Design Research: Synergies from Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Design Research

Design research is a new interdisciplinary research area with a social science orientation at its heart, and this book explores how scientific knowledge can be put into practice in ways that are at once ethical, creative, helpful, and extraordinary in their results. In order to clarify the common aspects – in terms of features and approaches – that characterize all strands of research disciplines addressing design, Design Research undertakes an in depth exploration of the social processes involved in doing design, as well as analyses of the contexts for design use. The book further elicits ‘synergies from interdisciplinary perspectives’ by discussing and elaborating on differing academic perspectives, theoretical backgrounds, and design concept definitions, and evaluating their unique contribution to a general core of design research. This book is an exciting contribution to this little explored field, and offers a truly interdisciplinary approach to the treatment of design and the design process. It is valuable reading for students in disciplines such as design studies and theory, participatory design, informatics, arts-based education, planning, sociology, and interdisciplinary programmes in humanities and technology. Jesper Simonsen is Professor of Design Studies at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University. Research interests include Participatory Design, and offering theories and methods for IT design in an organizational context. Recent publications include Participatory IT Design: designing for business and workplace realities (MIT Press, 2004). Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt is Professor of Human Geography at the Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change (ENSPAC), Roskilde University, leading the Space, Place, Mobility and Urban Studies Research Unit. His books include Performing Tourist Places, with Haldrup, Larsen and Urry (Ashgate, 2004), Coping with Distances (Berghahn, 2007), and Mobility and Place, edited with Granås (Ashgate, 2008). Monika Büscher is Senior Lecturer of Sociology at the Centre for Mobilities Research, Lancaster University and Co-director of the Mobilities Lab – an interdisciplinary research laboratory. Recent publications include Configuring

User–Designer Relations: interdisciplinary perspectives (Springer, 2009), Ethnographies of Diagnostic Work (Palgrave, 2009), Mobile Methods (Routledge, 2010). John Damm Scheuer is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University. His research interests focus on the encounter of innovative ideas and practice in organisations. Recent publications include The Anatomy of Change: a Neo-institutional Perspective, co-ed (CBS Press, 2008), and a contribution to Innovation and the Creative Process: towards innovation with care, ed. Lars Fuglsang (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008).

Design Research Synergies from interdisciplinary perspectives Edited by Jesper Simonsen, Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt, Monika Büscher and John Damm Scheuer

First published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2011 Edited by Jesper Simonsen, Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt, Monika Büscher and John Damm Scheuer; individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Design research : synergies from interdisciplinary perspective / edited by Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt . . . [et al.]. p.cm. 1. Social sciences—Research—Methodology. 2. Design—Research— Methodology. I. Bærenholdt, Jørgen Ole. H62.D454 2010 001.4'2—dc22 2010003252 ISBN 0-203-85583-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-57263-7 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-203-85583-6 (ebk)

Contents

List of illustrations List of contributors Preface

1 Perspectives on design research

vii ix xvii

1

JØRGEN OLE BÆRENHOLDT, MONIKA BÜSCHER, JOHN DAMM SCHEUER AND JESPER SIMONSEN

2 Iterative participatory design

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JESPER SIMONSEN AND MORTEN HERTZUM

3 Designing as middle ground

33

NIELS CHRISTIAN NICKELSEN AND THOMAS BINDER

4 Designing pathways

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JOHN DAMM SCHEUER

5 Design and management

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JAN PRIES-HEJE AND RICHARD L. BASKERVILLE

6 Knowing through design

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POUL BITSCH OLSEN AND LORNA HEATON

7 Makeshift users

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JULIEN MCHARDY, JESPER WOLF OLSEN, JEN SOUTHERN AND ELIZABETH SHOVE

8 Deep translations MARIA DUCLOS LINDSTRØM

109

9 Design and sustainable transition

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JESPER HOLM, BENT SØNDERGÅRD AND OLE ERIK HANSEN

10 Designing an exhibition

138

BRUNO INGEMANN

11 Joyful, collective design processes

156

HENRIETTE CHRISTRUP

12 The becoming of urban space

172

KRISTINE SAMSON

13 Tourist experience design

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MICHAEL HALDRUP AND JØRGEN OLE BÆRENHOLDT

14 Synergies

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JESPER SIMONSEN, JØRGEN OLE BÆRENHOLDT, JOHN DAMM SCHEUER AND MONIKA BÜSCHER

Index

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Illustrations

Figures 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 7.1 7.2 9.1 9.2 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 11.1

The Task-Artifact Cycle An iterative model for sustained participatory design Results from three iterative participatory-design workshops Photos from the five-day period of trial use Team leader orally presenting the information in the paper record (left) and shared EPR display with patient information visible to all participants (right) Whiteboard from discussing relationships Overview of the general improvement recommendation process Four agenda types: the perspective on outcome that drives the entire process improvement project Agenda examples Detail of stitchers Running Stitch Main stages in the design process of the flax insulation mats: Discursive framing and institutional framework, 1990–2005 Discursive framing of flax insulation. The final series of the poster exhibition The cliché images have to be formulated to get rid of their influence on the Designer These elements create the specific idiolect of the entire exhibition The first of the eight posters in the series This is only a section of the diagram showing the flow in a biorefinery. Difficult The title on the last biorefinery poster reads: ‘OIL, PAPER AND PLASTIC ARE HARVESTED HERE . . .’ The rough draft shows the thought process of the black-box metaphor The model ‘Space for joyful, collective design processes’.

18 20 21 22

24 67 68 72 74 100 101 130 132 140 141 143 146 148 148 150 162

viii Illustrations 11.2

12.1 12.2 13.1 13.2 14.1 14.2 14.3

Photograph of the model ‘Space for joyful, collective design processes’ in use in the Performance Design workshop on ‘Creative Leadership’ Process diagram for the Varvsstaden development showing the stages and interchange between user participation and design The scaled plan worked within the aesthetics of emergence The Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde The Sea Stallion from Glendalough just landed at the Viking Ship Museum, 4 August 2008, back from Ireland Designing simply outlined as a change from situation A to situation B The design process depicted as a series of iterations Illustrations of the chapters of this book as related to the design process presented in Figure 14.2

164 181 183 194 195 203 205 207

Tables 2.1 3.1 3.2

Summary of the mutual learning process conducted by the nurses during their investigation of the patient. Regime of science and regime of designing Regime of knowledge, middle ground and regime of authorship

29 41 45

Contributors

Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt, MA in History and Geography, PhD in Geography, Dr. Scient. Soc. in social sciences. Professor of Human Geography at Roskilde University, Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change (ENSPAC), Roskilde University. Belongs to the Space, Place, Mobility and Urban Studies (MOSPUS) Research Unit and to the Centre for Experience Research, Roskilde University. He has been a Professor in Planning at University of Tromsø. His interdisciplinary efforts include research into how societies become organized spatially and research into tourism experience, cultural heritage and design. Both fields are concerned with mobility studies. Among his books in English are The Reflexive North (Nord, 2001), edited with Nils Aarsæther, Performing Tourist Places (Ashgate, 2004), with Michael Haldrup, Jonas Larsen and John Urry, Space Odysseys (Ashgate, 2004), edited with Kirsten Simonsen, Coping with Distances: producing Nordic Atlantic societies (habil. Thesis, Berghahn, 2007) and Mobility and Place (Ashgate, 2008), edited with Brynhild Granås. Richard L. Baskerville is a Board of Advisors Professor of Information Systems and past chairman in the Department of Computer Information Systems, Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University. His research specializes in security of information systems, methods of information systems design and development, and the interaction of information systems and organizations. His interest in methods extends to qualitative research methods. Baskerville is the author of Designing Information Systems Security (Wiley, 1988) and more than 100 articles in scholarly journals, professional magazines and edited books. He is Editor-in-Chief for The European Journal of Information Systems and serves on the editorial boards of Business & Information Systems Engineering (Wirtschaftsinformatik), Information Systems Journal, Journal of Information Systems Security and the International Journal of e-Collaboration. A Chartered Engineer, Baskerville holds degrees from the University of Maryland (BS summa cum laude, Management), and the London School of Economics, University of London (MSc, Analysis, Design and Management of Information Systems, PhD, Systems Analysis). Thomas Binder, PhD in Science and Technology Studies, Associate Professor at The Danish Design School in Copenhagen where he is part of the co-design

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Contributors research cluster engaging open design collaborations and participatory design in the context of workplace change, interaction design and social innovation. His research includes contributions to methods and tools for experimental design research and open innovation processes with a particular emphasis on participation and learning. He has been publishing on a.o. design games and co-design as prototypical learning both in the research fields of participatory design, interaction design, design research, and workplace learning. He is directing a research project on designing anthropological innovation models and participates in a Danish research network on temporary spaces of innovation. He has published more than 40 articles and book chapters and is co-editor of the book (Re)Searching the Digital Bauhaus (Springer, 2008).

Monika Büscher, PhD in Sociology, Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe) at Lancaster University and Imagination Lancaster, a new design and innovation centre. She is Co-director of the Mobilities Lab. Her ethnomethodological studies include studies of professional work practice in emergency response, healthcare, design, architecture and multi-media art. Her methodological innovations in ethnographically informed innovation have contributed to several research fields, including participatory design, computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), palpable and pervasive computing. She is co-investigator for a research cluster on the digital economy, where she is coordinating a number of pilot research projects. She is external examiner at Domus Academy, Italy. She has published over 30 articles, is co-editor of the book User-Designer Relations (Springer, 2008) as well as the main editor for Ethnographies of Diagnostic Work (Palgrave, 2009) and Mobile Methods (Routledge, 2010). Henriette Christrup, MA in Psychology, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University. She is teaching and doing research in Performance Design. She has worked with developing theory and research-based tools that can facilitate processes in a multitude of contexts within the fields of pedagogics, organization and performance design. More recently she has focused on the management of collective design processes, experience analyses and the use of experiments. Her contributions in English include: ‘On Sense and Sensibility in Performative Processes’, in Jon Sundbo and Per Darmer (eds), Creating Experience in the Experience Economy (Edward Elgar, 2008). Contributions in Danish include: ‘The Public Happiness Project’, in Pedersen, Karsten et al. (eds), Public Communication in the Splits (Copenhagen Business School Press, 2006) and ‘Competent Collectivisation of Knowledge-Creating Processes’, in Andersen et al. (eds), Competence in an Organizational Perspective (Roskilde University Press, 2000). Michael Haldrup, MA in History and Geography, PhD in Geography, Associate Professor of Geography, Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change (ENSPAC), Roskilde University. He has been a Visiting Fellow at

Contributors

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Lancaster University. His research concentrates on tourism, mobility and everyday life and draws inspiration from material/technology studies and theories of practice and performance. Project manager for the Danish Social Science Research Council (DSSRC) project Tourism Practices and the Orient, which focuses on materials and practices involved in Danish Tourism to Turkey and Egypt. Besides many international journal articles and book contributions, his books includes Performing Tourist Places (Ashgate, 2004) (with Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt, Jonas Larsen and John Urry) and Tourism, Performance and the Everyday (Routledge, 2010) (with Jonas Larsen). Ole Erik Hansen, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change (ENSPAC), Roskilde University. For the last fifteen years, he has studied the ecological modernization of companies, production networks and industrial policies in a Danish, European and global context. These studies have been carried out in four trans-European research networks. In recent years, he has focused on the governance of industrial transition processes in order to understand how networks of actors can contribute to the development of sustainable consumption and production patterns. He edited Planning in Theory and Practice: a cross disciplinary perspective [in Danish], (Roskilde University Press, 2007) (with Anne Jensen, John Andersen and Kurt Aagaard Nielsen). Lorna Heaton, MA in Theatre, PhD in Communication, Professor, Department of Communication, University of Montreal. Co-founder and head of the Laboratory for Uses and Design of Information and Communication Technologies (LUDTIC) and founding member of the CITÉ (Interdisciplinary Research Center on Emergent Technologies). Her research interests include interdisciplinary collaboration and technologically-mediated cooperation, particularly in the workplace. She is presently leading a research project which examines changing conceptions of expertise and relationships between designers and users in participative, Web 2.0 environments. Co-author (with Taylor, Van Every and Groleau) of The Computerization of Work (Sage, 2001). Her publications have appeared in top journals such as Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Information Technology and the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST). She was Vicechair of the biannual conference ‘Cultural Attitudes Towards Technology and Communication’ in 2002 and Vice-chair of the 2009 Canadian Communication Association Conference. Jan Pries-Heje, MSc, PhD, Professor in Information Systems, Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University and Head of User-Driven IT Innovation Research Group. His research focuses on designing and building innovative solutions to managerial and organizational IT problems. His previous and current projects explore process improvement as design, the ability for an organization to improve, and how one can design a process for making better sourcing decisions. He is the co-author (with David Avison) of Research in Information Systems (Elsevier,

xii Contributors 2005) and has published more than 150 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications. His publications have appeared in top journals such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Journal, Journal of the AIS, and European Journal of IS. He is Chair of the IFIP TC8 Working Group on Information Systems and was Co-chair of the 2010 international IFIP 8.2/8.6 working conference ‘Human Benefit through the Diffusion of IS Design Science’, held in Perth, Western Australia. Morten Hertzum, PhD in Computer Science, Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University. His research is in human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, information-systems development, and medical informatics. He has, since 1992, pursued an overarching research interest in how technology supports, and otherwise affects, human activities. Since 2004, he has been involved in a long-term research project on effects-driven IT development, primarily based on empirical work concerning the development and organizational implementation of IT systems in health care. He has recently published in Behaviour & Information Technology, Information Processing & Management, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, and International Journal of Medical Informatics. Jesper Holm, MSc in Socio-Technological Planning, Associate Professor in Environmental Regulation, Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change (ENSPAC), Roskilde University. His research on environmental and technological policy and stakeholder relations focuses on innovative impacts on enterprises, products, and technology systems. Another focus is on Local Agenda 21, deliberation, experimentation and environmental transition. He has been member of four EU-concerted action and research programs on Local Agenda 21, The Ecological State, Successful Environmental Policy, and Environmental Innovation. He is leading a R&D project on Learning Environmental Tourism, and is member of the R&D project Climate Change and Innovation in the Building Sector. He has co-edited three interdisciplinary books on environmental policy and innovation, and contributed to over 40 articles published in journals and books. Bruno Ingemann, PhD in Visual Communication, first trained as a graphic designer. Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University. Head of the research group Centre for Visual Communication. His research has focused on photography, museology and experimental reception studies, including pictures in digital cultures, museum communication, production of visual media and theories of visual communication. His was co-founder of the New Museology Network and of the Network of Visual Culture. As well as more than 50 articles in Danish, he has published articles in Visible Language and Nordicom Review of Mass Communication Research. He has published more than 20 books in Danish including Fotografiet under pres. Mellem

Contributors

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realisme og konstruktion (Photography under Pressure: Between Realisme and Construction) (Samsfundslitteratur, 1996), Fatamorgana – Pressefotografiets virkelighed og læsernes (Mirage: The Reality of Press Photos and the Readers) (Museum Tusculanum Press, 1998) and is co-editor of Ny dansk Museologi (New Danish Museology) (Aarhus University Press, 2005). His book (with Lisa Gjedde) Researching Experiences: exploring processual and experimental methods in cultural analysis was published by Cambridge Publishers Press in 2008. Maria Duclos Lindstrøm, MSc in Public Administration, Roskilde University. She is currently enrolled as a PhD student in sociology at the University of Copenhagen. Her work explores how economic expert knowledge is redesigned for media and a general public. She combines actor-network theory and Science, Technology and Society studies (STS) with more pragmatist views of relations between knowledge, form and society. This is the topic of her chapter in this book, as well as of her PhD thesis. This research interest in the ‘shaping of knowledge’ is explored within a theoretical field of actor-network theory as well as more pragmatist views of relations between knowledge, form and society. Julien McHardy, ESRC PhD candidate in sociology at Lancaster University in cooperation with Imagination Lancaster, a new design innovation centre and IDEO London. He is trained as a designer and researcher at the Bauhaus University Weimar and the Glasgow School of Art. His PhD study of electric cycling brings together approaches from science and technology studies, practice theory and design practice to explore how new and potentially more sustainable practices emerge through the mutual configuration and scripting of technology, use, users and policy. First results have been presented at the Lancaster Sociology Summer Conference 2009 and the MultipleWays conference 2009. Niels Christian Nickelsen, trained in psychology; PhD in Organization Theory and Associate Professor in organizational psychology at the Department for Psychology, Copenhagen University. His empirical research is based in ethnometodology and concerns learning in industry and accreditation in health care. Currently, he is particularly interested in the way certain actors initiate organizational change by creating support behind their ideas and by producing texts and narratives concerning themselves and their efforts. Theoretically, he works with perspectives such as actor-network theory, symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology. His empirical research concerns learning and product development in industry; intervention and accreditation at a hospital; teamwork and cross-professional connections at a hospice; and entrepreneurship in haute cuisine. During the last years he has published a number of scientific papers and contributed to several anthologies within these fields. Poul Bitsch Olsen, MA in Sociology, PhD in Business Studies, Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University. His research relates to leadership and organizing

xiv

Contributors

as well as studies of institutional relations and micro processes in businesses. He is involved in discussions of secondary education in academic institutions, in particular related to education in management, leadership, technology, structure and knowledge work. Book contributions in Danish include Problem-Oriented Projectwork: a workbook (Roskilde University Press, 2008), Techniques in the Social Sciences (Roskilde University Press, 2007), with Lars Fuglsang and Peter Hagedorn-Rasmussen, and Theory of Science in the Social Sciences (Roskilde University Press, 2004), with Lars Fuglsang, and, in English, Six Cultures of Regulation (CBS-Publishing/Nyt Nordisk Forlag, 1992). Jesper Wolff Olsen, MSc, Doctoral Scholar, Department of Computer Science at Aarhus University. His work connects interdisciplinary topics, specifically architectural challenges in mobile and ubiquitous computing, participatory and collaborative socio-technical innovation, and ethnomethodological studies of human perception. In the major European IST project PalCom, he contributed substantial parts to the conceptual framework and the design, coordination and implementation of several core prototypes. He has a further 8 years of commercial experience working with and being a partner in several software development companies. His publications have appeared in a broad range of conferences and journals such as Internet of Things – International Conference for Industry and Academia, Pervasive Workshop – International Conference on Pervasive Computing, Physicality – International Conference on Physicality, Scandinavian Conference on Health Informatics and IEEE’s flagship journal Computer. He is also co-author of several scientific reports published during the European IST project PalCom. Kristine Samson, MA in Literature and Modern Culture, PhD scholar at the Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change ENSPAC), Roskilde University. She has been working as an urban consultant and is now working on a thesis focusing on Performative Aesthetics in Urban Space as a Strategy for Change. She has contributed to the Realdania financed project Urban Space as Catalyst for Change anchored at JUUL | FROST Architects, 2007–10, where she has been co-editing the volumes Byens Rum I–II with Helle Juul and John Pløger, and has been involved with the development of a cross-disciplinary method for the project. She has been a visiting scholar at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) and is contributing text and ideas to the research lab Urban-Think Tank (U-TT). Furthermore, she has written articles to several Danish magazines within art, film, design and aesthetics. John Damm Scheuer, MS in International Business, Administration and Modern Languages, PhD in Organizational Studies, Associate Professor in organizational change in the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University. His research interest focuses on the encounter of innovative ideas and practice in organizations. Recent research has focused on developing an alternative perspective on implementation based on

Contributors

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the neo-institutional and actor-network concept of translation. As participant in the EU project ServPPIN, he investigates innovation in public-private innovation networks. His contributions to books in English include The Anatomy of Change: A Neo-Institutionalist Perspective (CBS Press, 2008), edited with Steen Scheuer, and a contribution to Innovation and The Creative Process: towards innovation with care (Edward Elgar, 2008), edited by Lars Fuglsang. Elizabeth Shove, Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University. She currently holds an Economic and Social Research Council Climate Change Leadership Fellowship concentrating on transitions in practice and their implications for climate change. Her previous research and writing focused on patterns of ordinary consumption, everyday life and changing conventions like those examined in Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience: the social organization of normality (Berg, 2003). More recently, studies of design, home improvement projects, plastic and digital photography resulted in The Design of Everyday Life (Berg, 2007), with Matt Watson and Jack Ingram, and in a range of articles and papers dealing with the materiality of daily life. Elizabeth is also editor, with Frank Trentmann and Rick Wilk, of the edited collection Time, Consumption and Everyday Life (Berg, 2009). Jesper Simonsen, Professor of Design Studies, Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University. PhD in Computer Science, MSc in Communications and Computer Science. His research focus is on Participatory Design. He has, since 1991, conducted design research in collaboration with industry – the research focused on how IT designers can cooperate with users and their management, especially when relating to the clarification of goals, formulation of needs, and design and evaluation of coherent visions for change. He was program chair for the 10th biannual Conference on Participatory Design (2008), President of the IRIS Association – the Scandinavian Chapter of AIS, and manager of the EffectsDriven IT Development research program (EDIT). Book contributions include Participatory IT Design: Designing for Business and Workplace Realities (MIT Press, 2004), with Keld Bødker and Finn Kensing. Has recently published in Communications of the ACM, Design Principles and Practices, Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, International Journal of Medical Informatics and International Journal of Integrated Care. Jen Southern, practicing artist and AHRC PhD candidate in Sociology at Lancaster University, UK. Her research explores social uses of locative and geo-spatial media through collaborative and participatory contemporary art practice. Southern received an MFA from Concordia University, Montreal. She works across the disciplines of participatory art, sociology and mobile application design, and has contributed to international projects and workshops funded by NESTA, BBC, Arts Council England and Sagasnet. She has had over 60 exhibitions of her solo and collaborative work both in Europe and internationally. Most recently, her collaborative work with Chris Speed was exhibited at

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Contributors

Futuresonic Festival, Manchester, and ISEA09, Belfast, and with Hamilton, Southern & St Amand exhibited at Fabrica, UK; dislocate festival, Yokohama, Japan; Hannah McClure Gallery, Dundee, Scotland; Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden; and MOCFA, San Francisco, USA. Bent Søndergård, MSc and PhD in Electronic Engineering. Associate Professor at the Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change (ENSPAC), Roskilde University. His main research activities have been within cleaner technology, environmental innovation and capacity building. His recent research projects deal with strategies for sustainable transition of socio-technical systems, including environmental technology policy and innovation (ENVINNO 1998–2001), Environmental communication of environmental properties of chemicals (related to the design of science-based IT-systems) (KEMI 2000– 2004), Climate adaptation and innovation in construction in Region Zeeland (KIBS 2008–11). Recent publications have addressed ecological modernisation and institutional transformations in the Danish textile industry, creation and sharing of environmental knowledge across communities and networks, and sustainable transition of socio-technical systems in a governance perspective.

