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Framing design: a social process view of information system development
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/1860/2000
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| Title: | Framing design: a social process view of information system development |
| Authors: | Gasson, Susan |
| Keywords: | Socio-Technical Design
Systems Design
IS Development Approaches |
| Issue Date: | Dec-1998 |
| Publisher: | Association for Information Systems |
| Citation: | Paper presented at ICIS '98, Helsinki, Finland. |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses a social process model for design activity in organizational IS development projects,
based upon the findings of an interpretive, participant observation study of information system design
processes in a mid-sized UK telecommunications equipment manufacturing company. The form of the
proposed model is a dual-cycle dialectic between opening up the design problem and narrowing down design
solutions; it is also a dialectic between individual and group design activity in the context of participation in
a social community of design practice. A social cognition perspective was used to analyze the activities of
design in context; implications of the findings of the study for a process model of design activity are contrasted
with managerial assumptions and practices imposed by the use of the traditional, decompositional model of
design.
The paper has important implications for theory and practice. From a theoretical perspective, it is suggested
that design team intersubjectivity regarding the goals and legitimacy of the process of design is a better
measure of progress and design “completeness” than intersubjectivity regarding the form and requirements
of the target information system. From a practical perspective, the adoption of a dual-cycle, convergence
model of design might facilitate the management of detailed design activities between project milestones. The
findings also have implications for the management of organizational “learning”: if organizational problemsolving
processes are seen as involving distributed and emergent knowledge, then an explicit goal of
intersubjective understanding is not only inappropriate, it is not attainable. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/1860/2000 |
| Appears in Collections: | Faculty Research and Publications (IST)
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