather than contingencies.

• Three areas: NOC, NW Design and Inventory, and CLEC Design and Inventory.

• Four-hour training, automated test.


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Trial-and-Error: “Willing to get your hands dirty”

• Trial-and-Error: Attempting to complete a task through self-directed exploration.

• Entirely contingency-based.• “Sink or swim”; “thrown to the wolves.”• Resulted in limited stable knowledge passed

by word of mouth.


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Stories: “There was nothing about a dog on the ticket.”

• Stories about how things went wrong.• The case of Rex.• Emphasized contingencies, provided resources

to deal with them.• Oral, ephemeral.


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Dimension Learning context

Techniques

Vertical Within functional groups

Apprenticeship; formal Telecorp training sessions; trial and error;

stories; documentation

Vertical Within trades, disciplines, fields

Computer-based training; corporate training outside Telecorp

Horizontal Across functional groups

Trial and error, stories, apprenticeship

Horizontal Across organizations

Trial and error, stories, apprenticeship


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LEARNING AND SOCIAL MEDIA


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Google Plus – Bank of America (Parody)


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Sherlock, L. (2009). Genre, Activity, and Collaborative Work and Play in WOW


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LinkedIn


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… and the Documentation Surrounding It


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Facebook


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HOW DOES NET WORK WORK?


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Implications for Workers

• Rhetoric• Time management• Project management• Adaptability


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Implications for Managers

• Black-boxing– Liaisons– APIs– Aggregations

• Strategic thinking• Training


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Implications for Researchers – and Consultants

• Bounding the case• Setting up feedback loops


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Implications for Understanding Social Media

• Social media are part of intersecting activities – spliced and woven

• Social media are understandable at different levels of activity


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Takeaways

• Operations tables can map microlevel breakdowns.• Contradiction-Discoordination-Breakdown tables can

integrate insights and anchor systemic findings.• The models can support recommendation reports.

• Identify learning techniques and challenges in net work.• Understand implications of net work for managers,

workers, and researchers/consultants.

Spinuzzi network-6&7

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