Preface

This book is the result of ongoing discussions between interdisciplinary design researchers. The discussions were initiated among researchers at Roskilde University in 2007 when the university opened a new subject area within design studies, combining humanistic, technological, and social science perspectives to develop students’ competence to engage with complex design problems. Roskilde University is known for its interdisciplinary and design-oriented approach to research and teaching. Moreover, a tradition of interdisciplinary problem-oriented project work aimed at solving practical problems in the ‘real world’ has existed since the university was established in 1972 as an alternative to more traditional and mono-disciplinary universities. A series of workshops was arranged between researchers from different areas of design research, including business and organizational studies, urban planning, computer science and informatics, geography, health, performance design. We quickly realized that we shared interdisciplinary perspectives on the emerging field of design research and discovered a need for more research into interdisciplinary approaches to enable design that is robust by appreciating the realities and dynamic complexities of its context. The idea of investigating synergies between our own forms of design research culminated in a conference discussing nine paper contributions (some of which later formed input to chapters of this book) on the theme ‘Perspectives on PracticeOriented Design Science’, held in spring, 2008. The proposal for this book was made after this conference, in collaboration with design researchers from Lancaster University, which is also famous for its interdisciplinary and design-oriented programs. The team of contributors finally comprised 23 authors from Roskilde University, Lancaster University, University of Montreal, University of Aarhus, Georgia State University, Copenhagen University, and The Danish Design School. Our discussions have focused on how our interdisciplinary design research knowledge is put into practice, and on which common aspects and approaches characterize our different ways of addressing design research. To develop synergies, all contributors met at an international workshop held in Denmark in August 2009, funded by Roskilde University where authors peer-reviewed and discussed draft chapters. Over two days, we discussed and elaborated our different perspectives, discovered and nurtured synergies, and identified core aspects of our

xviii Preface interdisciplinary design research. The results from the workshop were subsequently analysed by the editors using a grounded theory approach and are presented in the concluding Chapter 14: Synergies. As editors, we have immensely enjoyed our numerous conversations and exchanges of draft materials with the authors in this book. We hope that you will enjoy reading the book and participate in the discussions that it raises. During fall 2009, we had the opportunity to test a draft of the book in an advanced graduate course and experienced how the chapters opened up deep and relevant discussions among students and their supervisors. Finally, we would like to thank Roskilde University’s Rector for funding the international workshop, and our departments colleagues for their support. To work with the enthusiastic and competent staff at Routledge has been a pleasure. Making this book was a rewarding experience of iterative and emergent collaborative design, challenging, enriching and joyful! Jesper Simonsen, Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt, Monika Büscher and John Damm Scheuer Roskilde University and Lancaster University December 2009

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Perspectives on design research Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt, Monika Büscher, John Damm Scheuer and Jesper Simonsen

The aim of the book History shows that humans are capable of designing remarkable things: bridges, skyscrapers, dams, cities, the Internet and, less glamorously, sewers and transport systems spring to mind immediately. There are also more subtly extraordinary achievements, including bureaucracies, organizations, IT systems and processes that allow people to work better together. All of these innovations involve, and are driven by, research. Yet a clear definition of the relationship between design and research is elusive. It is certainly not linear. The complexity and potential impact of contemporary problems, from societies’ difficulty in designing and implementing IT systems through defining economic policies for the maintenance of welfare ideals to climate change, cry out for a better understanding of the relationship between design and research. Such understanding may enable designers and their ‘users’ to conduct research and inform design more effectively. However, again, the relationship between understanding and action is not linear. One of the reasons is the emergent nature of design. While humans are able to achieve extraordinary things, they are equally capable of producing incredible waste, destruction and injustice. Indeed, extraordinary ambition and destruction often go together, as is illustrated by innumerable examples. A case in point is the car, designed to provide amazing automobility and flexibility for people, based inter alia on research into fuel systems, aerodynamics and driver psychology. Yet, at the same time, cars are now choking our cities and countrysides with air pollution, CO2 emissions and congestion, contributing to 1.2 million road deaths annually (WHO 2004) and climate change. According to Thackara (2005: 1), ‘[m]any of the troubling situations in our world are the result of design decisions’. This is, in no small part, because design is producing multiple effects in complex systems with intended but also many unintended consequences. Nevertheless, Thackara is optimistic, seeing design and designers as part of the solution: ‘if we can design our way into difficulty, we can design our way out’ (ibid.: 1). This is far from simple, of course, since any attempt at design will be appropriated in unanticipated ways, and with unpredictable ‘systemic’ intended and unintended consequences.

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Environmental problems urgently point to a need for new sustainable researchbased designs, such as zero energy housing, more sustainable forms of production and consumption, and ‘intelligent’ technologies for mobility. This must be synchronized with social innovation in everyday practices, with policies and politics (Urry 2008). All such efforts involve and depend on research from many disciplines – from the social sciences and the humanities to the technical and natural sciences. Design decisions mean a lot to how societies change, and there is a widespread expectation that insights from research are key to ‘good’ design decisions and outcomes. However, just placing knowledge from research before design is insufficient. It is misleading to conceive research to be external to design, only providing insights into contexts for design, informing design, or controlling design. To base design on research is not enough; more critical involvement in designing is needed. History is full of examples where design based on research has been harmful, sometimes in matters of life and death, such as the failure of the computeraided despatch system that created chaos for the London Ambulance Service in 1992 (Shapiro 2005). The relationship between design and research is complex, but also promises just and sustainable social transformations. Critical enquiry into this relationship is needed. This is what this book is about.

Types of design research Most design processes involve very many different actors and perspectives. It is therefore not surprising that a huge diversity of actors talk about doing design but find it difficult to identify shared aspects of their practice. In a co-citation analysis comprising design literature cited within the period of 1990–2000, Atwood et al. (2002) conclude that one of the most cited resources of modern design literature is Herbert Simon’s The Sciences of the Artificial (1996) in which he describes design as devising ‘courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones’ (p. 111). There are also alternative views on design that are often cited in the literature (as described in Atwood et al. 2002: 126ff.): Christopher Jones (1970), for example, describes design as ‘initiating change in man-made things’, while Christopher Alexander (1964), who discusses design in architecture, characterizes it as ‘the process of inventing physical things which display new physical order, organization, forms, in response to function’. From the point of view of urban planning, Horst Rittel (1984) describes design as ‘structuring argumentation to solve “wicked” problems’, while Donald Schön (1983, 1987), who studied how designers work and learn, views design as ‘a reflective conversation with the materials of a design situation’, and Pelle Ehn (1989), representing a Scandinavian approach to Participatory Design, describes design as ‘a democratic and participatory process’; while Jens Rasmussen et al. (1994) and Kim Vicente (1999), with a background in Cognitive Systems Engineering, characterize design as ‘creating complex sociotechnical systems that help workers adapt to the changing and uncertain demands of their job’. Paradoxically, the influence of research on design and design done by researchers is widespread, but studies on how research works in designing are not. Across

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different disciplines, this book is in search of a deeper understanding of the relations between design and research. Broadly speaking, we discuss three different types of design-research relations and, building on Cross (1995, 2006, 2007), we argue that much can be learned from exploring and, in some cases, combining these three perspectives: • • •

Research for design (research-based design). Research into design (research analysing how design works). Research through design (design-based research) – which also include design through research.

First, research for design has perhaps the longest tradition, for example in engineering, product or industrial design, computer science, and informatics, where investigations of materials, mechanics and function have long informed design. This tradition dates back to inspirations from scientific design and Le Corbusier’s ideas of ‘modern architectural science’ (de Vries et al. 1992: 20). This form of research for design is especially strong in design science, which appeared as part of 1960s attempts to build systematic knowledge applicable to design. Simon’s classic work The Sciences of the Artificial (2006) is central to this tradition, which is represented in this book by Pries-Heje and Baskerville in Chapter 5. Across several disciplines and application fields, design science seeks to provide universal models for rational responses to specific design situations. The relationship is usually instrumental and only loosely connected with reflection on how research works in designing. More qualitative approaches that cut across other forms of design research are found in ethnographically informed design, for example in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (Randall et al. 2007). Secondly, Cross argued that the 1980s and 1990s opened up interesting avenues of research into design, with approaches that he later labelled as ‘science of design’, studying how design processes work (Cross 2006: 98f.). This trend has continued, shifted and expanded to include new theoretical resources such as phenomenology and actor-network theory, and several chapters in this book contribute to this field, for example Binder and Nickelsen in Chapter 3, Olsen and Heaton in Chapter 6 and Lindstrøm in Chapter 8. A separation between design and research is characteristic for the more ‘scientific’ types of this approach. While research for design is functionalist in the way that research is seen to provide knowledge, models and input for designers, in research into design, researchers study, describe and analyse how design is done. In both approaches research and design, researchers and designers are held apart, although studies of design practice may inform research for design, and we can imagine a bi-directional move across and between the two forms of design research. However, in the third kind of design research we discuss in this book, design and research cannot be kept separate. Research works through design and design works through research. This is, for example, the case in Chapter 2 by Simonsen and Hertzum and Chapter 10 by Ingemann. Research and design come together,

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and this becomes central to contemporary design challenges and opportunities, as we will argue below with reference to, among others, Schön’s (1983, 1987) influential work on the reflective practitioner, Buchanan’s (2001) design revolution, Cross’ (2006) designerly ways of knowing, and Nowotny et al.’s (2001) observation of the growing integration of the social, the material and the scientific in Mode-2 (knowledge) production. Design-based research is about the complex and multi-directional integrations of research and design, where design becomes as much a medium and process of research, as a result. We argue that this move carries inspiration and implications for both the critical enquiry into design and the ambitions of making a difference with research for design.

How design research takes place Design draws together actors who want to change something or create something new. Attractive and wished-for effects are sought; aesthetic experiences in art, architecture, music, design, performance, a new product that satisfies new needs or desires, a new material or technology that alleviates dull or difficult tasks or makes something new possible, a new service or process, a reduction in people’s environmental footprints, higher quality, reduced costs, heightened employee or customer satisfaction, pleasure in experience – the list is endless. Some science and research-based knowledge about how to obtain such results is available but how this knowledge is folded into design effectively, and how it can be synchronized with everyday innovative practice is often unclear. With this book we would like to contribute to efforts of taking design beyond Design (the creative genius kind). What scholars and practitioners refer to as design facilitation (Buchanan 2001, Thackara 2005) informs our exploration. But we wish to show how designers and researchers are practically going beyond traditions, mobilize different scientific disciplines and address extremely complex design challenges in different contexts in and through idiosyncratic combinations of design and research. The book looks for common characteristics of design processes across disciplines and for how different design perspectives and practices cross-fertilize each other, devising design processes to pursue wished-for effects and outcomes. The book studies examples of how analytical and prescriptive approaches can inform each other. Our focus is on how interdisciplinary scientific knowledge is put into practice in ways that are helpful for practitioners and others and that make extra-ordinary results possible. Our objective is to explore common aspects that characterize a diversity of relations between research and design. Our focus on research through design and design through research raises questions of how design and research practices are integrated and feed each other. This form of design research shapes up as Mode-2 design. Nowotny (2004) observes an ever deeper integration of knowledge and society, where research ‘is increasingly carried out in the context of application, that is, problems are formulated from the very beginning within a dialogue among a large number of different actors and their perspectives’. Building on this, Mode-2 design research acknowledges that research, design and society are

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heavily integrated, since research contributes to assembling society and society is a constant field of testing and experimenting in research and design. A central point of the book is to focus on the processes involved in doing design. Another central point is that designs emerging from analysis of the contexts for design use are much more likely to be successful and of lasting value. Although some designs arises ‘out of the blue’, research into the various aspects of context for a design-in-the-making are a common starting point. From the analyses of processes and contexts in this book, we learn about the various ways in which research is increasingly being used in the field and how this works in practice in a society where science is deeply embedded (Novotny et al. 2001). However, as we will explain further later in this chapter, we do not want to overstate novelty and innovation; creativity in designing clearly also involves improvisation beyond great plans and outlines, in making ‘things right’ in the day-to-day (Hallam and Ingold 2007). Our approach thus refers to reflexivity-in-action (Schön 1983, 1987), and through studies of how designs emerge through experimenting in dynamic contexts, our focus leads to a consideration of design research approaches that are socially robust by appreciating the realities of contexts of design and research.

Emerging design research ‘Design research’ has been developing for many years. One proponent of its revolutionary potentials is Richard Buchanan (2001). Looking back at the history of design since the Renaissance, where design became second to science, he suggests that the twentieth century brought a new agenda for design research. Design research takes design beyond its focus on the visual and form, e.g. in graphic design or industrial design, and into academia and interdisciplinary collaborations, now including interaction design, service design and environmental design (ibid.: 11). Design knowledge today is of another kind than traditional scientific knowledge, it is practical and scientific, and it works through synergies. Another central figure in design research is Nigel Cross. In his book Designerly Ways of Knowing (2006) he introduces explanations of how design research differs from the kinds of knowledge derived from both (natural) science and humanities. Design is about ‘the artificial world’ and its value is ‘practicality, ingenuity, empathy, and a concern for “appropriateness”’ (ibid.: 2). Design research is thus about problem solutions, and this ‘way of knowing’ has common features across and beyond specific applied fields and professions. Designerly practice involves envisioning and trying out solutions, it requires science, but also intuition, emotion and aesthetic judgement. Thereby designers’ knowledge is constructive with pragmatic abduction, reaching beyond debates over induction versus deduction in science. To the authors in this book, many of whom have a grounding in the social sciences, the humanities, informatics and engineering, Cross’ way of carving space out for design research between science and humanities reminds of the twentieth century fight for a place for social science in-between the ‘two cultures’ of natural science and humanities (Snow 1959), which was firmly described in the Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences

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(Wallerstein et al. 1996). This report argued for opening up the social sciences. Design research, too, aims at interdisciplinary research across the faculties of natural science, humanities and social science. Design research is thus closely related to the kinds of social science that are practically engaged in societies as proposed in Making Social Sciences Matter (Flyvbjerg 2001) or ‘For Public Sociology’ (Burawoy 2005). Buchanan (2001: 20–22), in his example of case studies in design research, also points to important inspirations from and synergies with social science methodologies. However, unlike social science, design research was never in a situation where it had to argue that design matters. Design research had to defend why it was research, rather than just professional design. As mentioned above, it is not sufficient to argue that research produces better design. Design research needs to explicate its hybrid nature where design and research are integrated. Cross argues for such a position, referring to the not always promising results from attempts of legitimizing design research as a kind of science, from scientific design to design science, not unlike social science’s feverous attempts of ‘becoming like science’ during the twentieth century. As we will explain more in the next section, the critical evaluation of these aspirations benefits from Donald Schön’s (1983, 1987) postpositivist constructive paradigm. This discussion fosters recognition of similarities between designerly practices of research, experimentation and intuition and scientific practices. As evident from Science Studies and critical reflection among scientists themselves, the practices of natural science are to a much higher degree than formally recognized about experimental ‘designerly’ intuition (Galison 1987). The emergence of design research is therefore embedded in the broader reflective transformations of science, education and the knowledge society that science studies and designers like Buchanan (2001) and Cross (2006) have argued for. Designerly ways of knowing are of a broader relevance than just for traditional design professions. In order to meet the challenges of the present world, designerly ways of knowing are becoming part of what contemporary societies need (Cross 2006: 11). However, design research is more than programmatic. Over recent years, approaches that constructively appreciate the systemic interdependencies between designed objects, use and context, and between designers and the people they are designing for have emerged. Participatory or collaborative design (see, for example, Greenbaum and Kyng 1991, Schuler and Namioka 1993, Voss et al. 2008) have a long tradition and practices in the area of information technology-based socio-technical innovation, and there are other approaches, such as user-led design in the commercial sector (Von Hippel 2005), and open source design in technology (Ghosh 2006) but also in other areas such as urban design (Fuller and Haque 2008) expanding the scope and ambition of collaborative design approaches. They aim for different forms of collaboration, explicit, open and collective experimentation, creating not just products and technologies, but also support for creative appropriation, new processes and services, and they productively blur the boundaries between designers, engineers, users, the technical sciences, the social sciences and the humanities.

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From multi- via inter- to post-disciplinarity Interdisciplinary design research is emergent, always in the making, alive, a constantly evolving collective effort. In this book, we do not aspire to provide a comprehensive overview or map of the field. Instead, we want to clarify through case studies and reflective accounts what makes design research matter. A variety of research traditions are involved and they differ in their understandings of the relationship between research and design, as explained with the threefold typology introduced above with our main interest in the synthetic third: research through design and design through research. Design research includes analytical and descriptive as well as formative, normative and prescriptive studies. To better understand design processes – in general and in specific fields – we study the practices of designers who want to change something or make something new. We identify the kinds of processes that are decisive to obtain attractive effects or outcomes. Meanwhile, we also discuss the forms of normativity developed in some fields, such as in information systems and participatory design. Scientific disciplines clearly have different traditions in regard to analytical versus prescriptive studies. Our ambition is to point to a complex field of synergies involving, across analysis and prescription, but not to one meta-narrative. Synergies (Chapter 14) emerge from a diversity of sources and relations. It is no coincidence that in spite of forty years of design research a unified cross-disciplinary (or interdisciplinary) body of theory about design has not been developed (Cross 2007). Many have called upon design researchers to develop such a body of theory. But obstacles to the development of a coherent interdisciplinary theoretical, epistemological and terminological basis for research and theory making, include a lack of agreement about definitions of core concepts and terminology. Furthermore, there is poor integration of theories specific to designing and designs. It is thus a question whether it is at all possible to specify and differentiate theories of designing and designs from theories of other fields. Terence Love (2002) suggests that a coherent body of interdisciplinary design theory should address and identify cross-disciplinary relevant definitions of core concepts of design and design-processes. We doubt that a unified theory of design is possible, feasible, or necessary. However, we agree with Love (2002) that theories of design should be developed and related to theoretical debates elsewhere. Knowledge about design research, its possibilities, advantages and difficulties is highly desirable and relevant. To some degree, it is possible to identify general and common themes that characterize different strands of research for, into, and through design. However, we do not want to territorialize a new exclusive field of design research with borders to science, humanities and social sciences. Above, we marked some similarities between the formation of social science and of design research, and we could point to other convergences with developments in engineering, science studies and cultural studies. Inclined to such an agenda, this book provides an initial picture of core themes of design research around participation (Chapter 2, 7, 11, 12), design exemplars

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(Chapter 4, 5), epistemic and material practices (Chapter 3, 6, 10), translations, transitions and actor networks (Chapter 3, 8, 9, 13). We approach design research from a number of different disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives – computer science, informatics, sociology, geography, organizational studies, performance design, planning, urban studies and cultural studies, and we discuss many different application areas for design. These include information technologies, engineering, healthcare, safety management, policy, service design, economics, sustainable products, public exhibitions, performance and tourist experiences. This diversity is not exhaustive but typical of design and design research approaches. The chapters demonstrate the value of different perspectives, exploring how design approaches and processes are understood, theorized and practiced differently. No chapter in this book is ‘monodisciplinary’. Indeed, given the complex, unpredictable, context dependent and emergent nature of design constraints and opportunities, monodisciplinarity makes little sense. Disciplines – like design, sociology, economy, engineering – study different areas from different perspectives; they separate what needs to be understood as whole, such as the appropriation of new technology, the workings of policy measures, or the effects of a performance. Multi-disciplinarity can facilitate insights into the dynamic complexities of the socio-material-technical cultures design seeks to change. However, sometimes ‘just’ approaching this complexity from different perspectives is not enough. Combining multi-disciplinary insights does not enable an understanding of the lived, emergent, ongoing production of socio-materialtechnical cultures. Some of the work we present in this book paves the way for more ambitious ‘post-disciplinarity’ (Jessop and Sum 2001, Mayer Harrison et al. 2007), a return to the pre-disciplinary roots of many disciplines whose isolation and specialization was formed in the enlightenment spirit of rational inquiry and the (social) engineering confidence of modernity. Post-disciplinarity fosters study and intervention as a deliberate (although uncertain) holistic Mode-2 endeavour. It enables analysis and design to follow connections all the way through and to forge viable new connections, because they are more mindful of the multitude of dependencies. Post-disciplinary researchers and designers integrate other disciplines’ knowledge and skills, allowing for sophisticated interferences and synergies that enable groups of people to grasp the interconnectedness of factors and domains influencing socio-technical innovation. In our view, some of the interdisciplinary perspectives and approaches discussed in this book take a step towards post-disciplinarity.

Creativity, social change and experiments Since design is occupied with making things and processes, creativity is a central theme in design research, but very different interpretations exist. Creativity and innovation are buzz words, for example, in Richard Florida’s best seller The Rise of the Creative Class (2002). Economic prosperity and welfare is here associated with the ability to adapt successfully to constant change, inventing novel modes of doing things. Perhaps the most problematic aspect of this work is that these

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abilities are said to be properties of a particular social class – the creative class. In contrast, anthropologists Hallam and Ingold (2007) are sceptical towards this focus on novelty and design, and suggest to emphasize improvisation and imitation to reach a more generative understanding of creativity. Improvisation sits well with most of the contributions in this book, as it thrives on collaboration and diversity, depends on epistemic and material skills, and the networking abilities and strategies employed in design. A very different orientation is found in design science research and their interest in technological rules (Van Aken 2004), seen to be capable of guiding design processes, as suggested in Chapter 5 by Pries-Heje and Baskerville and critically discussed in Chapter 4 by Scheuer. In contrast to approaches focused on describing and enabling collaborative ‘control’ over improvisation, emergence, translation and situated practice, technological rules are attempts to define general procedures that can be applied in certain situations, categorized according to the types of problems and their contexts. Whether such procedures lead to their goal is discussed in Scheuer’s reflective study of the making of clinical pathways in a psychiatric hospital where he was a development consultant. Technological rules represent a reductive rather than integrative Mode-2 approach to complex systems, in no small part motivated by the limited time and often sever pressures organizational managers experience in search for business or production process i mprovements. However different these approaches are, they share a common perspective on design processes. In addition to this, Chapter 9 by Holm, Søndergård and Hansen broadens the analysis by discussing the power of technological regimes in their study of attempts of eco-friendly design in building materials. They show how construction industries are heavily structured through such regimes, placing significant and intractable constraints on design. New ways of manufacturing materials may succeed in niches, but a deeper societal ‘meta-design’ process is required to manage the institutionalized and path-dependent powers of the existing industrial systems (including types of materials used). ‘Creativity’ takes on a different meaning here, moving away from notions of ‘the unfettered freedom for creativity’ towards practices of improvisation, experimentation and networking to bring about change. Indeed, one could say more broadly that society and the environment have become the experimental objects. In the name of progress and global economic competitiveness, individuals, societies and the whole planet have become experimental objects (Wynne and Felt 2007). For example, medical interventions, energy and people’s food, are enhanced or created through instrumental application of design, science and technology. Innumerable, both positive and negative examples of emergence of unanticipated problems and opportunities reveal that in contemporary knowledge or information (technology) societies, uncertainty is not residual but immanent, or – to put it more flippantly – a feature, not a bug. Combining Wynne and Felt’s analysis with Nowotny et al.’s concepts of Mode-2 science may, we would like to argue, inform Mode-2 modes of design. That is, designers and their clients/customers/collaborators may use this book to inform

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their search for a more deliberate, collective and considered integration of science, design and everyday practice. This is critical when we acknowledge that emergence cannot be controlled by more scientific inquiry or more circumspect technological development, it is irrepressible. As a result, all design, science and technology is inescapably experimental at local, social, global and environmental scales.

From designers and users to relational translations Much research in design has been around the enormous importance of involving users. This book points to the often problematic or even scapegoat character of users. Chapter 7 by McHardy, Olsen, Southern and Shove underlines the problematic construction of users, often involved in design processes, or just the making of certain kinds of representatives of users. The need of involving a diverse range of users is discussed in several chapters, among others, by Simonsen and Hertzum (Chapter 2), and Haldrup and Bærenholdt (Chapter 13). However, the main problem remains, as stressed in Chapter 7 by McHardy, Olsen, Southern and Shove, that sometimes design processes with far-reaching, unforeseeable and irreversible consequences did not or could not involve users from the outset. This observation seems valid, whether or not consequences are predicted. The representation and even the ‘making’ of users is therefore neither straightforward nor democratic, but relational and a matter of struggle. Similarly, can we always be sure about who the designers are? Designs often emerge without designers being in control. A positive example is the unanticipated up-take of SMS messaging capabilities by predominantly young mobile phone users. Initially intended as an exclusive business service emulating the success of paging technologies, the stampede of unexpected users gave rise to rapid innovation in technology and service models, enabling the use of SMS for everyday communications. A more problematic example is the discovery of the greenhouse effect of CO2 emissions – embedded in the design of homes, everyday appliances and transport. Many aspects of contemporary societies come into being by such coincidence, unanticipated use or unintended consequence, unpredictably being ‘invented’ for other, not necessarily ‘efficiency oriented’, purposes. Designing technologies and organizations is thus not a simple and straight-forward process. From their perspective of interpretive sociology, Olsen and Heaton (in Chapter 6) stress how much any kind of design process is a question of many actors (and we could add non-human actants) acting in ways that aggregate or synchronize in certain ways (or that do not do so, causing frictions, resistance and obstacles). If, then, human intention is involved, trust and coordination among those involved is very important, a condition sine qua non. While some chapters in this book more concretely describe the experiences of processes where the authors have learned directly from their own reflective practices (including Chapter 2 by Simonsen and Hertzum, Chapter 10 by Ingemann and Chapter 11 by Christrup), other chapters (including Chapter 3 by Nickelsen and Binder, Chapter 7 by McHardy, Olsen, Southern and Shove, Chapter 8 by Lindstrøm and Chapter 12 by Samson) explore processes as questions of

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assembly and translation, inspired by actor-network theory (Latour 2005). The approach taken in these studies focuses on practices, revealing the distributed and relational nature of agency, affordances, human and non-human actors. In these and other chapters, researchers detach themselves through reflection and analysis of how designs become, are assembled and translated, rather than just defining the designers and specific ‘heroic’ or ‘creative’ actions, and – in the process – research through design and design through research become a ‘middle ground’ (Chapter 3 by Nickelsen and Binder) between scientific research and designing practices. Such approaches emerged in response to critiques of modern rationality and design as a means of controlling the social and the material. Participatory design approaches are another response to these problems, exemplified in Chapter 2 by Simonsen and Hertzum. They describe the process of designing an electronic patient record system and show how representatives of users, along with various designers, are involved in shaping emergent and opportunity-based change, which is not foreseeable. The process is iterative and includes real-world experiments, where designers and users observe and analyse how the design works and take responsibility for emergent outcomes, whether they are positive, wished-for and intended or negative, unanticipated and unintended. It is a frequently recurrent question how ‘scaleable’ participatory design is, to what kinds of design objects and to what forms of socio-technical organization such an approach can be taken. Samson, for example, in Chapter 12, explores the use of participatory processes for urban planning and in Chapter 7, McHardy, Olsen, Southern and Shove imply that design research can support negotiation, necessary struggle and reconciliation between different interests and positions, enabling groups of people to cope more creatively and more circumspectly with the myriad forces involved in heterogeneous processes. This normative assumption that design research should facilitate collaborative management of change is common to all chapters, as is the acknowledgement of the open-endedness of the processes involved, and the concluding Chapter 14 readdresses the synergies required for this.

The material and the social in design processes Several chapters discuss the role of materials or materiality, for example, the ecofriendly affordances of flax (Chapter 9 by Holm, Søndergård and Hansen), the quality of historical urban-industrial neighbourhoods (Chapter 12 by Samson), and the engaging character of archaeological craftsmanship (Chapter 13 by Haldrup and Bærenholdt). The latter highlight that while ‘design’ was not a part of the conceptual toolbox, for example, in tourism studies until recently, use of the term ‘design’ is increasing in areas that more commonly used words like ‘produce’, ‘make’, ‘construct’, ‘build’, ‘fabricate’ or ‘plan’. Latour remarks that design has emerged in numerous professions, and ‘it now extends from details of daily objects to cities, to landscapes, to nations, to cultures, to bodies, to genes, and . . . to nature itself in great need of being redesigned’ (Latour 2008: 2). He claims that the use of ‘design’ implies going into a practical engagement with the material ‘envelops’

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– things, artefacts and environments – that humans dwell in. Going beyond professional design, interest in the role of things and design in everyday life is growing (Coastal and Dreier 2006, Miller 2010, Shove et al. 2007). But material aspects matter not only when it comes to the shape and feel of products, technologies and urban spaces. They are also critical in design work. Much design research, including this book, talks about the important role of artefacts and materials. In Chapter 2, Simonsen and Hertzum show how the materiality of design can foster change, for example: their technology enables material changes in the organization of communication between health professionals, allowing them to move from oral reporting to a shared view of issues at hand. In more theoretical terms, Binder and Nickelsen in Chapter 3 and Lindstrøm in Chapter 8 explain how the concept of translation in Latour’s work can help design research to understand the continuous making and shaping of sociomaterial networks. Binder and Nickelsen investigate the materiality of rubber and of different types of moulding machines to reveal the nature of design as middle ground, while Lindstrøm’s case study is about the use of expert economics for policy. This way of thinking also comes through in Chapter 12 by Samson, who translates Latour’s ideas about ‘drawing things together’ into architecture and urban planning. Haldrup and Bærenholdt in Chapter 13, in addition, suggest the Gibsonian concept of affordance in order to understand the role of museum artefacts such a replica Viking ships in relation to tourist experiences. Material design involves the making of affording artefacts, offering certain possibilities of experience to people, thus further developing classic approaches to design as suggested by Norman (1988). Daniel Miller (2010: 50), writing on material culture, has an appealing way of describing the humility of objects, powerful because we do not reflect on their capacities for defining sites. Much of the discrete power of models, blueprints and masterplans, for example, is exactly because of their non-apparent organization of interaction – first as an ‘immutable mobile’ (Latour 2005), organizing interactions between interdisciplinary teams of designers, clients, users and contractors – then as the structure for interaction in a place or with an object. The coming together of the social and the material in design processes is discussed in most chapters in this book. Importantly, attention to the entangled relation between the material and the social reveals how research is done through design, and design through research. Design research practice integrates social and material relations in ways where we can no longer make exact judgements of what is inside and outside of designing, where epistemic practices are shown to affect the shape of things, just as much, albeit in different ways, as material endeavours to design and control change. Uncertainty, unpredictability, irrepressible emergence and the lived everyday creativity of collectives makes the world fluid. This fluidity must be matched by sensitive, responsive and ‘fluid’ practices of researching and designing. It requires processes of researching and designing that enable people to participate responsibly and creatively in the making of researchers, makeshift users, and designers as well as the making of wished-for change.

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Love, T. (2002) ‘Constructing a coherent cross-disciplinary body of theory about designing and designs: some philosophical issues’, Design Studies, 23: 345–61. Mayer Harrison, H., Harrison, N., Haley, D., Harrison, G. and Fremantle, C. (2007) Greenhouse Britain: losing ground, gaining wisdom. Touring exhibition. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 11 December 2009). Miller, D. (2010) Stuff, Cambridge: Polity. Normann, D.A. (1988) The Design of Everyday Things, New York: Basic Books. Nowotny, H. (2004) ‘The potential of transdisciplinarity’, from the web conference ‘Rethinking Interdisciplinarity’. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 25 November 2009). Nowotny, H., Scott, P. and Gibbons, M. (2001) Re-Thinking Science: knowledge and the public in an age of uncertainty, Cambridge: Polity. Randall, D., Harper, R. and Rouncefield, M. (2007) Fieldwork for Design: theory and practice, London: Springer. Rasmussen, J., Pejtersen, A.M. and Goodstein, L.P. (1994) Cognitive Systems Engineering, New York: Wiley. Rittel, H. (1984) ‘Second-generation design methods’, in Cross, N. (ed.) Developments in Design Methodology, New York: John Wiley & Sons. Schön, D.A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: how professionals think in action, New York: Basic Books. —— (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Schuler, D. and Namioka, A. (eds) (1993) Participatory Design: principles and practices, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Shapiro, D. (2005) ‘Participatory design: the will to succeed’, in Bertelsen, O.W., Bouvin, N.O., Krogh, P.G. and Kyng, M. (eds) Proceedings of the 4th Decennial Conference on Critical Computing: between sense and sensibility, New York: ACM, pp. 29–38. Shove, E., Watson, M., Hand, M. and Ingram, J. (2007) The Design of Everyday Life, Oxford: Berg. Simon, H.A. (1996) The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd edn, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Snow, C.P. (1959) The Two Cultures, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thackara, J. (2005) In the Bubble: designing in a complex world, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Van Aken, J..E. (2004) ‘Management research based on the paradigm of the design sciences: the quest for field-tested and grounded technological rules’, Journal of Management Studies, 41: 219–46. Urry, J. (2008) ‘Innovation, systems and synchronisation’, paper given to the AIM Fellows Meeting, Imperial College, London, 6 November 2008. Available from: . Vicente, K.J. (1999) Cognitive Work Analysis: towards safe, productive, and healthy computer-based work, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Von Hippel, E. (2005) Democratizing Innovation, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Voss, A., Hartswood, M., Ho, K., Procter, R., Rouncefield, M., Slack, R. and Buscher, M. (2008) Configuring User-Designer Relations: interdisciplinary perspectives, London: Springer. Wallerstein, I., Calestous, J., Keller, E.F., Kocka, J., Lecourt, D., Mudimbe, V.Y., Mushakoji, K., Prigogine, I., Taylor, P.J. and Trouilloy, M.R. (1996) Open the Social Sciences: report of the gulbenkian commission on the restructuring of the social sciences, Stanford: Stanford University Press. WHO (2004) ‘Road safety: a public health issue’. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 11 November 2008).

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Wynne, B. and Felt, U. (eds) (2007) Taking European Knowledge Society Seriously, European Commission. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 9 December 2009).

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Iterative participatory design Jesper Simonsen and Morten Hertzum

The theoretical background in this chapter is information systems development in an organizational context. This includes theories from participatory design, human– computer interaction and ethnographically inspired studies of work practices. The concept of design is defined as an experimental iterative process of mutual learning by designers and domain experts (users), who aim to change the users’ work practices through the introduction of information systems. We provide an illustrative case example with an ethnographic study of clinicians experimenting with a new electronic patient record (EPR) system, focusing on emergent and opportunity-based change enabled by appropriating the system into real work. The contribution to a general core of design research is a reconstruction of the iterative prototyping approach into a general model for sustained participatory design.

Introduction Experimentation, reflection and learning are inherent aspects of design. A design process carried out by an experienced and reflective design-practitioner can be characterized as ‘reflection-in-action’ (Schön 1983), where: The practitioner allows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique. He reflects on the phenomenon before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his behaviour. He carries out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomenon and a change in the situation (ibid., p. 68) In this chapter we apply Schön’s reflection-in-action to participatory design and implementation of information systems in an organizational context. The traditional iterative prototyping approach is reconstructed into a process model that (1) emphasizes experimenting by evaluating fully integrated information systems as appropriated into real work practices; (2) incorporates improvisational change management including anticipated, emergent, and opportunity-based change;

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and (3) extends initial design and development into a change process driven by sustained participatory design. The model outlines a process that enables mutual learning, including collective reflection-in-action, through the use of information systems in real work practices. Participatory design is a diverse collection of principles and practices aimed at making technologies, tools, environments, businesses and social institutions more responsive to human needs. A central tenet of participatory design is the direct involvement of (representatives of) future users in the design process. This involves collective reflection-in-action through the establishment of a process of mutual learning between designers and users from the work domains in question. We draw on theories from participatory design and human–computer interaction. The design traditions in these research fields emphasize information-technology designs that emerge from a solid analysis of the intended use context. Appreciating the realities of a work-oriented organizational context implies viewing work as a socially organized and situated activity, where the actual behaviour differs from how it is planned, described, and prescribed (Suchman 1987). In such a context, design benefits from being informed by the use of ethnography to develop a thorough understanding of work practices as a basis for the specification of information systems (Simonsen and Kensing 1997; 1998). Most approaches to technology design include iterative prototyping as part of the early design of information systems. We argue for an extension of prototyping into participatory-design experiments where designers and users – as part of an overall design and implementation process – evaluate fully integrated information system by facilitating their appropriation into real work practices. In the following, we present a process model for practice-based participatory design of information systems to be used in an organizational context. The model outlines a process that enables mutual learning, including collective reflection-in-action, through trial use of information systems for real work. The potential and impact of the model is illustrated by an ethnographic study of emergent and opportunity-based changes resulting from a clinicians’ trial use of a new electronic patient record (EPR) system. This chapter is part of our research program on ‘effects-driven IT development’ (Hertzum and Simonsen 2008; Simonsen and Hertzum 2008). The program’s aim is to establish sustained participatory design processes through an effects-driven, participatory, and experimental strategy for managing large, long-term design and implementation projects. This includes strategic partnerships based on trust, mutual learning, and close collaboration between vendor and customer. Effectsdriven IT development focuses on (1) effects of using information systems instead of products and processes; (2) measurement and evaluations instead of expectations and estimates; and (3) specifications of the anticipated effects of system use instead of specifications of system functionality. The vendor and the customer should, based on these three characteristics, design and implement information systems that demonstrate utility value and measurable effects on the work they support. Measurement of anticipated effects and identification and evaluation of unanticipated effects are important means to manage the general design and

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implementation process. Thus the process is driven by several iterations of formative evaluation.

A model for sustained participatory design The iterative prototyping approach is well known within information systems in general (Floyd 1984; Budde et al. 1992). Prototyping is the process of creating, in advance of the completion of the final product, a working model (the prototype) that exhibits essential features of the final product and using this prototype to test aspects of the design, illustrate ideas or features, and gather early feedback and experiences from usage. The prototyping approach is most often illustrated as an iterative process reflecting a hermeneutic circle as in the task-artifact cycle by Carroll et al. (1991), see Figure 2.1. The task-artifact cycle shows how a new system (artefact) and the task it is developed to support interact and mutually define each other: ‘A task implicitly sets the requirements for the development of artefacts to support it; an artefact suggests possibilities and introduces constraints that often radically redefine the task for which the artefact was originally developed’ (ibid., p. 79). Studies of small information systems (including groupware applications) that allow for quick iterations of design, use and redesign have stressed the importance of using the system for real work in order to learn about the possibilities and constraints imposed by the artefact. Orlikowski and Hofman (1997) have characterized this as ‘improvisational change management’ and made a distinction between anticipated and unanticipated change. Anticipated change denotes the desired change that is planned ahead and occurs as intended by the originators of the change. As indicated in Figure 2.1, it is impossible to plan and predict all changes that occur when introducing new artefacts such as information systems to a work context. The nature of work itself is characterized by being ‘situated’ (Suchman 2007) where the course of the work process depends of the material and social circumstances at hand. Thus ‘[u]nanticipated use of computer artefacts

Figure 2.1 The Task-Artifact Cycle by Carroll et al. (1991).

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reflects the fact that work itself is undetermined until realised in situ’ (Robinson 1993, p. 189). Unanticipated change can, according to Orlikowski and Hofman (1997), be divided into ‘emergent’ or ‘opportunity-based’ change. Emergent change is defined as local and spontaneous change, not originally anticipated nor intended. Such change does not involve deliberate actions but grows out of practice. Opportunity-based change is purposefully introduced to take advantage of unexpected opportunities, events, or breakdowns that have occurred after the introduction of a new information system: Over time, however, use of the new technology will typically involve a series of opportunity-based, emergent, and further anticipated changes, the order of which cannot be determined in advance because the changes interact with each other in response to outcomes, events, and conditions arising through experimentation and use (Orlikowski and Hofman 1997, p. 13) Traditionally, iterative prototyping has been conducted in the initial phase of the development process and led (in commercial settings) to a contractual bid (Kensing 2000; Bødker et al. 2004). And typically, the development process succeeding the contractual bid is based on a traditional sequential waterfall-type process, where the system is eventually ‘rolled out’ in the organization (Davis 1990). Today, standard, one-size-fits-all systems are, however, increasingly giving way to an ‘era of configurability’ (Balka et al. 2005), where information systems are based on flexible, generic frameworks (Bansler and Havn 1994). Configurable frameworks include high-level configuration tools (often XML based) and embed standard interfaces for other systems as well as general business logic for specific domains. One example is the Oracle Healthcare Transaction Base (HTB)™, which constitutes a development framework that enables agile modelling of processes and objects native to the healthcare domain. Such generic frameworks substantially ease the creation of individual applications because much of the work is transformed from development of functionality from scratch to configuration of domain-specific building blocks. The ‘era of configurability’ introduces increasingly mature technological means for an iterative, real-life experimentation-based participatory design approach, comprising design as well as organizational implementation of information systems. Configurable information systems may be implemented, used and evaluated as part of an overall iterative design process. This opens for an important aspect of the design process since only real and situated use of the system enables emergent and opportunity-based change. During the period where a system is exposed to real use, ethnographic evaluation studies can be conducted to investigate how the system affects the users’ work practices. Ethnographic evaluation studies provide an opportunity to become aware of unanticipated changes. Such evaluations might identify and analyze emergent and opportunity-based changes, hereby informing the subsequent design and implementation of the system. This reconstruction of the iterative prototyping approach is outlined in Figure 2.2.

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Figure 2.2 An iterative model for sustained participatory design. © Jesper Simonsen 2010.

The sustained participatory design process outlined in Figure 2.2 is adopted from Simonsen and Hertzum (2008) and emphasizes the evaluation of systems through exposing them to real work. The starting point of an iteration are the changes that are anticipated and aimed for. The anticipated changes are further specified, for example, in terms of what effects are expected from using the system. The system (or a part/prototype of it) is then implemented and tried out under conditions as close as possible to real use – a process sometimes referred to as a pilot study (Glass 1997; Turner 2005). Actual use of the system allows for emergent and opportunitybased changes to occur and inform subsequent design iterations. The model in Figure 2.2 outlines a process of long-term engagement of both the designers and the users of the proposed and evaluated information systems. This has also been described as a process of ‘co-realisation’ (Hartswood et al. 2002).

The case The hospital in Roskilde, Denmark, is in the process of replacing paper-based patient records with electronic patient records. The case below concerns a neurological stroke unit that treats patients with acute apoplexy. The case is described in detail by Hertzum and Simonsen (2008) and Simonsen and Hertzum (2008). An advanced prototype of a fully functional EPR system was designed, implemented, used for real work, and subjected to an ethnographically based evaluation. During the period of trial use, the EPR supported the clinical process and replaced all paper-based patient records. The period of trial use was the culmination of five months of preparations, during which clinical personnel in cooperation with the vendor (CSC Scandihealth), the hospital’s EPR unit and two researchers (the authors of this article) configured the EPR system to support the stroke units’ patient trajectories. The clinicians used the system 24 hours a day throughout the five-day period of trial use.

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Anticipated changes were specified in the first part of the project during five full-day participatory design workshops. The clinicians at the stroke unit specifically requested change in terms of support for obtaining an overview of patients’ conditions and for mutual coordination. A major activity during the workshops was the design and configuration of the system. Main parts of the system were designed and configured in three steps as depicted in Figure 2.3: at one workshop, mock-ups were drawn on flip-over charts. At the following workshop, a preliminary noninteractive PowerPoint prototype was discussed. At a third workshop, a running prototype was demonstrated and discussed. The vendor undertook the technical development of the EPR system. The system was based on Oracle’s HTB, comprised a total of 243 screens, and included realtime integration with the hospital’s patient administration system, its medication system and several of its laboratory systems. The system involved stationary and portable PCs and PDAs for bedside measurement of patient parameters such as temperature and blood pressure (see Figure 2.4). Data from the hospital’s patients from the previous five years (in total, more than 26 million records from 330,000 patients) were migrated to the system prior to the trial period in order to have access to past information about patients and to obtain a realistic data load. A back office was established and staffed 24 hours a day, and Wizard of Oz techniques (Maulsby et al. 1993) were used to simulate a fully integrated system. If the clinicians initiated transactions that included other wards at the hospital (other wards that were not included in the experiment), this would be captured in the back office, mailed in the conventional fashion, and when the results came back they would be entered into the EPR system. In this way, the clinicians experienced the

Figure 2.3 Results from three iterative participatory-design workshops: mock-up, noninteractive PowerPoint prototype and running prototype of screen to be used during nursing handover. © Jesper Simonsen 2010.

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Figure 2.4 Photos from the five-day period of trial use. The system involved portable PCs, PDAs for bedside measurement and a large shared EPR displayed on the wall during nursing handover and team conference. © Jesper Simonsen 2010.

EPR system as if it supported all transactions (except for maybe a slight temporal delay).

Method During the five days of the trial period, we investigated the clinicians’ work when using the EPR system. Our observations focused on the clinicians’ use of a large shared EPR display during two highly collaborative situations: the nursing handover and the team conference. The nursing handover happens three times a day at the beginning of each nursing shift (7 a.m., 3 p.m. and 11 p.m.) and lasts an hour. During nursing handovers, one nurse is designated as the team leader. This nurse reviews the patient records immediately prior to the handover and then, during the handover, orally informs the other nurses about patient status and plans for the upcoming shift. The team conference lasts approximately 15 minutes and involves all clinicians. It takes place on weekdays within an hour after the nursing handover at 7 a.m. The current status of each patient is given orally by a the team leader from the preceding nursing handover, and an interdisciplinary assessment ensues. On this basis plans

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are revised. An overview of the current plans is available on a large whiteboard or, during the trial period, on a shared EPR display projected on the wall. The nursing handovers and team conferences took place in a designated room where the EPR was displayed by projecting a PC screen onto the wall using a standard projector mounted in the ceiling. We observed nine nursing handovers and five team conferences, all performed using the EPR system. Prior to the trial period, we became acquainted with these situations by observing six nursing handovers and seven team conferences. Each observation was done by one researcher acting as an observing participant (Blomberg et al. 1993), that is, sitting in the room where the handover or team conference took place, while being as unobtrusive as possible. The observations informing the ethnography in this chapter were focused and thorough: they focused on nursing handovers and team conferences (only), yet they were thorough by aggregating 27 of these recurrent events. We documented all observations by writing notes. In addition, selected observation sessions were audio and video recorded, and the full-motion screen interaction with the EPR system was recorded. During the trial period, the researchers were present at the ward during the day shift (7 a.m. through 4 p.m.). This allowed us to ask clarifying questions when the clinicians were not busy as well as to arrange follow-up interviews. We conducted five interviews with three nurses, one physical therapist, and one speech therapist. These interviews elaborated details from our observations and clarified our immediate interpretations. A few days after the trial period, we conducted a group interview with three nurses about their experience of using the EPR system. Finally, we interviewed the nurse acting as the team leader and presented our results from our ethnographic records, for verification. We audio-recorded all interviews and later wrote extended summaries. The evaluation and the anonymous involvement of patients were authorized by the hospital. Our observations, interviews, audio-, video- and screen-recordings were authorized by the stroke unit and approved by the participating clinicians.

Ethnographic record Our observations of the traditional paper-based nursing handovers and team conferences (prior to the trial period) showed a common characteristic regarding the nurse who acted as team leader. This nurse would hold the paper record in her hand and read out key status information prepared before the meeting, while the others would listen to her presentation. This oral reporting is a common practice for nursing handovers (Strange 1996) where the team leader as the chair of the handover disseminating the information in the patient record. In the trial period, the EPR was displayed on the wall during nursing handovers and team conferences. By using such a large shared EPR display the content of the patient record is available to all participants (see Figure 2.5). We observed an emergent change in the way of informing about patient status as the traditional oral reporting by the team leader changed to collectively reading the shared display. This was followed by observations of additional unanticipated changes to the

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Figure 2.5 Team leader orally presenting the information in the paper record (left) and shared EPR display with patient information visible to all participants (right). © Jesper Simonsen 2010.

collaboration among the clinicians during nursing handovers and team conferences. Along with continuous negotiation about how to navigate the patient record, a process of collective inspection, interpretation and learning unfolded, during which the clinicians assessed the status and condition of the patients. A similar process was not observed during any of the nursing handovers and team conferences observed prior to the trial period. The nurses experienced how the shared display designed for the team conferences formed the agenda for these conferences. During the trial period, the nurses had the opportunity to initiate a change of this screen thus influencing the agenda of the team conferences. The change consisted of adding a panel specifying selected nursing observations of relevance to the team conference. These observations, selected and promoted by the nurses, became more salient to the clinicians as they were forming their overview of the status of the patients. In addition, the panel also involved a change in the nurses’ recordings as the panel required that selected information was extracted from the nursing documentation and recorded on the panel in a condensed format. Thus the panel introduced more structure compared to the traditional chronological and narrative nursing report (Strange 1996). Below we present a detailed ethnographic record, which describes the collective investigation that emerged and the nurses’ opportunity-based change of the team conference. The investigation involves a patient who has been admitted on suspicion of acute apoplexy, but the collective investigation causes the clinicians to realize that the patient actually suffers from acute kidney failure. Immediate action is then taken to treat this life-threatening situation. Follow-up interviews with clinicians indicated that this might have saved the patient’s life. Collective investigation of the patient record at the nursing handover The collective investigation was initiated when reviewing the patient during the nursing handover at 7 a.m. on the last day of the trial period. The handover was attended by five nurses: the team leader and nurses A, B, C and D. The patient record concerned an elderly woman from Pakistan who did not speak Danish. The

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review of this patient lasted 12:30 minutes and started with the team leader reading aloud information from the preceding shifts. At the beginning, the team leader managed the review by navigating through the record, marking text as she read it out loud with no interruptions from the other participants: Team leader: ‘. . . blood pressure is fine; had eaten yoghurt this morning; drinks well; feels thirst; urination in toilet; dry diaper; bladder scanned to 250 [millilitres], but the patient does not feel any need for urination.’ The team leader opens a window on the screen with a note from the preceding evening shift: ‘Son informs that at home the patient urinated frequently, which points to a usual flow of urine. We continue to control after each urination and observe the need for SIP [a scoring system for Stroke Intervention Parameters that indicates the scope and level of severity from an acute apoplexy].’ The team leader continues opening the window with notes from the preceding night shift: ‘Patient still had low blood pressure at the beginning of the shift; she has been given [drug] that increases the blood pressure; physician in attendance will inspect patient; sodium chloride is installed for slow infusion over night; fluid control started . . . because of increasing creatinine the infusion of sodium chloride is increased.’ Team leader now opens a note specifying a problem with catheterization: ‘Fluid control attempted because patient at 2100 hours had over 325 [millilitres] when bladder was scanned, but control failed; unknown when patient urinated; diaper was wet; physician in attendance attempts a catheterization, but without success . . . contact made to Gyn [the gynaecological department] . . . they will come and make a catheterization.’ At this point, a discussion starts about the fluid control and the problems with catheterization. Patients with acute apoplexy are routinely observed for bladder dysfunction, because a stroke often affects the nerve paths controlling urination. Nurse A makes the remark that the patient is very hard to scan: ‘I would say that it is difficult to scan the patient because [her tissue] is a bit adipose [fat] and I find it difficult to assess what it really is [that I am scanning]: is it the stomach that I scan or what it is – and what way it [the scanner] should turn – well I must say I had trouble scanning her, so maybe we are scanning her wrongly?’ Nurse B adds: ‘But the frequency? It could, of course, be a bit of a bladder dysfunction when she does urinate frequently, but it might also be that she is intolerant to this?’ Team leader: ‘[You mean the] catheterization?’ Observing that the patient is hard to scan and that the infrequent urinations might be due to the apoplexy or a side effect caused by the catheter, the team leader continues to investigate this matter by looking into the fluid intake and output notes: ‘Catheterization done by physician at 1200 hours; at 1330 urine in the bag; a little urine in the tube; bladder scanned several times with different results: from 13 millilitres to 400 millilitres; awaits urine in the bag . . . And this morning; one new liter of sodium chloride has been set up as ordered by the physician in attendance because there is suspicion of possible dehydration. Only 100 millilitres in the bag at 600 hours; complains about pain in stomach and bladder region; bladder scanned to eight millilitres . . .’

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Nurse D interrupts by saying: ‘That sounds suspicious’, but the team leader appears not to notice the interruption and continues: ‘. . . and the sodium chloride has entered, physician in attendance informed, agrees on giving one gram of ‘Pinex’ [a pain relieving drug] on day shift, awaits further planning . . .’ Then the team leader is interrupted again, this time by nurse B: ‘Honestly . . .’ Nurse D adds: ‘Where is she depositing it? – That’s insane.’ Nurse B continues: ‘That’s really a lot of hours with that catheter. Well I don’t know if it works but it did work – a little came out.’ Nurse D: ‘Can we read if there was something [in the bag] when she was catheterized [the second time]?’ The team leader opens a window on the screen and checks for this but there is no further information on this in the EPR system. Nurse B asks: ‘Are any blood tests ordered for this morning?’ The team leader responds: ‘Let’s see . . .’ and opens a window. Looking at the laboratory results, nurse C remarks: ‘And the creatinine is on its way up.’ Nurse B says in a low voice: ‘There is something wrong.’ They continue to study the laboratory results. Team leader: ‘. . . it’s here, fluid and lymphocyte balances this morning . . .’ Nurse D requests the team leader to open another window with graphs showing the fluid balances: ‘Could you try to look at . . . no that one . . . the one you had up there . . . can you click at the answer . . . up there . . . try making a right-click on the result up there . . . what does it say?’ They investigate the graphs and the numbers presented when they pause the mouse over the graphs. They note that one of the fluid controls has been recorded wrongly. After investigating the recent laboratory results and the fluid balances, they investigate the SIP scores. This investigation is done to examine whether the observed bladder dysfunction could be due to a stroke. They notice that the SIP scores might be misleading due to the language barrier (a language rating is part of the SIP score because apoplexy patients often suffer from aphasia). Team leader: ‘She is scoring two on legs and she has top scores on the others, except language where she gets a three. She has a blood pressure measured to 108 over 82 and a heart rate of 118, and her temperature rose to 37.6 [celsius] this morning.’ Nurse D continues: ‘. . . the language, I mean you might question if [the score is due to] they couldn’t do otherwise. Without mobility [one of the SIP scores] it adds up to six.’ Team leader: ‘I did score her and I got a [language] score reading of six because the son told me that she had problems pronouncing words.’ Nurse D: ‘Then it’s a question whether she got three because they were in a night shift [where the son was not there] and they could not do anything else?’ They end the investigation by looking for the patient’s weight measurements to see whether they show signs of a congestion of fluids but find that the patient’s weight has not been recorded during the past 24 hours. They decided to control the patient’s fluid balance (measuring all fluids getting in and out) every second hour. The hypothesis resulting from the investigation was that the patient possibly suffered from acute kidney failure, which is not caused by her apoplexy. This hypothesis was brought forward at the subsequent team conference (further described below).

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Sharing nursing observations at the team conference As a result of having experienced how the shared display (designed primarily by participation of the chief physician) determined the agenda and discussion during the team conference, the nurses proposed the addition of a panel with nursing observations in the upper right corner of the shared display. The chief physician agreed to this change, and it was implemented during the third day of the trial period. Consequently, important observations made by nurses during their shifts were instantly visible – with no need for a nurse to orally introduce an observation into the discussion of a patient. During the last three days of the trial period, we observed how the nurses’ entries at the team conference were advocated in parallel with those of the chief physician. The impact was that the nurses’ observations affected the agenda of the discussion and that they got a more peer-like voice and role. The transcript below is from the team conference following the nursing handover described in the above section with the Pakistani woman. Prior to the team conference, the team leader from the nursing handover added their observation about the urine problem to the panel, which then contained three nursing observations (the first two from the day before): • • •

Fluid balances Apparently reduced strength in right arm Urine retention, catheter [new problem added by team leader].

At the team conference the patient was reviewed for 2:20 minutes. The conference was attended by 10 clinicians: two physicians (including the chief physician), three nurses (the team leader and nurse D from the earlier handover as well as the administrative head nurse), a neuropsychologist, three therapists (physio-, occupational- and speech therapist) and a medical secretary. The following transcript of the conversation demonstrates how the nurses’ observations impact the discussion. Team leader (right after bringing the patient up on the shared display): ‘There is something wrong [with regard to this patient] because there is nothing coming out at the other end . . .’ Nurse D adds: ‘. . . urine.’ Team leader continues: ‘Attempts were made to SIP-score her yesterday; she has been catheterized and SIP-scored again. So, there is a lot [to do] during the ward round, and we are a bit . . . [concerned] . . . When we are [SIP] scoring her then it is hard to assess . . .’ Nurse D interrupts: [addressing the new problem added to the panel with nursing observations]: ‘What’s new is the urine retention that we are not able to take action on.’ The physiotherapist now points to the second observation in the panel (reduced strength in right arm) bringing this up as a new issue: ‘When we [the therapists] assess her [we observe that] she is generally weakened but it is the right arm that’s the problem. She can hold a glass but she has reduced functionality from the shoulder – that’s where the immediate symptoms were . . .’ The physiotherapist continues to explain these observations but is, after a little while, interrupted by the the chief physician who returns to the issue brought

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forward by the nurses: ‘There is apparently something wrong with her [fluid] system. Do we know anything about her past [diagnoses]?’ The team leader opens a window with a list giving an overview of the patient’s hospitalizations in the past five years. The chief physician looks at the shared display and continues: ‘She did previously have an infarct . . .’ Nurse D adds: ‘It’s one year old.’ Chief physician: ‘. . . And a little hypertension – but that does not explain the issue of her [fluid] system.’ Nurse D: ‘I am quite concerned since she is not producing urine – as far as we can [tell] . . .’ Team leader: ‘So she might have to be prioritized so that eeh . . .’ Chief physician: ‘Yes, she must be highly prioritized.’ There is no detailed summary of the discussion from the nursing handover. The nurses seem confident in their analysis and introduce the patient by pointing to their new observation. All three observations in the nursing-observation panel are touched upon while the nurses emphasize the new problem of urine detention. The chief physician recognizes this as an urgent problem, checks for earlier diagnoses (which do not provide an explanation), and ends by assigning the patient high priority. The other physician present at the team conference went to the patient on her ward round immediately after the team conference, and in less than an hour the patient was moved to a nefrological ward (the medical specialty concerning kidney diseases) on suspicion of an acute kidney failure. Summary The above analysis shows three important changes resulting from the appropriation of the EPR system into real work practices. While the first of these changes was partly anticipated, the two others were genuine examples of emergent and opportunity-based change. The three changes were: first, the collaboratively available patient records supported the clinicians in getting a more instant and efficient overview, enabled collective investigation and, thereby, strengthened clinicians’ possibilities for gaining thorough insight into patients’ conditions. Second, the team leader’s role changed from being in charge of a (mainly) oneway oral handover of information to participating in a handover characterized by peer-review, second opinions and the establishment of a professional confidence based on collaboratively developing an understanding of the patients. The collective investigations fostered a mutual learning process where the nurses shared their observations and interpretations and, thereby, stimulated clarification of open issues and a pursuit of hypotheses about the patient’s status and condition. Third, the nurses had confidence in their observations and quickly recognized an opportunity to impact the agenda of the team conference by having selected nursing observations presented on the shared display. The inclusion of the nursing observations on the shared display increased the visibility and prominence of the nurses’ work at the team conferences and thereby promoted the cross-disciplinary element of clinical work. All three changes had a profound impact on how the clinicians’ work unfolded during nursing handovers and team conferences, as exemplified by the ethnographic record. Table 2.1 summarizes the ethnographic record by listing the physicians’

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Table 2.1 Summary of the mutual learning process conducted by the nurses during their investigation of the patient. The left column represents the physicians’ interventions as recorded in the EPR. The right column represents the main issues and hypotheses discussed Interventions (I) made by physicians as recorded in the EPR

Issues and hypotheses (H) investigated by the nurses

•

• • • •

• • • •

I-1: Sodium chloride was installed for slow infusion over night I-2: Infusion increased because of increasing creatinine I-3: Attempts catheterization, but without success I-4: Catheterization made by physicians from the Gynaecological ward I-5: More sodium chloride installed because of possible dehydration.

• •

Observe little urine out Discuss catheter problems (H-1) Discuss bladder dysfunction (H-2) Investigates stroke scores (challenges H-2) Doubts H-1 and H-2, and suspect a new H-3 (kidney failure) H-3 presented and confirmed at the following team conference.

main interventions, as recorded in the EPR system, and the nurses’ investigations during the nursing handover. The nurses chronologically review the patient by walking through the EPR entries from the preceding shifts and look up additional measurements and data when requested during their discussion. They first observe that sodium chlorine is set up for slow infusion, which is later increased. They notice that only a little urine has been observed and discuss several reasons for this: the patient is hard to scan for bladder content; the catheter might not be in the right position; the patient might be hypersensitive (intolerant) to the catheter; and it might be a case of bladder dysfunction due to the stroke. The catheterization is then redone by specialists from the Gynaecological ward. This moves the focus to the possibility of a bladder dysfunction and whether this could be stroke related. They investigate the SIP scores that indicate a stroke, and they start to question whether they are right: some measurements (a language score) might be biased because the patient has problems pronouncing words, which the nurse at the night shift might have been unaware of. Taking this bias into account, the nurses reach the conclusion that the patient might suffer from an acute kidney malfunction, which is not related to the apoplexy. They forward this hypothesis to the upcoming team conference by means of the new panel for nursing observations. During the team conference, the chief physician recognizes their observations, inspects the EPR system for other possible explanations and concludes by assigning the patient a high priority. The patient is soon after moved to a nefrological ward on suspicion of severe kidney failure.

Conclusion We have described design as a process that aims at anticipated and desired outcomes while acknowledging the emergent characteristics of introducing new information systems to real work practices. Design thus involves a continual relation between achieving planned goals and learning from real-use evaluation.

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Design is constituted by mutual learning and by reflecting on this relation – as a collective ‘reflection-in-action’. We have presented a reconstruction of the iterative prototyping approach into a model for sustained participatory design and implementation (Figure 2.2). This model outlines a very specific suggestion regarding how to manage design processes. Our reconstruction of the traditional iterative prototyping approaches emphasizes evaluations based on real use of the designed artefact – in our case an EPR system. Only through real use is emergent and opportunity-based change enabled. We have demonstrated how such unanticipated change can be identified and analysed with ethnographic techniques, hereby informing subsequent iterations. The EPR system had – prior to the trial period – been evaluated through several usability tests conducted in laboratory settings using test data simulating real patients. Although the trial period in our experiment lasted only five days, 183 (38 per cent) of the clinicians’ ideas and requests were recorded in this period, where the system was for the first time exposed to real clinical work. This emphasizes the importance of conducting real-life evaluations as part of a general design strategy. The ethnographic analysis presented in this chapter describes how emergent and opportunity-based change might evolve during real use of a new information system. The unanticipated changes were triggered by making EPR information available on a large, shared display in two situations that demand a high level of coordination: nursing handovers and team conferences. The analysis showed how the clinicians adapted their ways of working as they experienced and incorporated the shared EPR display into their collaborative work practice. We found that the clinicians reduced the amount of oral presentation of patient records in favour of collective reading and assessment of the electronic patient record, which was projected on the wall in the meeting room. The clinicians spontaneously started to engage in collective investigation of patient records. At the nursing handovers, this resulted in the nurses jointly interpreting the status and condition of patients, hereby stimulating a mutual learning situation. The nurses also recognized the opportunity of offering their observations as a prominent, shared resource during team conferences. By having a panel with selected nursing observations added to the EPR display, these observations became part of the shared agenda, resulting in what might be labelled an empowerment of the nurses (Murnane 2005). These findings provide valuable insights regarding new possibilities for anticipated change in subsequent iterations of the design and organizational implementation of the EPR system, as indicated in our model for sustained participatory design. Based on our case example, new anticipated changes could include: • • •

Enabling a different role for the nurse team leader because there is less oral presentation, possibly also reducing preparation time. Enhancing cross-disciplinary information exchange and coordination during team conferences. Designing the user interface to provide specific support for collective investigation of patient records during handovers and team conferences.

Iterative participatory design •

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Making recordings more structured and thereby improving the possibilities for the different groups of clinician to benefit from each others’ recordings, for example, by means of panels with selected observations.

The model for sustained participatory design highlights the importance of exposing prototype versions of information systems to real-work conditions in order to capture hitherto unanticipated possibilities – and constraints – and incorporate them in the design process. With respect to design research, we suggest that: •

•

•

Design research includes a design process based on mutual learning and on the collective reflection-in-action of multiple actors – including the users’ of the envisioned design artefacts. The improvisational change approach with its notions of emergent and opportunity-based change seems to be applicable beyond configuration of information systems for use in an organizational context. Sustained participatory design with its focus on iterative real-life evaluation may be applicable to a variety of large, experimental and practice-oriented design projects.

As a contribution to a general core of design research we propose our model for sustained participatory design as an inspiration for a general experimental and iterative approach to design.

References Balka, E., Wagner, I. and Jensen, C.B. (2005) ‘Reconfiguring critical computing in an era of configurability’, in Bertelsen, O.W., Bouvin, N.O., Krogh, P.G. and Kyng, M. (eds) Proceedings of the 4th Decennial Conference on Critical Computing. New York: ACM, pp. 79–88. Bansler, J. and Havn, E. (1994) ‘Information systems development with generic systems’, in Baets, W.R.J. (ed.) Proceedings of the Second European Conference on Information Systems. Nijenrode University Press, pp. 707–15. Blomberg, J., Giacomi, J., Mosher, A. and Swenton-Hall, P. (1993) ‘Ethnographic Field Methods and Their Relation to Design’, in Schuler, D. and Namioka, A. (eds) Participatory Design: Principles and Practices. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 123–55. Budde, R., Kautz, K., Kuhlekamp, K. and Zullighoven, H. (1992) Prototyping: An Approach to Evolutionary System Development. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Bødker, K., Kensing, F. and Simonsen, J. (2004) Participatory IT Design: Designing for Business and Workplace Realities. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Carroll, J.M., Kellog, W.A. and Rosson, M.B. (1991) ‘The task–artifact cycle’, in Carroll, J.M. (ed.) Designing Interaction: Psychology at the Human–Computer Interface. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 74–102. Davis, A.M. (1990) Software Requirements: Analysis and Specification. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Floyd, C. (1984) ‘A systematic look at prototyping’, in Budde, R., Kuhlenkamp, K.,

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Mathiassen, L. and Zullighoven, H. (eds) Approaches to Prototyping. Berlin: SpringerVerlag, pp. 1–18. Glass, R.L. (1997) ‘Pilot studies: what, why and how’, Journal of Systems and Software 36 (1): 85–97. Hartswood, M., Procter, R., Slack, R., Vo , A., Büscher, M., Rouncefield, M. and Rouchy, P. (2002) ‘Co-realisation: towards a principled synthesis of ethnomethodology and participatory design’, Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems 14 (2): 9–30. Hertzum, M. and Simonsen, J. (2008) ‘Positive effects of electronic patient records on three clinical activities’, International Journal of Medical Informatics 77 (12): 809–17. Kensing, F. (2000) ‘Participatory design in a commercial context – a conceptual framework’, in Cherkasky, T., Greenbaum, J., Mambrey, P. and Pors, J.K. (eds) Proceedings of the 6th Biennial Participatory Design Conference (PDC 2000). Palo Alto, CA: CPSR, pp. 116–26. Maulsby, D., Greenberg, S. and Mander, R. (1993) ‘Prototyping an intelligent agent through Wizard of Oz’, in Ashlund. S., Henderson, A., Hollnagel, E., Mullet, K. and White, T. (eds) Proceedings of the INTERCHI ’93 Conference. New York: ACM Press, pp. 277–84. Murnane, R. (2005) ‘Empowering nurses – improving care: nurses’ response to the new Health Services Reform Programme in Ireland’, International Journal of Medical Informatics 74 (11–12): 861–68. Orlikowski, W. and Hofman, D. (1997) ‘An improvisational model for change management: the case of groupware technologies’, Sloan Management Review 38 (2): 11–22. Robinson, M. (1993) ‘Design for unanticipated use’, in Michelis, B.D., Simone, C. and Schmidt, K. (eds) Proceedings of the Third European Conference on ComputerSupported Cooperative Work, 13–17 September, 1993, Milan, Italy, 187–202. Schön, D.A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action, New York: Basic Books. Simonsen, J. and Hertzum, M. (2008) ‘Participatory design and the challenges of large-scale systems: extending the iterative PD approach’, in Simonsen, J., Robinson, T. and Hakken, D. (eds) Proceedings of the 10th anniversary conference on Participatory Design. New York: ACM, pp. 1–10. Simonsen, J. and Kensing, F. (1997) ‘Using ethnography in contextual design’, Communications of the ACM 40 (7): 82–88. —— (1998) ‘Make room for ethnography in design!’, Journal of Computer Documentation 22: 20–30. Strange, F. (1996) ‘Handover: an ethnographic study of ritual in nursing practice’, Intensive and Critical Care Nursing 12: 106–12. Suchman, L.A. (1987) Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human–Machine Communication. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. —— (2007) Human–Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Action, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press. Turner, J.R. (2005) ‘The role of pilot studies in reducing risk on projects and programmes’, International Journal of Project Management 23 (1): 1–6.

3

Designing as middle ground Niels Christian Nickelsen and Thomas Binder

The theoretical background in this chapter is science and technology studies and actor network theory, enabling investigation of heterogeneity, agency and performative effects through ‘symmetric’ analysis. The concept of design is defined as being imaginative and mindful to a number of actors in a network of humans and non-humans, highlighting that design objects and the designer as an authority are constructed throughout this endeavour. The illustrative case example is drawn from product development in a rubber valve factory in Jutland in Denmark. The key contribution to a general core of design research is an articulation of design activity taking place as a middle ground and as an intermixture between a ‘scientific’ regime of knowledge transfer and a capital ‘D’ ‘Designerly’ regime of authoring.

Introduction This chapter discusses divisions of knowledge and distributions of authority within design projects. The aim is to contribute to design research by developing concepts and methods for studying designers at work. By drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) we argue that the production of knowledge and authorship in science and design proceed through translation and inscription, though their products differ. Based on a selective review of STS studies of scientific work and studies of architects we develop this point and propose that knowledge and authorship designate two different ‘regimes’, and that the regime of authorship most prominent in the discourse of architects foregrounds narratives of identity and the biographic trajectory of the designer, whereas the knowledge regime closely associated to discourses of scientific work foregrounds knowledge transfer at the expense of subjective involvement. We bring these perspectives to an analysis of a case study of design practice in a rubber valve factory in Denmark. One may query whether our case study is a study of design. It may look more like engineering, or even production. We believe this is not important because clearly, design is being done. The argument in this paper is exactly that design does not appear in pure form, but is embedded in other kinds of activity. The case study thus is an instance of designing as part of product development in industry. We suggest that the case study points to a middle ground of heterogeneity where both regimes of knowledge and authorship are put into play.

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The chapter ends by discussing how design may be studied from an actornetwork theoretical perspective and how such studies may shed light on designing as a form of heterogeneous engineering, which mixes narratives and practices of creative master designing and the factuality of scientific knowing.

Making the social flat STS explore how scientific facts or technologies are the outcome of practices involving conflict, rivalry and contestation. A core assumption is that these practices have to be studied regardless of whether efforts turn out to be successful or unsuccessful, since success can only be judged in hindsight and what matters are the mechanisms and practices of science or technology in the making. Empirical studies with slogans such as ‘follow the actor’ (Latour 1987) or ‘following traces’ (Latour 2005) have stressed that what is known in these communities of scientists or engineers cannot be assumed up-front, but has to be constructed from how these communities rally, network and instrument themselves in order to become knowledgeable. Akrich (2000), for example, suggests that technology must be studied by contemplating the way engineers build, maintain, and stabilize a structure of links between actors, tastes, styles, machines, technologies, customers and materials. Latour argues that what needs to be done is to study networks as they assemble. In science, stability, commitment, loyalty, recognition and trust are effects of networks that cannot be explained without looking for vehicles, tools, instruments and materials that are able to produce such solidity. The benefit of a performative definition of what is studied in opposition to a static advance definition of the quality of certain elements is that attention is drawn towards the means that maintain ‘rules’, ‘social structures’ and ‘conventions’. Latour argues that one should ‘keep the social flat’ and ‘trace associations’ among elements rather than induce new concepts (Latour 2005: 165). In other texts Latour calls this methodological point ‘the generalized symmetry principle’ (1987). According to actor-network theory (ANT), it is interesting to study how intermediaries are disciplined by mediators and how certain performative actor networks are configured and made solid. The world should not be attributed to human effort alone, that is, to the designer’s choices and, for instance, his or her aesthetic judgments, but rather to the effects of a network consisting of human and nonhuman entities. Agency is thus taken to be a distributed, relational phenomenon rather than a property of human bodies or minds. This may appear to contradict ideas about mind and ‘mindfulness’ that we present later. However, our point is that mind is the activity of acting mindfully as part of a group. Thus our concept of mind does not stand in opposition to a distribution of agency. Some agents act mindfully, while others do not. The idea of ‘keeping the social flat’ and studying associations provides a theoretical vocabulary for studying transformative practices by paying close attention to the processes by which heterogeneous elements are associated.

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Heterogeneous engineering In the seminal paper ‘Drawing things together’ (1986a) Latour discusses the tremendous significance of texts, graphs, figures as ‘inscription devices’ and ‘immutable mobiles’, that is, entities that can pass across contexts, while they stay relatively unchanged (immutable). They are pivotal in producing stability (ibid.: 7). Texts draw things together and have effects. In the ethnographic study Laboratory Life (Latour and Woolgar 1979), inscription devices stand in the very centre of the construction of scientific knowledge in the modern laboratory. A scientific paper is produced by juxtaposing literature (scientific papers) with local inscriptions (i.e. data, diagrams, graphs, etc.). Scientific phenomena do not exist without inscription devices. It is, for instance, meaningless to talk about background radiation without a Geiger counter, or of voltage without a voltmeter. When facts are successfully constructed in the laboratory they find their way into text books and are reified in technology. Scientific facts are constructions and a result of work, rather than inventions or discoveries. We find this sensitivity toward the mobilization of inscriptions, people and other entities innovative and applicable to the world of design. By ‘tracing associations in a flat world’ the scientist is revealed as a performer of associations between entities of different qualities. This has become the landmark of ANT. This process has in several STS texts been called ‘heterogeneous engineering’ (see, for instance, Hughes 1983; Law 1998: 12).

Heterogeneous engineering in the design studio The term engineering as it is used in ANT may best be described as the ‘getting something to work’ where the adding of the adjective ‘heterogeneous’ is used to emphasize that this ‘getting to work’ takes hybrid manoeuvres of mobilizing principles and practices, people and things. In the studies of scientific practice, pointing to such heterogeneous engineering is in itself a subversion of the idealized image of science as the mere collection and analysis of observable data. Others have, however, studied actual engineering as a design discipline and have disclosed how, for example, the engineering of complex technology involves an open-ended negotiation between separate object worlds (Bucciarelli 1996). This negotiation is manifested in the mutual appropriation of so-called boundary objects that are shared across object worlds, yet take different meanings in each of the collaborating networks (Star and Griesemer 1989). Unlike the production of scientific facts through the inscription and translation of matter, the design engineer produces a shared image of a prospective factuality. Henderson (1991) studied engineering design conversations through what she calls ‘conscriptions’. Conscriptions are cumulative, but incoherent, additions or annotations of design artefacts, such as assembly drawings, shared by different actors. What results is a mobilization of a persuasive network surmounting the factuality of ‘what is’ and invoking the imagined ‘what could be’.

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Getting to know designers Compared to other professional groups there are relatively few studies of traditional designers educated in architectural programmes or in design schools. Despite differences, most design education programs have at their core a studio-oriented curriculum where students carry out design projects, which from very early on have a similar structure to professional designers’ projects. The student goes through full cycles of designing under the supervision of tutors, who typically give feedback in the workshop or at the drawing table. Cuff (1993) points out that imitation is pronounced for example in the masterclass format where students are expected to reproduce the style and expressions of a particular master. Though Cuff argues that architectural education neglects the social aspects of architectural work, she shows in her study of American architectural practices how this subordination to acclaimed mastery is reproduced in architectural projects undertaken in a complex and highly hierarchical collaboration between many people as young architects are typically working for years in the professional studio doing fairly trivial tasks with little room for personal expression. Cuff’s study also reveals the importance of negotiation between many stakeholders and the significant impact of the dialogue between client and master architect, and even though Cuff is not influenced by ANT it is easy to see what surfaces in her study as careful negotiations of drawings and models, finances and clients resemble the heterogeneous engineering disclosed in studies of the work of scientists. What from her study appears particular to architectural practice is, however, the exposure of mastery and the emphasis on hierarchy and imitation. Schön (1983) has produced detailed accounts of how what is nurtured in the educational studio of architectural students, is the students’ ability to engage with the assignment in what Schön (1983: 76) has called a reflective conversation with the materials of the design situation. He shows how the architectural students learn to make and appreciate architectural drawings through a concrete a direct ‘mimicry’ of their tutors’ dialogue with the design situation. Schön is not an actor-network theorist either, but as he shows how students and tutors alternate between appreciating the back-talk of drawings and imposing interventions to create a dialogue with the material, one can see the contours of an ephemeral network of mediators and intermediaries probing for stability. The object participates! And the object is, to some degree, articulated as an author of consequences. The moves employed in these manoeuvres of networking are, however, not only objectifications. Just as the scientist in the lab works from inscriptions of laboratory procedures and equipment to make an object of knowledge, Schön’s designers work from the materiality of drawings and models in order to elaborate the object and in this becoming, we argue, a subjectivity of mind is also elaborated.

Networking design Yaneva (2005a) is one of the relatively few authors who have studied architectural practice in an ANT perspective. She studies how architects in the architectural

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design studio work collaboratively to create and stabilize architectural models. Yaneva addresses how architects deliberately jump between scaling up and scaling down in modelling the envisioned building and how they simultaneously operate on detailed and highly conceptual models. She follows a small group of architects as they elaborate on two architectural models of the same new building. The team works intermittently on both models, and they apply a number of instrumental techniques to inspect particular views. A small conceptual model is explored by an endoscope allowing the inspecting architect to obtain an immersed view of the model. What he sees is reported to the other team members and subsequently leads to changes in the more detailed larger scale model accessible without the instrument. The going back and forth between the two models and the jumping between scales produces a smooth transformation of configurations that are read and re-read until a stabilized gaze is obtained. The one model is not substituting the other. They are developed in parallel, and the links between the models are strengthened as appreciations of one model, lead to changes of the other. In this sense, we cannot say that the models form a chain of mediators, where one is translated in to another. It is rather the case that the architects produce a series of models, which together form a concrete assembly and constitute the design. Yaneva has stressed this non-hierarchical ordering of models in another article where she demonstrates how the architectural project is also at a very practical level displayed and transported through a large number of models (Yaneva 2005a). An interesting observation in Yaneva’s study may further illuminate particularities of architects’ heterogeneous practice: when Yaneva observes the architect inspecting the model with the endoscope, she notes that even though only one person can view the model through the instrument, the other members of the team are not eager to see for themselves. Where one could have expected that several colleagues would have a look and confirm each other’s observations, this is apparently not what happens. They react directly to what their colleague reports, and make changes accordingly. There is no indication in the study that the one person inspecting the model has a special competence in doing this. As we understand it, it is rather the case that the professional gaze is something shared in the group and that it is precisely the nurturing of this professional gaze that is at the core of the model making. The model is not a free-standing artefact to be appreciated by everyone. On the contrary, the model mediates a very particular set of views, which are staged in the architectural display. To perform the architectural design, transparency is not the ideal. Rather, what takes shape here is the enactment of a privileged actor endowed with the capacity to see architecturally.

The studio as node in the biographical trajectory of designers A few years ago one of the authors of this article was part of a study conducting a number of interviews with designers to explore what kind of discourses designers engaged when talking about their professional practice (Binder et al. 2005). The designers covered different areas from traditional arts and crafts to architecture, and were also positioned quite differently in terms of the kinds of commissions and

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clients they engaged with. We expected that these differences would be reflected in pivotal differences in the way they related to current debates on commercial versus artistic orientations to design – and on broad versus narrow conceptions of design. The designers interviewed produced stories about their professional lives that joined almost any piece of work in a self-portrayal of consistency that gave a clear sense of professionalism, but what was recounted was much less a tale of the peculiarities of what was produced than a narrative of production. Where we expected accomplished work to be a main vehicle for exposing and differentiating the self-representation of the individual designer, the stories about how they had developed and maintained their workshops and studios played a much more pronounced role. The readiness for new challenges clearly dominated over any attempts to push forward the portfolio of past work. The professional biography as an action potential fully equipped with an operable and strongly guarded production process seems to be the modus through which the designers put themselves on stage as acting subjects.

Authority, subjectivities and person making To understand how heterogeneous practices enroll allies and mobilize networks in performing an indisputable solidity of outcome (something that in the ANT tradition is often referred to as ‘black boxing’), the issue of subjectivity and authorship poses itself implicitly both in accounting for the entrepreneurial impulse and in making tangible the actions of dissent empirically evidenced in the failure or erosion of networks. Latour treats the last problem in a response to Collins and Yearley (1992), who query the tendency in ANT to anthropomorphize things and to objectify humans (ibid.: 322). Here Latour (1996) argues for a middle ground between the Cartesian ‘ego cogito’ and the ‘res extensa’: By holding the mediation we do not miss the essential parts – what happens in the mind of the scientist “in there” and what is the real stuff of the world “out there”. On the contrary, by concentrating on the trivial aspects of the cooking of science, we may also end up accounting for its two vanishing points, res and cogito (Latour 1996: 3) So here the ‘purification’ of a token of knowledge, goes along with mediations between people and stuff through translations where: The spread in time and space of anything – claims, orders, artifacts, goods is in the hands of people; each of these people may act in many different ways, letting the token drop, or modifying it, or deflecting it, or betraying it, or adding to it (Latour 1986b: 267)

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But deflecting or betraying initial entrepreneurial promotion must be performed as the effect of networks. Law (1994) and Law and Moser (2003) discuss how subjectivities are performed in the managing of a research lab. They identify four kinds of subjectivity at work, which they find to be discursively heterogeneous. These different kinds of subjectivity are labeled: bureaucratic/administrative, entrepreneurial, visionary/charismatic and vocational, and the study shows how they are intermittently enacted drawing on the heterogeneous web of discourses. From an organizational perspective, the authors claim that what is performed is an intersection of multiple discourses or logics and that this intersection leads to contradictions, combinations and inclusions. Looking at management practices the authors suggest that they involve multiple subjectivities and slippage between different subject positions. Where Latour and Woolgar’s study of a laboratory follows the traces of actor networks performing durability through translations and inscriptions, Law and Moser’s studies pay attention to the presence and flow of multiple subjectivities in an organizational everyday of co-existing yet heterogeneous discourses. The emphasis in the studies of scientific practice by, for example Latour and Woolgar, is on the production of tokens of knowledge that may travel, yet stay the same through the way they are performed by the network, whereas the heterogeneity of discourses and the multiplicity of subjectivities disclosed by Law and Moser are left in the background of the analysis. Keeping in mind how studies of architects and designers reveal different traits of what is made stable and what fades into the background, we suggest that the intersecting performances of conflict, combination and inclusion may usefully be conceptualized as actor networks producing singular authorities. In other words, we propose and we have argued that not only objects but also subjects are produced during processes of design.

Design and person making That actor networks may perform stability of tokens other than knowledge, is suggested by Latour in a discussion of how mediators of science and art relate. Here Latour argues: Whereas what is produced in the network of science is information transfer, the networks of art may produce something completely different namely, persons (Latour 1996) He takes as an example what is performed as a spectator watches a fresco by Fra Angelico in which an angel points to the empty grave of Christ on Easter morning as compared to what is on display as a biologist points to a map of the Amazon to let her colleagues know where the expedition is heading on the next day. Latour suggests that the art piece makes present both the spectator and the painter in a here and now of mutual presence similar to what lovers experience as they reassure each other of their love. The pointing finger on the fresco does not lead the

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attention elsewhere, as does the botanist pointing to the map. It does not invoke the availability of information transfer enabling the viewer to get to somewhere else. Instead, it is part of a mediation of the ‘gift of presence’ and ‘presence giving’ in which: the only way [to produce this effect] is to redirect attention by pointing through the cracks into the discourse, to the character in the flesh listening to the story or watching the scene (Latour 1996) To think of person making as an outcome of actor networks hints at a way of re-instating such matters as the identity, the significance of the designers’ career trajectories and the improvisations of the designer so pronounced in the study of designers. Inspired by Weick and Roberts (1996), we draw on the notions of ‘mind’ and ‘subjectivity’. Mind is the disposition to act with heed, thus mind denotes an activity rather than an entity and has to do with something collective rather than something individual. This does not mean that mind rests in the order of things. Rather, it is produced through a career. This is inspired by Asch (in Weick and Roberts 1996), who states that to act mindfully is to act as if you are a part of a group. When we introduce this notion of subjectivity, it is in order to focus explicitly on the choices, improvisations and dispositions to act towards others, humans as well as non-humans. This notion of subjectivity is closely related to the biographical narrative of the designer, that is the career trajectory and the changing sets of relationships during the career. We suggest that what is performed in the actor networks of designing involves authorship and person making as much as knowledge and information transfer, and even though this must at this point be taken only as an attempt to outline what needs further study, we will give a number of suggestions of what constitutes designing. First, we suggest that designing, like scientific work, is the heterogeneous engineering of networks in which people and things are mobilized in performances through an assembly of mediators. Second, we suggest that designing is a weaving of malleable networks that involves the production of the immediate presence of the design display. Third, we believe, what is made stable in the performance of these networks is a specific subjectivity of the master designer made present in mindful engagement with the design commission, and stored as a potential in the biographic narrative of the designer. Before we explore these aspects of design practice further through a case study, we will signpost at this moment what we are doing. We take the discussed suggestions of the production of authority, subjectivity and person making as part of design as indications of a practice that is distinctly different from a practice of science. If designing, like scientific work, is a particular form of heterogeneous engineering, which produces a narrative of master designing, and if the micro processes of designing are the weaving together of subjectivities of appreciation then, at the same time, the designer must also be produced as a professional subject capable of subsuming itself towards objects as well as towards other subjects.

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Regimes of knowledge and of authorship At this point, we will introduce distinctions between what we call ‘a regime of knowledge’ and ‘a regime of authorship’ as scaffolding for our further arguments. In short, the regime of knowledge denotes the performance of information transfer in line with the analysis of Latour and Woolgar in which knowledge production is taken to be a matter of translating substance into mobile inscriptions. As a (slightly artificial) opposition, we construct ‘the regime of authorship’ which, we argue, can be traced in studies of design. The interest here focuses on evoking certain specifications and aesthetics, i.e. to elaborate the object. Whereas the presumption in science is that everyone can do it if rules of science are followed, the presumption in design is that only the designer can do it since designing is a matter of artistic authorship (the purpose here is not to exclude the possibility that there are rules of art and aesthetics that can be followed by anyone, but this point we will lay aside here). To explore this further we separate and describe those two regimes in equal terms (Table 1). In practice, these regimes are intermingled. Our discussion of design has already queried the rigidity of this dichotomy. Our intention is simply to carve out key differences in discourse around design and science in order to be more precise about the way these regimes interrelate. Science studies have demonstrated the intermingling of substance and inscriptions in scientific work. In our conceptualization of how this intermingling is practiced in design, we will use the two regimes as scaffolds for different readings of the everyday designing in what we will later explore.

Stretching the shrinkage – an empirical study of valve making We now present an ethnographic study of the struggles to construct a valve in LTH RUBBER (LTH RUBBER is a fake name in order to keep the studied Danish rubber producer anonymous). Inspired by actor-network theory (Callon 1986a), we see six critical moments in the sense that these are moments of translation. Table 3.1 Regime of science and regime of designing

What is being constructed?

What is made immutable? What ensures mobility?

Regime of knowledge Translations from substance to text (i.e. scientific knowledge); the making of reliable procedures for information transfer through inscriptions and inscription devices

Regime of authorship Configurations of intermediaries/ mediators producing an imagined design object through the co-presence of spectator and master designer. The making of a particular and singular privileged gaze.

The factuality of the inscription The authorship of the designer; the desirability of the imagined object; the persuasiveness of form Scientific methods and The biographic trajectory of the combinations of inscriptions designer, their ability to persuade

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Moment 0. Commissioning a Viton valve A Viton valve is a strong quality valve commissioned by a German customer, who applies these valves in pharmaceutical industrial arrangements. LTH RUBBER is a specialist in rubber objects with high technical margins used for food and pharmaceutical industries all over the world. Moment 1. Producing a Viton item in EPDM moulding tool During the first test productions there are problems with the Viton moulding tool (VMT). The problem has to do with the churn that draws the rubber into the VMT. It goes up and down too forcefully and thus damages the moulding tool. In order to prevent this, the company runs a series of test productions on an alternative device called an EPDM moulding tool (a technical name for another moulding tool usually used for the production of other kinds of rubber). After evaluation, it is concluded that this is of no use, because the valves come out too narrow. At a meeting with the customer the technical difficulties are discussed. The customer insists that the designers should use the original VMT. Immediately after the meeting, the chief designer orders a renovation of the VMT pending the customer’s approval of prototypes made in the problematic VMT for this order. Moment 2. Economic estimation of modifying the VMT Customer approval is given and the order is produced using the VMT (accepting damage to the machine). However, when the chief designer and the technical manager subsequently estimate the cost of renovating the VMT, they estimate it at DKK 10.000, a prohibitive figure. They decide instead that all Viton valves must be produced in the EPDM tool, which their current customer had rejected. Moment 3. Stretching rubber The same customer soon after commissions another order of the Viton valve. The manager in the factory sets up the original VMT. He had not been informed about the designers’ decision to produce Viton valves in the EPDM moulding tool. The same problem appears. The engineers quickly decide to set up the EPDM tool again in order to prepare new prototypes for the customer. However, the customer rejects these prototypes because the internal diameter bore is too narrow. The engineers then try to stretch the bore, but several tests lead them to announce that they are not able to stretch the diameter to the specified dimensions. Now it is decided that the chief designer will help with further stretching experiments. He is experienced with this kind of stretching and provides the test manager with precise instructions. His idea is to take the valve out of the EPDM before it is fully moulded (‘under-remould’) which lowers the ‘vulcanization degree’, that is, the degree to which the rubber is fixed in a certain form. This enables items to be stretched. The chemists are apprehensive about the idea since the process may

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compromise the quality of the rubber. The test manager experiments for some time with different rubber types at different vulcanisation degrees. Moment 4. Persuading the customer After several attempts, the valves can be stretched into dimensions close to the specification, but there is still a gap. The customer is informed by the chief designer that, if these prototypes are not accepted, the customer will have to invest in a new VMT. By squeezing the valves and turning the gaskets inside out, the customer finally accepts the valves.

Analysis of the Viton case After an exhausting product development phase, the firm persuades the customer to accept a too small but, in principle, usable valve by stretching it. The chief designer plays a pivotal role. What first appears to be the making of a simple valve turns out to be a matter of time consuming collaboration across professional groups. Despite his visibility, the chief designer does not do all the work alone. Rather, his actions are effects of associations among numbers of mediators and intermediaries. The design process is a conglomerate of many agencies, but he prescribes roles to a number of participants. Due to his authority and capability he orchestrates the making of the valve through a number of critical moments. Despite the fact that the end of the story could have been a disaster for LTH RUBBER, through sophisticated manoeuvres a number of entities are ordered and put in place (Suchman 1993; Orr 1996). Moment 5. Modifying humans Several weeks later a number of critical issues in relation to the VMT process were openly discussed at a seminar at a local inn and key points were written on the whiteboard. Particularly, three managers appeared offended by the Viton incident because they found themselves to be under-informed and therefore were not able to participate adequately. They blamed the chief designer for deciding too autonomously without informing others. Suddenly the hitherto silent chief designer went to the whiteboard, took the cloth and erased everything written on the board. He then said: This is wrong. It is not what happened! We had some problems in getting the right measures on this valve. Now we have started to stretch and soon we get the right proportions. They had some problems in the technical department and I had to help them. He literally erases the negative narrative and substitutes it with a more positive one in which both he himself and the team are figuring prominently. Nobody contradicted him, and the discussion quickly moved on to the next agenda item.

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We think the other managers did not contradict him because at this moment they were persuaded that they had to collaborate rather than query the past, but we do not know so this can only be conjecture and we will lay it aside here. Moments 1 to 4 demonstrate the trouble that designers and engineers had in producing a Viton valve to meet their customer’s demands. Hybrid manoeuvres, that is, juxtaposing technical specifications, existing routines, materials and apprehensions in relation to the product in the making have to be made. Moment 5 complicates this endeavour further. It seems that human anger and frustration are also intermediaries that have to be appreciated. We have earlier discussed how a generalized symmetry approach seeks to prevent analysts from deciding too soon what should be given attention: human, non-human or hybrid. Intermediaries are sent into circulation by mediators and have effects. Human emotions can be seen as an intermediary. In this case, anger from key managers has to be appreciated otherwise mindlessness threatens to leave the network in a state of breakdown (Weick and Roberts 1996). By reframing the entire innovation process in a resourceful manner, the chief designer keeps his key managers orchestrated. Objects, customers and managers have to be inscribed into certain roles, and these inscriptions must recursively be negotiated in order to maintain a performative configuration. What surfaces in this last moment is both issues of authorship and struggles for manageable information transfer – a clash of regimes that leads us to a middle ground.

Between regimes – designing as middle ground The Viton valve incidences may be analyzed as a narrative that solidifies through a number of translations and enrolments (Latour 1991), but there are also entities that jump out of their assigned roles (Callon 1986a; Callon 1986b). We are confronted with various elements, such as the moulding tool that will not work; the rubber that will not stretch, and conflicting demands from the customer, the chemists and the managers. Despite these difficulties the Viton valve design is successful due to the emerging narrative and the chief designer’s coercion, which at the end of the day draw resistant actors together and successfully produce a usable valve. In virtue of heterogeneity, incoherence and cowboy heroism (Law 1994) the Viton case draws a picture of a competent and innovative community. This analysis points to the possibility that it is precisely due to the negotiations among designers, chemists, the customer and the managers that it becomes possible to mould the rubber and to maintain a workable and economic routine (Nickelsen 2008). Far from the ideals of the regime of knowledge (Table 2), the chief designer improvises, negotiates and loads statements. And far from the regime of authorship, objectified inscriptions, engineer training, technical courses and a large group of people participate in important ways. With these empirical observations as an example, we argue for a third regime, which we call the middle ground. Actors on the middle ground associate freely and pragmatically, as we have observed, and the combination of the regime of knowledge and the regime of authorship creates a middle ground.

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Table 3.2 Regime of knowledge, middle ground and regime of authorship Regime of knowledge What is being Translations from constructed? substance to text (i.e. scientific knowledge). The making of reliable procedures for information transfer through inscriptions and inscription devices

What is made The factuality of the immutable? inscription

What ensures mobility?

Scientific methods and combinations of inscriptions

Middle ground

Regime of authorship

Text/practice translations. Objects close to inscriptions and imaginations. Singularization due to material, technological and human capabilities as well as power relations A network of orchestrated people and devices

Configurations of intermediaries/ mediators producing an imaginary design object in the co-presence of spectator and master designer. The production of a particular and singular privileged gaze The authorship of the designer; the desirability of the imagined object; the persuasiveness of form The biographic trajectory of the designer, their ability to persuade

Imagination, persuasion, mindful interrelation, hybrid manoeuvres, improvisation

Our argument is that the regime of knowledge and the regime of authorship come together in multiple hybrid forms. But what can be gained by acknowledging these intermixtures? Our point is that constructive work takes place in the impure middle ground between a regime of knowledge and a regime of authorship. In this middle ground the status of the object is neither simply a product of translations from substance to matter nor is it simply an imaginary design object in the co-presence of spectator and a master designer. Rather, it is singularized and narrowed down to a smaller number of possibilities due to the capabilities of the specific materials, technologies, humans and the power relations between them. The question of procedure is neither simply a matter of training in scientific method nor is it only a question of evocation and interpellation of the present mastery. Rather, as we observe, it is a matter of drawing things together by way of coercion and negotiation. So what can be gained by acknowledging a third regime is a more detailed appreciation of the way designers draw on substance–text translations and at the same time produce a privileged gaze of authorship. They have to be mindful to inscriptions, tools, materials and people and they become successful through mixing these manoeuvres in convincing and mindful ways.

Conclusion This paper explores differences and commonalities in science studies and studies of design. It contributes to design research by developing elements of a methodology for studies of designers at work. By drawing on STS we argue that even though scientific practice and design practice share similar traits of translation, inscription

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and black-boxing, what is performed is different. Where scientific practice tends to perform reliable information transfer and transparency, design practice tends to perform authorship and presence of the imagined. Based on a number of STS studies and studies of architects we articulate this argument proposing the designation of two different regimes, where the regime of authorship foregrounds narratives of identity and biographic trajectory of the designer. We apply this perspective to the analysis of a case study of everyday designing at a rubber factory and argue that this points to a middle ground where both regimes are put into play. Analysis of the Viton case unravels a composite design practice that is strong in its improvisation and pragmatism. The study defines the chief designer to be of particular importance. He makes himself indispensable, but he is simultaneously producing a strong voice of authorship due to his pivotal role in the making of a successful assembly. He imagines solutions and persuades a number of entities. Latour emphasizes that the appearance of individual agency ought to be slowly disentangled as a network effect. We do not query that point. But we argue that the study of design must encompass sensitivity to the uniqueness of expression, appreciation and continuous dialogue with what is modelled. Imagination and authorship are essential to designing. Therefore, the construction of the designer’s identity ought to be foregrounded in further studies of designing. This hopefully leads to further methodological research on how designers and their interweaving with objects may be traced. In this work, we propose the notions of mind and authority in combination with ANT vocabulary in order to draw attention to particular ways that designers interrelate with instruments, inscriptions, materials and humans. Ethnography of in vivo design is a promising approach for future research and we believe that ethnography that is sensitive to person making is particularly needed.

Acknowledgements Thanks to Monika Büscher and John Shiga for very valuable inputs to the ideas presented in this text.

References Akrich, M. (2000) ‘The description of a technological object’, in Bijker, W.E. and Law. J. (eds) Shaping Technology/Building Society, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 205–25. Akrich, M. and Latour, B. (2000) ‘A summary of a convenient vocabulary for the semiotics of human and nonhuman assemblies’ in Bijker, W.E. and Law, J. (eds) Shaping Technology/Building Society, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 259–65. Binder, T. (ed.) (2005) Designpraksis i Forandring (Design Practice in Transition), Copenhagen: Danish Center for Design Research. Bucciarelli, L. (1996) Designing Engineers, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Callon, M. (1991) ‘Techno-economic networks and irreversibility’, in Law, J. (ed.) A Sociology of Monsters, Sociological Review Monograph 38, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 132–65. —— (1986a) ‘Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of Saint Brieuc Bay’, in Law, J. (ed.) Power, Action and Belief: a new

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sociology of knowledge? Sociological Review Monograph 32, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 196–223. —— (1986b) ‘The sociology of an actor-network: the case of the electric vehicle’, in Callon, M., Law, J. and Rip, A. (eds) Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: sociology of science in the real world, London: Macmillan, pp. 19–34. Collins, H.M. and Yearley, S. (1992) ‘Epistemological chicken’, in Pickering, A. (ed.) Science as Practice and Culture, Chicago: Chicago University Press, pp. 301–26. Cuff, D. (1993) Architecture: the story of practice, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Henderson, K. (1991) ‘Flexible sketches and inflexible data bases: visual communication, conscription devices, and boundary objects in design engineering’, Science, Technology & Human Values, 16: 448–73. Hughes, T. (1983) Networks of Power: electrification in Western society, 1880–1930, London and New York: John Hopkins University Press. Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: an introduction to actor-network-theory, New York: Oxford University Press. —— (2000) ‘Where are the missing masses’ in Bijker, W.E. and Law, J. (eds) Shaping Technology/BuildingSociety, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 225–59. —— (1996) ‘How iconophilic in art, science and religion?’ in Jones, C.A. and Galison, P. (eds) Picturing Science, Producing Art, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 116–29. —— (1991) ‘Technology is society made durable’ in Law, J. (ed.) A Sociology of Monsters, Sociological Review Monograph 38, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 103–32. —— (1987) Science in Action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. —— (1986a) ‘Drawing things together’, Knowledge and Society: studies in the sociology of culture past and present, 6: 1–40. —— (1986b) ‘The powers of association’, in Law, J. (ed.) Power, Action and Belief: a new sociology of knowledge? Sociological Review Monograph 32, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 89–111. Latour, B. and Woolgar, S. (1979) Laboratory Life: the construction of scientific facts, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Law, J. (2002) Aircraft Stories: Decentering the Object in Technoscience, Durham and London: Duke University Press. —— (2000) ‘On the subject of the object: narrative, technology, and interpellation’, in Configurations, 8, London: John Hopkins University Press, pp. 1–29. —— (1998) Heterogeneities. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 23 November 2009). —— (1994) Organizing Modernity, Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Law, J. and Moser, I. (2003) Managing, Subjectivities and Desires. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 23 November 2009). Nickelsen, N.C. (2008) ‘The institutionalization of a routine: identity, interaction, and materiality’, in Scheuer, S. and Scheuer, J.D. (eds) The Anatomy of Change, Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press, pp. 181–209. Orr, J. (1996) ‘Sharing knowledge, celebrating identity: community memory in a service culture’, in Middleton, D. and Edwards, D. (eds) Collective Remembering, London and New Delhi: Sage, pp. 169–90. Porter, W.L. (1986) ‘The inner logic of designing’, Design Studies, 11: 128–48. Schön, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: how professionals think in action, New York: Basic Books.

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Star, S.L. and Griesemer, J. (1989) ‘Institutional ecology, translations and coherence: amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39’, Social Studies of Science, 19: 387–420. Weick, K. and Roberts, K. (1996) ‘Collective minds in organizations: heedful interrelating on flight decks’ in Cohen, M.D. and Sproull, L.S. (eds) Organizational Learning, London and New Delhi: Organization Science, pp. 330–59. Yaneva, A. (2005a) ‘Scaling up and down: extraction trials in architectural design’, Social Studies of Science, 35: 867. —— (2005b) ‘A building is a multiverse’ in Latour, B. and Weibel, P. (eds) Making Things Public, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 530–36.

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Designing pathways John Damm Scheuer

The theoretical background in this chapter is organizational studies and especially theories about design and design processes in organizations. The concept of design is defined as a particular kind of work aimed at making arrangements in order to change existing situations into desired ones. The illustrative case example is the introduction of clinical pathways in a psychiatric department. The contribution to a general core of design research is the development of the concept of design work and a critical discussion of the role of technological rules in design work.

Introduction A clinical pathway may be defined as ‘a standardized, prewritten, one- or twopage document showing the interventions of all disciplines along a time schedule. It is a grid, with time as one axis and staff actions as the other’ (Zander, 1995: 9). Clinical pathways were first developed by the nurse Karen Zander and her team of nurses at the New England Medical Center Hospitals in Boston (Garbin, 1995; Hofmann, 1993; Zander, 1995). According to Zander, the idea of clinical pathways soon spread internationally because they were non-conceptual, visually appealing, easy to write and effective in reviewing and decreasing the length of stay of patients in hospitals (Zander, 1995: 11). Clinical pathways are designed along specific timelines to coordinate the ideal sequence and timing of patient care for patients with a specific diagnosis. They are developed by multidisciplinary teams and typically describe what each professional group should do, when they should do it, by whom a specific action should be undertaken and where and when the task should be performed (Hunter and Segrott, 2008). By mapping out a step-by-step, standardized care process, and monitoring deviation – that is (typically) statistically identifiable variation – from this ideal pathway and by implementing relevant interventions if standards and performance indicators are not met, a higher quality and more efficient pathway is supposed to be produced. According to the literature, clinical pathways may be used to pursue different aims (see Hunter and Segrott, 2008). They may be used to create standardized

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treatment packages, with uniform lengths of stay and predictable costs, while maintaining consistent standards of care. They may be used to improve the quality of the service offered to patients without increasing costs. Other positive outcomes are associated with employees’ work with clinical pathways, including that they may increase local adherence to national (quality) standards and reduce unacceptable variations in practice, that they help implementing evidence-based practice by translating guidelines and recommendations of research studies into an embodied action plan for practitioners, and that they help improve coordination and communication between healthcare practitioners, which makes the care process more efficient, resulting in cost savings through reduced delays, decreased lengths of stay and removal of task duplication. According to Herbert Simon, ‘everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones’ (Simon, 1996: 111). As he points out, a design approach to organization studies is oriented towards the future; it involves ‘inquiry into systems that do not yet exist’ (Romme, 2003: 558). Defined in this way, employees working on describing, analysing and changing clinical pathways in hospitals do design work and qualify as an object for design research. This chapter investigates what happened with the idea and concept of clinical pathways as it was designed in a psychiatric department at Frederiksberg Hospital, a minor hospital in the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation. We ask what kind of empirical insights might be drawn from this case of design work and use these insights to question the idea of organizational problem solving through the use of scientifically grounded ‘technological’ design rules. Van Aken defines a technological rule as ‘a chunk of general knowledge, linking an intervention or artefact with a desired outcome or performance in a certain field of application’ (Van Aken, 2004: 228). As mentioned above, an intervention such as the introduction of clinical pathways has been associated with many desired outcomes and better performance in health care. It is thus suggested that the idea and concept of clinical pathways may be considered a technological rule about how to achieve certain ‘wished for’ outcomes in health care organizations. Even though several approaches to doing design research exist in organizational studies, van Aken’s approach is important to discuss and critically assess since it is in accordance with what might be labelled the ‘evidence movement’. In Danish health care and elsewhere, the evidence movement builds on ideas of logical positivism which recognizes only scientifically verifiable propositions as meaningful. Randomized controlled trials that study large populations are considered the most reliable form of scientific evidence in health care because they eliminate spurious causality and bias (Goldenberg 2006). Scientific evidence based on qualitative studies and case studies not including randomized controlled trials and large populations of patients are considered weaker forms of evidence. Following this tradition, scientifically grounded ‘evidence’ about the effects and mechanisms related to using clinical pathways may be summarized in ‘reviews’, ‘clinical summaries’ or ‘meta-analyses’ summing up and synthesizing large amounts of clinical and social data which may then be diffused through journals and electronic

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databases in order to offer ‘objective’ (design) knowledge that may inform political, managerial as well as clinical decision making. The chapter is organized in three sections. The first section presents the discussion about design that has developed in the area of organizational studies. The second section is an analysis of the design of clinical pathways in a psychiatric ward. A theoretical understanding of design work is presented and episodic description of design work is suggested as an approach to the study of design work. The third section is a discussion of what might be learned about design work and the use of design rules from the case analysis.

Design in organizational studies Organizational studies are historically situated studies of organizations, largely carried out in academic and research institutions where practitioners are in the business of making knowledge claims about organizations. Those knowledge claims are subject to peer assessment, following certain methodological canons and conceptions of truth that prevail at a particular point in time (Tsoukas and Knudsen, 2005: 2). According to McKelvey (2003), organizational studies is a pre-paradigmatic science that includes theories holding very different ontological and epistemological positions. The main themes in organizational studies include the study of organizations’ adaptation to their environments, their social structure, culture, technology, organizational change management, power, conflict, control and more (Hatch, 2006). In organization studies, three generations of design methodologies for organization and management may be identified (Romme, 2003). The first generation was ‘the scientific management’ movement advocated by researchers such as Frederick Taylor (1911). The second generation of design methodologies included socio-technical systems theory, functionalist systems theory and human relations theory. Researchers related to the third generation of design science methodologies focused on design methodologies for organizing education and teamwork, on design methodologies in the area of organizational learning and on development of a system’s design methodology for organizations. More recent research focusing on design includes an alternative histories approach (Sarasvathy et al., 2008) and a scenario planning approach developed by Hodgkinson and Healey (2008). Denyer et al. (2008) suggest that the hyper-diversity in both content and method of organizational studies makes synthesis the key challenge of design research. Building on Denyer and Tranfield (2006), they suggest that the development of customized syntheses can provide an important and effective means of creating practical management knowledge. What is focused upon here, however, is the approach to design research suggested by van Aken (2004). This approach is also discussed in Chapter 5 by Pries-Heje and Baskerville.

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Design science as development of technological rules According to van Aken (2004), a design science for management research should focus on the development of tested and grounded design rules developed at the interface between the science and the design science mode. Just as design rules for an aeroplane wing are tested in engineering practice and grounded in the laws and empirical findings of aerodynamics and mechanics, the science and design science mode should be combined in order to develop scientifically grounded and tested design rules for management. Design science focuses on solving construction and improvement problems. In theory development, the key question is whether a particular design ‘works’ in a certain setting. Van Aken (2001) suggests a procedure including alpha and beta testing of design rules of management. Alpha testing involves development of a design proposition by researchers on the basis of different cases. Beta testing is about replicating research done by third parties in order to get more objective evidence and to counteract any blind spots or flaws in the design propositions not acknowledged by the third party researchers (Van Aken, 2004: 232). In beta testing of design rules, one is interested in both driving (generative) and blocking mechanisms – that is instances where the rule succeeds and/or fails in specific contexts and the causes that may explain that outcome. The outcome of this process is a number of tested and grounded technological rules. Van Aken’s definition, used in this analysis, defines a technological rule as ‘a chunk of general knowledge, linking an intervention or artefact with a desired outcome or performance in a certain field of application’ (Van Aken, 2004: 228). Technological rules are not universal laws, neither are they specific prescriptions for specific situations. Rather, they are general prescriptions for how to solve particular types or classes of problems (Van Aken, 2004: 227). They should be used heuristically as design exemplars; that is as general prescriptions which have to be translated to the specific problem at hand. In solving the problem, one has to design a specific variant of the design exemplar. Thus a design rule or prescription may look like this: ‘if you want to achieve Y in situation Z, then something like action X will help’ (Van Aken, 2004: 227). Examples of technological rules mentioned by van Aken include the know-how of making a bow and arrow and the rain dance, general knowledge about how to realize a large-scale, complex strategic change and about realizing outcomes of strategic decision making. If the research literature about clinical pathways mentioned above is translated into a technological rule, it can be summarized like this: use clinical pathways if you want to standardize treatment packages, make pathways more economically efficient by assuring a uniform length of stay and predictable costs, or decrease unacceptable variations in practice and improve the quality of patients’ pathways, or if you want to improve coordination and communication between professionals involved in the pathway.

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Design of clinical pathways in a psychiatric ward The case described below is organized in episodes. According to Giddens (1984), ‘to characterize an aspect of social life as an episode is to regard it as a number of acts or events having a specifiable beginning and end, thus involving a particular sequence’ (Giddens, 1984: 244). The case presented involves actors in health care doing organizational ‘design work’. Design is thus theorized as a particular kind of work aimed at making arrangements (Strauss, 1993: 87) in order to change existing situations into desired ones (Simons, 1996). Arrangements refer to the agreements established between actors in organizations. They are made with regard to the actions necessary for carrying out the work, as conceived by the participants. The agreements concern agreements about what work has to be done, by whom, where and for how long, for what purposes, and according to what standards. They may also concern what resources, technology and supplies, information, space and backup services are needed to do the work. Reaching agreement about an arrangement depends on actors being able to ‘work things out’ (Strauss, 1993: 88). This process consists of a series of interactional strategies and counterstrategies taken by participants, in response to what is said or done by others including negotiating, making compromises, discussing, educating, convincing, lobbying, manipulating, threatening and coercing. An actor’s stance is the position taken by each participant toward the process and the work itself. The stance will shift and change during the process in response to stances taken by others. As a first step, participants define what is involved in the arrangement, such as what needs to be done, by whom, what resources are needed, what one has to offer, what one expects from others and who has the power to take what action. Defining gives rise to the stance taken, which is then expressed through interactional strategies. The next step is interpreting the stance of the others as reflected in the strategies used. Actors respond by continuing with or revising their own stances and associated strategies. The process of defining, interpreting and acting in response continues until arrangements are reached (Strauss, 1993: 91). Collecting and organizing data When the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation was formed in 1995, a ‘hospital plan’ was made. At that time, the author was a development consultant at Frederiksberg Hospital, and he took part in all meetings in the subgroup that planned how to introduce clinical pathways in the hospital’s psychiatric ward. He turned this personal experience into data by writing an ethnographic ‘story’ about the work done in the subgroup and by collecting further data. The three-and-a-half-year-long process was carefully documented through written records such as elaborate summaries of discussions at meetings as well as documents presented at meetings. As a former member and secretary of the group, the author also had access to knowledge about other relevant documents and persons involved in the development and innovation process in the group. Documents as well as related reports and archival materials were collected. Once collected, significant events were identified and a chronologically organized complete overview over the change process was written. The

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process was then broken down into episodes and the content and development during each episode was analysed in detail. From meeting to meeting, summaries were prepared, which were read and accepted by all members of the group at subsequent meetings, strengthening the credibility of these documents as accurate descriptions of the process. Introduction to the case As a consequence of the hospital plan, an Elective Surgery Centre and a Centre of Medicine was established at Frederiksberg Hospital, one of the smaller hospitals in the corporation. According to the corporation’s quality development plan, all centres and departments were expected to start reorganizing their patients’ pathways and to plan them rationally in order to use resources more effectively and in order to improve the quality of patients’ pathways. As a consequence – at Frederiksberg Hospital – subgroups focusing on quality development and clinical pathways were formed under the project groups planning the establishment of the Elective Surgery Centre and the Centre of Medicine. The subgroup planning clinical pathways in the psychiatric ward had 11 members. It consisted of psychiatrists, nurses, physio- and occupational therapists, psychologists and social workers. Management was represented by the head of department, who was also a psychiatrist, and two nursing officers. The hospital’s Planning and Development Department was represented by a development consultant (the author of this chapter). First episode: April 1997–January 1998 At the beginning, group members were uncertain about what clinical pathways were and what kind of work and arrangements had to be done to implement them. As a consequence, they searched the literature and asked friends and colleagues about it. The psychiatrist who was chairman of the subgroup and the development consultant from the hospital’s Planning and Development Department soon developed a common interpretation of, and took a stance towards, clinical pathways, shaping their understanding of what had to be done. Inspired by the literature about quality development and clinical pathways, they suggested that the aim of the subgroup was to describe an evidence-based clinical pathway for psychiatric patients and to assure and, if necessary, develop the quality of this pathway by measuring performance in relation to preset quality standards. The work with clinical pathways should give an insight into the quality of treatment and care of patients, contribute to improving the quality of pathways and assure that personnel and other resources were used as effectively as possible. Patients were supposed to be included in the subgroup’s work but never were. Instead, patients were represented through the different professionals’ images or constructions of the patients. The subgroup accepted this (translation) proposal and decided to describe an ideal clinical pathway for psychiatric outpatients, rather than groups of patients with specific diagnoses, since approximately 90 per cent of the patients in the psychiatric ward were outpatients.

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Deciding upon interactional strategies The group also decided to start out by describing an ‘ideal’ pathway for these patients. In order to do so, the pathway of psychiatric outpatients was divided into phases and the tasks that had to be taken care of in each phase were identified and written down. Thereby they were made into an object related to the interpretation of the concept of clinical pathways. The subgroup’s division of labour into central and peripheral tasks as well as the construction of a written and ‘ideal’ description of the clinical pathway for psychiatric outpatients opened a discussion of the ideal division of labour between professionals involved in the pathway. The effect was that the division of labour, which had until then been black-boxed (Latour, 1987) and represented tacit knowledge, was turned into an object of discussion. Group members now took different stances on which professional groups should meet the patients – for instance, in the acute psychiatric emergency department – to make the pathway ideal for patients. Professionals such as physio- and occupational therapists felt strongly about, and argued for, the importance of their professions’ contributions to the work with the patients and argued for a revised division of labour where they should have more direct contact with the patients during the patients’ pathways. The discussions about the proposed arrangements resulted in a time delay. Conflicts related to different stances A female psychologist in the group thought that the quantitative approach was simply wrong because psychiatric patients could not be standardized in the same way as patients having a knee operation. She also felt that it was ethically wrong to try to reduce the complexity of the illnesses of psychiatric patients to something that might be standardized. Moreover, she felt emotionally touched and disturbed by what she felt was an invasion of her professional domain by public management ideas focusing on economic rather than patient-related gains. The psychologist therefore took another stance in the discussion of clinical pathways and suggested that the quantitative approach to quality development of clinical pathways suggested by the chairman and the development consultant was insufficient in relation to psychiatric patients since psychiatric patients could not be standardized. While a broken leg was easy to diagnose and treat using standard treatments, psychiatric patients had more vague types of symptoms that could at the same time point to different types of psychiatric illnesses, making diagnostic work a more iterative process than suggested by the suggested ‘quantitative’ perspective on clinical pathways. She suggested an alternative ‘qualitative approach’ based on the idea that the quality of psychiatric patients’ pathways could only be improved if diagnostics and treatment of patients were based on shared knowledge about the crossdisciplinary treatment of psychiatric patients. The psychologist also pointed out that the psychiatrists in the ward did not agree on how to treat the patients, making the construction of standardized pathways difficult. Psychiatrists treated

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patients according to biological, psychological and environmental therapeutic paradigms but did not have agreements about criteria for choosing between paradigms. As a consequence the chairman informed the project group and the Planning and Development Department that the group needed more time to finish its work. Second episode: January–September 1998 In the second episode, the role of chairman was taken over by the psychiatrist who was head of department because the head nurse and the Planning and Development Department were dissatisfied with the lack of progress in the subgroup’s work. The chairman took a new stance and made a written plan suggesting that quality development of pathways had to be based on a cross-disciplinary perspective on psychiatric illness. This suggestion was based on the view that the psychiatric patient was more complex than suggested by the psychiatrists’ biological, psychological and environmental perspectives on psychiatric illness. The chairman now constructed his own version of the psychologist’s qualitative approach to development of pathways. He focused upon quality development of cross-disciplinary information used in decision making and development of the processes and objects involved in cross-disciplinary coordination and communication between professionals. Since the cross-disciplinary perspective made all professional groups equally important, the effect of this new interpretation was that agreement was reached and discussion of the division of labour between professional groups and the division of professionals’ tasks into main and peripheral tasks was closed down. Another effect was that an alternative perspective on quality development and clinical pathways was developed which was adjusted to local knowledge as well as to professional interests. The objects produced and interpreted as related to the proposed arrangement included descriptions/reports about the information needs of professional groups as well as descriptions of the types of treatments each group could offer the patients. The activities also included a specification of the division of labour between one or two professionals who met the psychiatric outpatient and two cross-disciplinary teams which used the information collected by these persons to decide where to place and how to diagnose and treat the patient in focus. Agreements included the process and criteria to be used when choosing between biological, psychological and environmental approaches to treatment. At the end of the episode, a conflict arose between nurses and other professionals in the working group. The head of department had suggested that other professionals than nurses should be allowed to assist psychiatrists when they met patients in order to diagnose or treat them. The nurses, however, solved the conflict by referring to the law. Since nurses were authorized to delegate work to all other professional groups except doctors, while other professional groups (except doctors) were not, it was agreed that it was not possible for other types of professionals to replace or function as stand-ins for nurses.

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Discussion In the following, we explore what kind of empirical insights might be drawn from the case about organizational design work at hand. The discussion is organized around statements about organizational design processes and design work, each of them discussed and explained drawing on the case. Often design ideas are developed by individuals and working groups who also implement them. At other times ideas travel (Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996) and are introduced from outside, as it happened in the case at hand. The members of the working group knew a lot about the department’s everyday clinical pathways. They did not know much, however, about how clinical pathways were theorized in the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation or the quality development literature. As a consequence, this incoming idea or label appears without a clear description of its content and in a decontextualized form stripped of all background information about what kind of local conditions might be of importance when introducing and working with clinical pathways. The idea or label thus has to be re-interpreted and recontextualized in the specific socio-cultural and material context of the psychiatric department of Frederiksberg Hospital. This happens through a process where clinical pathways are transformed from ‘the quantitative’ to the ‘qualitative’ version after local needs and conditions have been taken into consideration. The concept of clinical pathways is introduced top-down. The decision is taken by administrators and board members in the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation. The introduction of the concept in the psychiatric department, however, depends on someone ‘picking up’ the concept and starting doing something with it. The concept thus does not move ‘by itself’ but only through the work of people. At the beginning of the design process, the participants in the work group try to figure out what a clinical pathway is and what needs to be done, by who and how. Thus they try to work things out in order to make future arrangements. The process that follows is characterized by co-production, translation and bricolage, as explained below. The design process evolves as a co-production of actors rather than as a topdown implementation process where clinical pathways are somehow implemented in accordance with a specific plan or a specific blueprint or ‘rule’ describing what a clinical pathway is. All actors take their stances on, and participate in the discussions about, what a clinical pathway is or should be in relation to psychiatric patients. The word ‘clinical pathway’ may be the same at different places in the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation but the content associated with the word as it moves form one time–space context to the other becomes different. Thus the idea or concept of clinical pathways is translated as it moves. A translation is one of several possible ways of associating an idea or word like clinical pathways with human and non-human elements (Scheuer, 2008:113). In the process, participants take two different stances on and make two different translations of what a clinical pathway is or should be. The one stance and translation is labelled the ‘quantitative approach’, the other the ‘qualitative approach’.

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While the first translation is suggested by the psychiatrist leading the group and the development consultant, the second translation is suggested by a psychologist and then by the psychiatrist who is head of department and who takes over the role as chairman for the working group in the second episode. The qualitative approach appears through a process of bricolage where people and materials that happen to be available in the working group are drawn upon, just as different interpretations of local contextual conditions and needs are presented and taken into consideration when working out the alternative ‘qualitative’ version of clinical pathways. The quantitative approach focuses on creation of insight into the quality of clinical pathways in order to improve quality, effectiveness and utilization of resources by construction of and measurement in relation to evidence-based standards and goals. The qualitative approach focuses on creating insight into the information needs of employees and opportunities for sharing knowledge in order to improve continuity as well as the quality of clinical pathways. As the design process unfolds and develops into two translations, different types of objects are attached to the label of clinical pathway that is related to the specific interpretation/translation made of the concept. In the quantitative approach, evidence-based standards and goals are especially important objects that should be produced. In the qualitative approach, reports about all professional groups’ information needs and types of treatments are considered important objects since they make knowledge sharing possible. The case illustrates that designers become designers and powerful by making translation proposals that mobilize and make agreements possible among participating actors. The psychiatrist and the development consultant in the first episode did not succeed while the psychiatrist and head of department who took over the role as chairman in the second episode did. When the psychologist argues that a ‘qualitative approach’ is more appropriate than a ‘quantitative approach’ to clinical pathways she makes the judgement on the basis of rational, ethical as well as emotional criteria. She first of all thought that the quantitative approach was simply wrong because psychiatric patients could not be standardized in the same way as patients having a knee operation. Moreover, she felt that it was ethically wrong to try to reduce the complexity of the illnesses of psychiatric patients to something that might be standardized. Finally, she felt emotionally touched and disturbed by what she felt was a ‘foreign’ invasion of her professional domain by public management ideas focusing on economic rather than patient-related gains. Thus as demonstrated by this case as well as by other casestudies in this book (Chapter 6 by Olsen and Heaton, Chapter 10 by Ingemann, and Chapter 11 by Christrup), human actors who are designing may take their stances and make choices about arrangements on the basis of rational, ethical, aesthetical, emotional, bodily and material criteria. Human actions have intentions behind them, whereas the performances (behaviours) of non-humans such as chronological descriptions of clinical pathways on paper or lists containing employees’ information needs in relation to diagnosing and treating patients do not. In this case, such objects were made into objects that related to the interpretation or translation made of the concept of clinical pathways.

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As mentioned, the concept of clinical pathways is introduced top-down. The decision to implement them is taken by administrators and board members in the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation. The introduction of the concept in the psychiatric department thus had a deliberate and an intentional element. However, the introduction of clinical pathways depended on people ‘picking up’ the concept and starting to work things out which resulted in the emergence of a new and alternative translation of clinical pathways suggesting another arrangement: ‘the qualitative’ approach to clinical pathways. The design process thus had both deliberate and emergent elements influencing the arrangements that resulted in the design being realized by the participants in the workgroup. This corresponds well with Henry Mintzberg and James A. Waters’ work (1985), who suggest that organizational strategies may be identified as patterns or consistencies in streams of behaviour in organizations. They suggest that realized strategies in organizations result from a process influenced by deliberate as well as emergent behaviour. Deliberate strategies are patterns or consistencies in behaviour that occur because of actors’ (e.g. designers’) intentions. Emergent strategies, in contrast, are patterns or consistencies in behaviour realized despite of, or in the absence of, intentions. Since design work involves ‘inquiry into systems that do not yet exist’ (Romme, 2003: 558) and thus uncertainty about what ‘will work’ in a specific problem situation, emergent behaviours are especially important when doing design work. Following Mintzberg and Waters (1985), emergent strategy does, however, not mean that designers are out of control, only that they are open, flexible and responsive, that is, willing to learn. Openness to emergent strategy enables designers to act before everything is fully understood – to respond to an evolving reality rather than having to focus on a stable fantasy. Emergent strategy or design implies learning what works – taking one action at a time in search for a viable pattern or consistency (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985: 15). This was what happened in the working group in the psychiatric department. As demonstrated earlier, design rules have to (re-)enter organizational practice in order to make a difference. They have to be translated and produced through a work process of bricolage and co-production resulting in the general design rule being recontextualized in a specific time–space context. What seems rule-like from the science perspective turns out heterogeneous and complex when studied in detail. Rules as well as translators of rules change as they move from one time–space context to another, changing the status of rules from strong evidence-based rules to weak preliminary heuristics. The universal stability of rules and the cause and effect relationships built into them may thus be questioned. Thus effects of using concepts suggested by rules to obtain certain aims imagined in those rules will not occur with certainty. Design rules may result in (development) activities being started up in certain areas (as the area of clinical pathways). But the outcomes of these activities will be uncertain. The case suggests that qualitative context-related case stories represent a stronger evidence base than general evidence-based design rules in relation to problem solving in specific problem situations and time–space contexts. It also suggests that the important types of knowledge when doing design work are knowledge about

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the design process and the context in which the designing takes place rather than general and abstract rules that may or may not apply in the particular context in focus. In the case at hand, it is the second chairman’s deep insight into, and understanding of, the various professionals’ different approaches to doing psychiatric work that makes it possible for him to work things out and finally assure agreement and acceptance of what should be done. The working group’s division of labour into central and peripheral tasks as well as the construction of a written and ‘ideal’ description of the clinical pathway for psychiatric outpatients in the first episode thus open a discussion of the ideal division of labour between the professionals involved in the pathway. This conflict is solved by the chairman in the second episode by making an alternative, ‘qualitative’ translation of clinical pathways that suggests that all professional groups’ work contributions are equally important. The translation is also an answer to, and partly an acceptance of, the critique of the ‘quantitative’ approach put forward by the psychologist, which makes the second translation more acceptable to her. Technological rules may be useful as preliminary templates, ‘design exemplars’ or ideal types (Weber, 2007) to think more systematically about the types of interventions that might be relevant in different types of problem situations in organizations, especially when local actors are inexperienced with the type of organizational problem solving situation that they engage in. Technological rules may, however, be criticized for being Taylorist and forcing people to follow rigid standards. They thus disregard professionals’ intuitive and holistic as well as locally grounded knowledge types and approaches to making design decisions and design. They may, moreover, be criticized for directing the resources and attention of people doing design work away from the processes and local context so important for doing that type of work.

Conclusion Design work is a particular kind of work aimed at making arrangements in order to changing existing situations into desired ones. Design work in organizations is about negotiating arrangements and is characterized by co-production, translation and bricolage. Design work often includes recontextualization of decontextualized ideas. Human actors may make choices about arrangements on the basis of rational, ethical, aesthetical, emotional, bodily and material criteria. Outcomes of design work result in arrangements or ‘patterns in actions’ that may be theorized as a realized design. The realized design is an outcome of planned as well as emergent activities. Rules, as well as translators of rules, change as they move from one time–space context to another, changing the status of rules from strong, evidencebased rules to weak, preliminary heuristics. Research findings such as design rules or densely written case stories increase the density of the background knowledge from which practitioners and researchers in organizations can draw in making judgments about what to do. The analysis suggests that detailed qualitative and context-related case stories may represent a stronger evidence base than general evidence-based design rules when solving

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problems in specific organizational time–space contexts. The analysis thus questions the idea that scientifically grounded and decontextualized ‘evidence’ and knowledge about the effects and mechanisms related to using clinical pathways may be summarized in ‘reviews’, ‘clinical summaries’ or ‘meta-analyses’ which may then be offered as effective ‘objective’ (design) knowledge or rules that may inform and improve political, managerial as well as clinical decision making. The analysis at hand rather points out that what might be most important in design processes and when doing organizational design work is to focus on how local humans and non-humans in specific organizational socio-cultural and material contexts may be mobilized in order to achieve wished-for goals. The important type of knowledge in this connection is knowledge about the organizational design process and the context in which the designing takes place, rather than knowledge about general and abstract rules that may or may not apply in the particular context in focus.

References Czarniawska, B. and Joerges, B. (1996) ‘Travels of ideas’, in B. Czarniawska and G. Sevón (eds) Translating Organizational Change, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Denyer, D., Tranfield D. and van Aken J.E. (2008) ‘Developing design propositions through research synthesis’, Organization Studies, 29: 393–413. Garbin, B. (1995) ‘Introduction to clinical pathways’, Journal for Healthcare Quality, 17: 6–9. Giddens, A. (1984) Constitution of Society: outline of the theory of structuration, Cambridge: Polity. Goldenberg, M.J. (2006) ‘On evidence and evidence-based medicine: lessons from the philosophy of science’, Social Science & Medicine, 62: 2621–32. Hatch, M.J. (2006) Organization Theory: modern, symbolic and postmodern perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hodgkinson, G.P. and Healey, M.P. (2008) ‘Toward a (pragmatic) science of strategic intervention: design propositions for scenario planning’, Organization Studies, 29: 393–413 Hofmann, P.A. (1993) ‘Critical path method: an important tool for coordinating clinical care’, Journal of Quality Improvement, 19: 235–46. Hunter, B. and Segrott, J. (2008) ‘Re-mapping client journeys and professional identities: a review of the literature on clinical pathways’, International Journal of Nursing Studies, 45: 608–25. Mintzberg, H. and Waters, J.A. (1985) ‘Of strategies, deliberate and emergent’, Strategic Management Journal, 6: 257–72. McKelvey, B. (2003) ‘From fields to science: can organization studies make the transition’ in R. Westwood and S. Clegg (eds) Debating organization: point-counterpoint in organization studies, Oxford: Blackwell. Romme, A.G.L. (2003) ‘Making a difference: organization as design’, Organization Science, 14: 558–73. Sarasvathy, S.D., Dew N., Read S. and Wiltbank R. (2008) ‘Designing organizations that design environments: lessons from entrepreneurial expertise’, Organization Studies, 29:331–50. Scheuer, J.D. (2008) ‘Convergent and divergent processes of change in organizations:

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exploring change as translation in the encounter of idea and practice’ in S. Scheuer and J.D. Scheuer (eds) The Anatomy of Change: a neo-institutionalist perspective, Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press. Simon, H.A. (1996) The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd edn, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Strauss, A. (1993) Continual Permutations of Actions, New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Taylor, F.W. (1911) The Principles of Scientific Management, New York: Harper. Tsoukas, H. and Knudsen C. (2005) The Oxford Handbook of Organization Theory: metatheoretical perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van Aken, J.E. (2001) ‘Improving the relevance of management research by developing tested and grounded technological rules’, Working paper 1.19, Department of Technology Management, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. —— (2004) ‘Management research based on the paradigm of the design sciences: the quest for field-tested and grounded technological rules’, Journal of Management Studies, 41: 219–46. Weber, M. (2007; originally published 1904) ‘Objectivity in social science’ in C. Calhoun, J. Gerteis, J. Moody, S. Pfaff and I. Virk (eds) Classical Sociological Theory, Oxford: Blackwell. Zander, K. (1995) Collaborative Care: two effective strategies for positive outcomes, Chicago: American Hospital Publishing.

5

Design and management Jan Pries-Heje and Richard L. Baskerville

The specific approach developed in this chapter is design science research and technological rules as management heuristics. We use the concept of design in its broadest sense both as a noun (a plan for a solution) and a verb (generating/developing such a plan). We provide an illustrative example of how management planning can be improved by involving design concepts, based on management technological rules for process improvement. The chapter contributes to the general core of design research through developing technological rules as design heuristics.

Introduction In this chapter, we discuss a specific approach to design research that is characterized in the information systems discipline as ‘design science research’ (March et al. 1995). Design science research is a generative mode of research in the sense that scientific discoveries are developed through the design and creation of artefacts, that is, models, maps, plans and rules to inform, for example, organizational change, and the evaluation of these artefacts under practical use. Design scientists learn by designing these artefacts and positioning them in the real world, studying their impact on the world. Because the nature of design is action oriented (form and design indicate function and how we might use an artefact), design science operates with prescriptive rather than descriptive theories. Such theories often relate a class of design problems to a general design solution. Design science research is regarded as having great potential value in the disciplines of management and information systems. In particular, there has been considerable debate over its usefulness of research for management. This is, in no small part, motivated by the act that some management researchers and practitioners argue that ‘academic management research has a serious utilization problem’ (Van Aken 2004: 219). This viewpoint holds that management research results are most often descriptive and historical. The direct usefulness of such reflective studies for managers facing newer and more current problems seems questionable. It is argued that managers need help and advice for the issues they face, rather than post mortem analyses of last year’s decisions. Thus the utility of management research

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could be increased dramatically if management research became less descriptive and more prescriptive, less historical and more design oriented. Van Aken’s work, in particular, has shown how research can lead to a new form of theory, a design theory consisting of ‘field-tested and grounded technological rules’ (Van Aken 2004) – a design science research approach to management (see also 2005b). Van Aken’s design rules operate in the following manner. In a management vision of design science, there are two possible outputs – artefacts or interventions – and there may be three kinds of design in a professional episode: 1 The object design defines the artefact or intervention. 2 The realization design is the plan for implementing the artefact or intervention. 3 The process design is the plan for the design process itself. In this sense, designing is similar to developing prescriptive knowledge. Van Aken suggests expressing a design in the form of technological rules: ‘A technological rule follows the logic of “if you want to achieve Y in situation Z, then perform action X”. The core of the rule is this X, a general solution concept for a type of field problem’ (Van Aken 2005a: 23). However, van Aken warns that technological rules need grounding (2005a: 25): ‘Without grounding, the use of technological rules degenerates to mere “instrumentalism”, that is, to a working with theoretically ungrounded rules of thumb’. And he continues: ‘In engineering and in medicine, grounding of technological rules can be done with the laws of nature and other insights from the natural and the life sciences (as well as from insights developed by these design sciences themselves). In management, grounding can be done with insights from the social sciences’. Thus it is not enough to identify technological rules per se, no matter how helpful they may be to managers. The rules need to be grounded in a way acceptable from a social science perspective. In the following, we first discuss in general what design science could bring to management. Then we discuss design science research in management and demonstrate its value through three examples. We conclude that it is possible to help managers approach complex, strategic decisions by using the concept of technological rules.

What design science could bring to management Simon defined the science of design as the study of the artificial and ‘the way in which . . . adaptation of means to environments is brought about’ (1996: 113). In information systems, Vaishnavi and Kuechler (2004: 1) define design science research as ‘the analysis of the use and performance of designed artefacts to understand, explain and very frequently to improve on aspects of Information Systems.’ Central to these notions is the design of an artefact that is meant to have a presence in the real world. This artefact could be conceived as a construct, a model, a method, or a material instantiation (March et al. 1995). The relationship between science and design is complex and contentious. For some, design is generative production, one in which the faculties of reason align

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differently to the analytical productions that are prized in science (cf. Kant 1908). For others, melding science with design provides a means for designing at higher levels of abstraction, designs that are more universal and address a general class of problems rather than a single, unique design problem. Central to this notion of generality is the notion of a design theory. Design theories are sometimes regarded as a unique class of theories that share particular characteristics such as principles of form or function, principles of implementation, and so on. (Gregor et al. 2007; Walls et al. 1992). Design science has been drawn into many diverse professional areas such as architecture, design, performance, information systems, computer science, engineering, and so on. In the management professions, design science has arisen mostly in behavioural and decision sciences. As mentioned earlier, proponents such as van Aken (2004, 2005a) argue that the utility of management research could be increased dramatically if management research became more prescriptive and design oriented. While van Aken has proposed using technological rules for designing organizational decisions, we believe these can also be used to express a design theory, a design science research approach to management. We have chosen an example to demonstrate that it is in fact possible to increase utility and help managers in a way that makes it possible and plausible to make better decisions in complex and/or strategic organizational decision situations. The example we use is process improvement. We show how a new design theory appears using ‘technological rules’ as suggested by van Aken. At the end of the example, we also discuss the grounding in social science as well as the (potential) application by managers and some practical implication(s).

The process improvement example Improving organizational processes and managing product and process quality is a particular area where advice for managers is urgently needed. The basic assumption made in this arena is that the quality of products and services is a direct result of the quality of organizational processes. The principle is simple and proven: improve the organization’s processes, and the goods and services it produces will also improve. Here design theories could prove highly practical as well as academically novel. The ‘big three’ approaches to process improvement are the general International Standards Organization (ISO) standards for quality management systems (ISO 9000), the more technical and product-development oriented Capability Maturity Model (CMM), and the more specific ISO standards for process improvement and capability determination (ISO 15504/SPICE) (Hunter and Thayer 2001). There are also many variations, enhancements, proprietary alternatives and opportunities to adapt general quality management models, specifically for software quality improvement (for example, Six Sigma and Juran). Here, as in more general organizational quality improvement approaches, there is little work that provides helpful guidance about which approach to choose for which kinds of software organizations. Management not only involves administering process

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improvement efforts, but also deciding which of these myriad approaches should be used to frame the effort within the organization at hand. This approach selection process can be viewed as a design problem because it is concerned with the adaptation of available means to an environment (Simon 1996). However, it is a managerial design problem. The analysis A literature survey identified seven normative models for process improvement to be used in IT-developing organizations: Balanced Scorecard, ISO 9000, Business Excellence, Six Sigma, Juran, CMM and Bootstrap. There is substantial research on each of these approaches, and thus we tried to identify core writings by looking at citations (via www.scholar.google.com). After having identified core writings for each of the approaches we coded them according to grounded theory criteria. Grounded theory coding techniques highlight structures and patterns internal to a phenomenon. According to Strauss and Corbin (1998), a grounded theory approach is composed of three coding procedures called open, axial and selective coding. These procedures do not usually occur separately and as a sequence, but overlap and iterate in the process of research. The coding procedures are introduced below together with examples of findings from our review. The goal of open coding is to identify key ideas expressed in the data. Open coding involves two tasks. The first task is to label phenomena. This task involves decomposing an observation into discrete elements or ideas. Each discrete element or idea receives a name or label that represents this aspect of the phenomenon. These names represent a concept inherent in the observation. As a result of this first coding, we identified and labelled the following key elements shared across the different approaches: • • • • •

Name and origin of process improvement approach Empirical background – how is this approach’s utility proven? Who collects data in an organization and how is data collected? How is data analysed? How is advice to an organization generated?

The second essential open-coding task is discovering categories. Categorizing is the process of finding related phenomena or common concepts and themes in the accumulated data and to group them under joint headings and thus identifying categories and sub-categories of data. In our analysis, we found more than fifty key concepts, including: measurement, empowerment, quality, regulating process and elimination of defects. Developing a better and deeper understanding of how the identified categories are related is the purpose of axial coding. Axial coding involves two further tasks developing the categories and properties. The first task connects categories in terms of a sequence of relationships. For example, a causal condition or a consequence can connect two categories, or a category and a sub-category. The second task turns

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back to the data for validation of the relationships. This return gives rise to the discovery and specification of the differences and similarities among and within the categories. This discovery adds variation and depth of understanding. Together, the two authors completed the first part of the axial coding. Similarities and differences were noted and discussed. Categories and relationships were identified, discussed, corrected and changed, until a common understanding of the categories, sub-categories and their relationships was reached. In Figure 5.1, we show the whiteboard at a point where relationships between the categories mentioned before are discussed. Selective coding involves the integration of the categories that have been developed to form the initial theoretical framework. First, a story line is made explicit from the analysis. A story is a descriptive narrative about the central phenomenon of study and the story line is the conceptualization of this story in abstract terms. When analyzed, the story line becomes the core category, which is related to all the categories found in axial coding, validating these relationships, and elaborating the categories that need further refinement and development. The definition of only one story line and core category is usually recommended in grounded theory analysis, so as to maintain clarity and precision and to achieve a tight integration of categories. However, the authors found that the analysis of the data led to two storylines, one about the ‘agenda’ or objective of organizational change and the other about the ‘process’ – from observation through analysis to synthesis. Both stories were equally important in the data. However, instead of choosing either one story or the other we grouped them together in an new category we called the ‘recommendation process’, shown in Figure 5.2. Figure 5.2 shows four common elements that could be used to distinguish and characterize different types of models. The major common element identified we called ‘agenda’, and it was characteristic that the content of the ‘agenda’ differed

Figure 5.1 Whiteboard from discussing relationships.

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Figure 5.2 Overview of the general improvement recommendation process.

among the different models. We defined the agenda as the perspective on outcomes or objectives (of improving the organization) that drive the entire process improvement effort. Second, normative process improvement models share knowledge generating activities similar to those of research methods namely, ‘Observation’, ‘Analysis’ and ‘Synthesis’. These three are common elements, but they follow after (or in relation to) ‘Agenda’.

Process improvement theory Process improvement theories draw both directly and indirectly from an extensive conceptual backdrop of quality management and improvement (Hunter and Thayer 2001). While it is impossible to provide a complete history of such an extensive field within this chapter, we can sketch several pivotal developments from which process improvement draws many of its assumptions, principles and practices. In doing so, we also give an overview of the ontology and epistemology of process improvement thinking. Statistical process control The importance of statistics and quantitative measures for quality management has a long history. A landmark is the work by Western Electric engineer Walter Shewhart, who published Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product in 1931, followed by his Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control. Shewhart distinguished two classes of quality variability. Controlled variability was internal to the manufacturing process, and uncontrolled variability was external to the process. Shewhart demonstrated that the quality management orientation for the each of the two classes were completely different. Deming and TQM Early in his career, W. Edwards Deming worked with Shewhart and developed a strong appreciation for Shewhart’s statistical reasoning. Deming was one of

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a number of business and manufacturing experts who were invited by General MacArthur to postwar Japan to advise Japanese government agencies and companies as they reconstructed the devastated Japanese industrial base. In 1950, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) invited Deming back to Japan. His ideas about quality management had an incredible impact on Japanese industry, and a quality revolution was born in Japan (Neave 1990). Deming had significant influence in transforming ‘quality control’ to ‘quality management’. He promoted a 14-point business philosophy that contained many key ideas in software process improvement, for example: a constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, improve forever, remove barriers that prevent ideas from flowing, promote employee learning and selfimprovement, innovate to improve processes, and promote transformational leadership (Deming 1982). Deming’s ideas made their way to the USA, where they were labelled ‘Total Quality Management’ (TQM). The term was first coined by the US Naval Air Systems Command to describe their ‘Japanese style’ management approach to quality improvement. Feigenbaum (1951) is known as the father of Total Quality Management, having published his landmark book Quality Control (later retitled Total Quality Control) by 1951. TQM was seen as an extension of statistical quality control to include quality assurance and other quality activities. By 1959, the US Department of Defence had published a military standard, MIL-Q-9858, that defined quality programs for defence related organizations. This standard was de-activated in 1995 and replaced with ISO 9001. Deming’s original point about ‘improving forever’ began to appear in the TQM literature as ‘Continuous Quality Improvement’ (CQI). By the time ISO 9000 was revised in 2000, continuous improvement was institutionalized as a central principle in the standard and improvement program standards were established as ISO 9004:2000 (see below). Balanced Scorecard Balanced Scorecard (BSC) originated as a metrics-based management approach in which a manager has precisely the right information at hand for making decisions related to implementing strategy (Kaplan and Norton 1996). Like a pilot in a cockpit, a manager needs a console with the proper gauges and readouts that measure organizational position and progress. It implements the notion that ‘what you measure is what you get’ (Kaplan and Norton 1992: 71). While BSC is more than a quality improvement approach, it has been proposed as a focal point for an organization’s total quality improvement programs by defining and communicating priorities to all organizational stakeholders (Kaplan and Norton 1993: 135). ISO 9000 ISO 9000 is a family of standards for quality management, that is, activities to satisfy customer needs for quality, meet regulatory requirements and continually improve performance in pursuit of quality (ISO 9000: 2005). The standard includes

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‘guidelines’ and ‘auditable standards’. The main standard, ISO 9001:2000 regards quality assurance in various phases of product development, production, test and application. In its original 1994 version, ISO 9000 had a reputation for being oriented toward quality assurance rather than quality improvement (Pande et al. 2000). But the 2000 as well as the 2005 revision (ISO 9000:2005) was expanded to more prominently focus guidelines for quality management on performance improvements and to add an auditable standard in this area (ISO 9000: 2005). Important for software process improvement, ISO 9000 demonstrated that a general standard for quality processes could reach across a broad range of organizations and cultures and achieve adoption on a massive scale. It also provided a set of measures that engaged software process improvements as one of myriad kinds of products to which quality standards might apply. ISO 9000 is discussed in more detail below. Business Excellence Several major awards have been created to recognize the achievements of organizations in improving the quality of goods and services. One of the oldest is the Deming Prize in Japan, created by JUSE in honour of Deming’s important contribution to Japanese quality management. Two other prominent awards are the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award in the USA, created by public law in 1987, and the European Quality Award, created by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) in 2002. Together with the drive for ISO 9000 certification, broad discussions about the criteria for these awards have increased the focus on what quality really means. The Baldridge and EFQM awards shape their criteria based on rather different models of quality processes (cf. EFQM 2003; Tingey 1997). The scope of the EFQM model is to achieve Business Excellence by following nine specific criteria. Six Sigma The Six Sigma approach to quality management adds an emphasis on executive activity that is present in most of the other quality programs. This activity is necessary because the program uses integration of organizational functions as an avenue to quality improvement. Not surprisingly, it is defined as ‘a business system for achieving and sustaining success through customer focus, process management and improvement, and the wise use of facts and data’ (Pande et al. 2000: 43–44). It is, among other things, a blend of business process re-engineering and TQM. It contrasts with a typical and popular aim of having Zero Defects by setting a believable goal (see the discussion of Six Sigma on p. XX), and remaining focused on achieving this goal. An important idea for software process improvement is the benefit from rethinking and reforming software organizations for higher quality.

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Juran’s quality improvement process Juran is less of a quality program or methodology than it is an institutionalization of a detailed quality culture. Juran’s Quality Handbook (Juran and Godfrey. 1998) and the Juran Institute (http://www.juran.com/) are encyclopaedic resources for establishing quality in organizations, products, processes and human activities. While sometimes regarded as a concise program or methodology, Juran broadly encompasses many other distinct quality elements such as TQM and ISO 9000. Well-defined quality management is the essence of Juran’s view of any quality improvement program. Drawing from the basic tenets of financial management, quality management consists of a quality planning process, a quality control process and a quality improvement process. The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) Integrated (CMMI) CMM is a framework characterizing a 5-step path for process improvement (Paulk et al. 1995). The path describes key processes at each of five levels. The description includes a number of goals at each level. An organization has to meet the goals at one level to reach the next. The CMM became so popular that a large number of other models using the same 5-step path have been invented. After some years, a large number of the CMM models were combined in CMM Integrated, or just CMMI. The major difference between CMM and CMMI is that CMMI includes systems engineering. This means that there are more key processes in CMMI, which makes it more useful in companies that are not only developing software but also combining software with hardware (for example, mechanics or electronics) (cf. Ahern et al. 2001; Chrissis et al. 2003). Bootstrap Within the world of software development the issue of improving software development took two directions around 1990. In Europe, software-developing companies took the ISO 9000 standard and adapted it to be used in a software world. In this adaptation, companies use ISO 9000-9003 which describes how to use the ISO 9001 standard for software. Simultaneously in the USA, softwaredeveloping companies chose to use CMM. Subsequently, a European research project developed Bootstrap (Kuvaja et al. 1994). Bootstrap combined the features of both ISO 9000 and the CMM. Furthermore the Bootstrap model was extended and adapted to include guidelines from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) PSS-05 software development standard. The major difference between Bootstrap and CMM (besides having other processes in the model) was that the step-wise improvement used in CMM was replaced by a continuous model. The continuous model unbundled key processes so that these do not have to move in groups to a given level. For example, under CMM, the six key process areas between level two and three should attain level three as a group. In Bootstrap, each process is

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Figure 5.3 Four agenda types: the perspective on outcome that drives the entire process improvement project.

measured and improved on a one-to-five scale, and an organization can improve those discrete processes that are most needed from a business perspective.

The agenda After having presented the process improvement approaches we now return to the core object of our analysis as represented in Figure 5.2. We start with the agenda. Agendas are set according to the process improvement goal and the general management viewpoint of an organization. Goals vary: some managers seek to achieve a balance in the organizational activities and resources for an optimum performance. Other managers seek to provide a direction for the organization, a path to a future, a desirable state. Organizational viewpoints also vary. Some managers see software organizations as quite similar and believe a set of universal solutions can be applied in most organizations. Others see organizations as highly unique instances, intersections of very particular resources and people (see Figure 5.3). Specific agendas ISO 9000 has a very simple agenda: OK or not OK. The organization is measured against a standard. Deviations are recorded and documented. The deviations then have to be corrected before an OK (that can lead to an ISO 9000 certification) is issued. In principle, analysts can view ISO 9000 as a binary process with two steps: Zero and OK. However, when an organization reaches ‘OK’, the process is not complete. In the most recent version of ISO (2000), the focus is on continuous improvement. This means that organizations go from a direction, from ‘not OK’ to ‘OK’, and to a kind of balance where they continuously improve what is found to be most urgent. The agenda in CMM is to improve an organization’s processes by moving them up to the next step on a five-step scale. If the organization fulfils the goals of all the six key process areas at level two then they are advised to undertake activities that will lead to fulfilment of the seven key process areas at level three.

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The agenda in Bootstrap is partly the same as for CMM; the organization is measured against a number of processes. But rather that just recommending that the lowest scoring processes should be improved, it is recommended to take business goals into account: ‘Business goals can be kept as the main push for process improvement’ (Kuvaja et al. 1994: 106). The Six Sigma agenda is focused on five sets of deliverables that correspond to the five steps in the Six Sigma roadmap. On the Six Sigma agenda we find the following five criteria: 1 An inventory of value-delivering activities. 2 Output and service specifications or requirements that closely track the factors that drive customer satisfaction. 3 Specific measurements that describe the current organizational performance baseline, the capability of each process, and descriptions of new or enhanced measurement methods and resources needed to support continuation of organizational process improvement. 4 An unstructured set of new designs or redesigns of processes in need of improvement. These process improvements regard new demands, new technologies, or increase speed, accuracy or cost performance. 5 A continuing organizational improvement program. There are process controls, clear statements of process ownership, response plans to adapt strategies and an organizational culture for improvement. The exact nature of each of these deliverable sets, and consequently the agenda for Six Sigma is context driven. Those involved in the improvement project have considerable leeway to define these deliverables according to the nature of the organization and its stakeholders. The agenda in EFQM is to strive for Business Excellence (EFQM 2003). The EFQM framework has nine criteria. Five of them are so-called enablers: 1 2 3 4 5

Leadership driving Policy and Strategy People Partnerships Resources and Processes

The other four criteria are commonly called results: 6 Customers 7 People 8 Society Leading to: 9 Key performance results

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Figure 5.4 Agenda examples.

Excellence is defined as outstanding practice in managing the organization and achieving results, all based on a set of eight fundamental concepts (one to eight above) leading to results (numbered nine above). The model recognizes that there are many approaches to achieving sustainable excellence in all aspects of performance. But at its core the model suggests that the eight–nine criteria should be balanced. The agenda in BSC embraces a pronounced vision, mission and strategy for the organization. Beyond this the BSC process seeks to set concerted objectives, measures, targets and initiatives in each of the four perspectives: learning and growth, business process, customer and financial. Finally, the agenda in Juran is to bring processes under statistical control. There is no specific direction, and it is contingent on what processes that are selected for control (see Figure 5.4). From agendas to technological rules Based on the analysis of each approach mentioned in Figure 5.3, we were able to formulate the following technological rules for ‘agenda’: If an organization wants to improve software processes in a situation where they: • • •

believe that ‘Best Practices’ for an improvement area can be identified trust the usefulness of practices from another organizational or national setting agree that their organization’s improvement effort will be similar to processes in companies,

then they should choose a universally applicable model, such as CMM or Bootstrap. If not, then they should choose a situated model, such as Juran or Six Sigma. If an organization wants to improve software processes in a situation where they: •

need a vision to motivate and give direction to their improvement effort

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believe that there is one and only one path to a future desirable state agree that their improvement effort should be directed by one single vision,

then they should choose a directing model, such as Six Sigma, or ISO 9000. If the answer to the third bullet point is that their effort should balance many organizational activities and resources so as to optimize performance, they should choose a balancing model such as Juran or Balanced Scorecard. In formulating the technological rules we took our core story (as represented in Figure 5.2) and tried to follow the general format by van Aken (2005a: 23): ‘if you want to achieve Y in situation Z, then perform action X’. Our analysis makes it possible to develop similar rules for the observation, analysis and synthesis processes (the other common elements in Figure 5.2). Observation is characterized as either detached or participatory, while analysis is characterized as either statistical or interpretive. In terms of modes of synthesis, we found that the various process improvement approaches either confined developers to a finite recommendation set, or allowed an open ended, generative style for recommendations. Some approaches used a synthesis approach that involved a distinct model for synthesis. Other approaches had less-defined synthesis stages that were dependent on the tacit knowledge or know-how of the developers.

Discussion It is important to note that technological rules are not rules per se. They do not have to be followed strictly. Rather, they can be used as design exemplars. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, exemplar means ‘the model, pattern, or original after which something is made; an archetype whether real or ideal’. Thus a design exemplar is a good general prescription, which has to be translated to the specific problem at hand; in solving that problem, one has to design a specific variant of that design exemplar (Van Aken 2004). Grounding the process improvement example in social science In terms of social science research methodology, this chapter reports work that is conceptual in nature; it theorizes design for the purpose of improving management of process improvement. The theorizing is grounded in an analysis of key published process improvement models, and the theoretical results are expressed as models and technological rules. The analysis of the published models was done following grounded theory coding techniques (Glaser et al. 1967, Strauss et al. 1998). Grounded theory is a qualitative social science research methodology that takes its name from the practice of discovering theory through grounding analysis in data. Grounded theory is best used in research where one has relatively ‘uncharted territory’, as is the case with the identification of technological rules implicit and embedded in process improvement models. Grounded theories are inductively discovered by careful collection and analysis of empirical data. That is, this method does not begin with

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a theory, and then seeks proof. Instead, it begins with an area of study and allows the relevant theory to emerge from that area through a three-step process of open, axial and selective coding (Strauss et al. 1998). Figure 5.2 is a pictorial representation of what emerged from our analysis. Practical implications of the process improvement example The set of matrices, technological rules and underlying principles exemplified here form a framework that can help organizations make sense of different normative models, and link them to their organizational and improvement goals. Our framework distinguishes between four significant dimensions: agenda, observation, analysis and synthesis. These dimensions can be used to examine an organization’s needs and then select an appropriate improvement model in an informed and systematic way. In practice, managers should try to place their own particular organization, its values and beliefs within the framework. Let us take ‘agenda’ as an example. A universal perspective embeds trust in maturity models such as CMM and Bootstrap, and more generally focuses on models of best practices and, consequently, models of general process problems. A situated perspective, in contrast, focuses on what software practitioners and their managers perceive as problems in their processes. Furthermore, the manager should consider their end goal. Is CMM level five regarded as an attractive state-of-the-practice in the organization? In general, models having a cosmopolitan vision provide an organizational direction toward better and better development. Such models assume that the organization is in a development ‘state’ and has the opportunity to change to an improved state. Usually, this goal also assumes that there will be further opportunities to improve, so the improvement process is seen as progressive. In contrast, harmonious standard models have a clear aim toward building a value system for quality among other important organizational values. A balancing strategy assumes that something is missing in the development organization: some activity, value, or element that must be added or restored in order to improve the software process. Testing with practitioners An earlier version of our analysis was presented at the European SPI Conference in 2003 (Pries-Heje et al. 2003). Further, approximately 25 practitioners from 25 different companies tested the model in a professional course on IT quality offered by The Danish Leadership Institute (DIEU). The evaluation of using the model was very good and the utility was judged to be very high (more than four on a scale from one to five, where five is best) Building on this by developing the idea of technological rules, we tested our analysis at the design science research conference (DESRIST) in Philadelphia in May 2009. One manager from Siemens tried the model and found it very useful. Another anonymous reviewer, however, pointed out that the technological rule’s recommendation for ‘agenda’ in his case pointed to an approach that was different

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from that proposed for ‘process’ (observation, analysis and synthesis). Our interpretation of this case is that the two candidate core stories that we put together in Figure 5.2 may not be seamlessly linked. Probably there is a hierarchy, so that the overall ‘agenda’ points to a set of approaches that become relevant after employing the technological rules underneath (for process), which should help re-negotiate the placement of the organization. But that is an open question, calling for further research.

Conclusion This chapter contributes a new and alternative perspective on how design science based management planning can be improved by involving design concepts. By applying design science research as a guide for designing general frameworks for decision making, that is to say, heuristics, we help managers (in their own perception) to approach complex, strategic decisions in a more circumspect and controlled manner. The approach is built on the concept of technological rules, a simple expression of a practical design theory that relates a general organizational situation to a general course of action. The concrete example, process improvement, illustrated and validated the approach. Our process improvement example also demonstrates a contribution to the perception of the managers themselves, and, more generally, the design science approach to designing management decisions highlights that design concepts have value for improving management activities, a field of work that is not usually associated with design. This strategic framing of organizational design decisions contributes to the general core of design research by demonstrating that technological rules are an operational form of managerial design theory.

References Ahern, D.M., Clouse, A. and Turner, R. (2001). CMMI Distilled: a practical introduction to integrated process improvement, Boston: Addison-Wesley. Chrissis, M.B., Konrad, M. and Shrum, S. (2003) CMMI: guidelines for process integration and product improvement, Boston: Addison-Wesley. Deming, W.E. (1982) Out of the Crisis, Cambridge, MA: MIT Center for Advanced Engineering Study. EFQM (2003) ‘EFQM: introducing excellence’, Eindhoven: European Foundation for Quality Management. Feigenbaum, A.V. (1951) Quality Control: principles, practice and administration: an industrial management tool for improving product quality and design and for reducing operating costs and losses, New York: McGraw-Hill. Glaser, B.G. and Strauss, A.K. (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory, Strategies for Qualitative Research, Chicago: Aldine Publishers. Gregor, S. and Jones, D. (2008) ‘The anatomy of a design theory’, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 8 (5): article 1. Available HTTP: .

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Hunter, R.B., and Thayer, R.H. (2001) ‘Introduction’, in R.B. Hunter and R.H. Thayer (eds) Software Process Improvement, Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society Press. ISO 2000 (2005) ‘Quality management principles – fundamentals and vocabulary’, Geneva, Switzerland: International Organization for Standardization. Juran, J.M. and Godfrey, A.B. (eds) (1998) Juran’s Quality Handbook 5th Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill. Kant, I. (1908) ‘The critique of pure reason (1781)’, in B. Rand (ed.) Modern Classical Philosophers, Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Kaplan, R.S. and Norton, D.P. (1992) ‘The balanced scorecard – measures that drive performance’, Harvard Business Review, 70: 71–79. —— (1993) ‘Putting the balanced scorecard to work’, Harvard Business Review, 71: 134–47. —— (1996) The Balanced Scorecard: translating strategy into action, Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Kuvaja, P., Similä, J., Krzanik, L., Bicego, A., Saukkonen S. and Koch, G. (1994) Software Process Assessment and Improvement: the BOOTSTRAP approach, Oxford: Blackwell. March, S.T., and Smith, G. (1995) ‘Design and natural science research on information technology’, Decision Support Systems, 15: 251–66. Neave, H.R. (1990) The Deming dimension, Knoxville, TN: SPC Press. Pande, P.S., Neuman, R.P. and Cavanagh, R.R. (2000) The Six Sigma Way: how GE, Motorola, and other top companies are honing their performance, New York: McGraw-Hill. Oxford English Dictionary (1989) 2nd edn, OED online: Oxford University Press. Available HTTP: . Paulk, M.C., Weber, C., Curtis, B. and Chrissis, M.B. (1995) The Capability Maturity Model: guidelines for improving the software process, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Pries-Heje, J., and Baskerville, R. (2003) ‘Improving software organizations: an analysis of diverse normative models’, paper presented at the 2003 EuroSPI conference, Graz, Austria. Shewhart, W.A. (1931) Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company. pp. 501. —— (1939) Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control, ed. W. Edwards Deming, Washington, DC: the Graduate School, the Department of Agriculture. p. 155 Simon, H.A. (1996) The Science of the Artificial, 3rd edn, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research: techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory, 2nd edn, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Tingey, M.O. (1997) Comparing ISO 9000, Malcolm Baldrige, and the SEI CMM for Software: a reference and selection guide, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR, Vaishnavi, V. and Kuechler, W. (2004) ‘Design research in information systems’, updated 16 August 2009. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 30 November 2009). Van Aken, J.E. (2004) ‘Management research based on the paradigm of the design sciences: the quest for field-tested and grounded technological rules’, Journal of Management Studies, 41: 219–46. —— (2005a) ‘Management research as a design science: articulating the research products of mode 2 knowledge production in management’, British Journal of Management, 16: 19–36. —— (2005b) ‘Valid knowledge for the professional design of large and complex design processes’, Design Studies, 26: 379–404. Walls, J.G., Widmeyer, G.R. and El Sawy, O.A. (1992) ‘Building an information system design theory for vigilant EIS’ Information Systems Research, 3: 36–59.

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Knowing through design Poul Bitsch Olsen and Lorna Heaton

This chapter views design research as a process of knowing, and the design perspective as a social process of knowing. The disciplinary perspective is interpretive sociology, as applied to organizations particularly through Weick’s concepts of sensemaking and enactment. We illustrate our argument through a study of design processes in management activities, using quotations from interviews with two safety managers in very different fields. This text contributes to an understanding of design as an ongoing, collective activity of improvement.

The choice of a design configuration is also the choice of the team that will develop it. (Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons 2001)

There are almost as many definitions of design as there are designers. For example, we can read that design is ‘a goal-directed problem-solving activity’ (Archer 1964), ‘a creative activity [which] involves bringing into being something new and useful that has not existed previously’ (Reswick 1965), ‘the imaginative jump from present facts to future possibilities’ (Page 1966), ‘the human power to conceive, plan, and realize products that serve human beings in the accomplishment of any individual or collective purpose’ (Buchanan 2001), and so on (see Hubka and Eder [1996] for a review of definitions of design). Rather than try to produce a new or composite definition here, we prefer to highlight some recurrent, central elements that appear to characterize design across disciplines. First, if we return to the Latin roots of the words ‘design’ and ‘research’, we see that designare means ‘to designate’; this suggests a forward-looking, prospective activity. Cicare means ‘to go around’, from circa. With time, it has come to refer to a methodical or systematic way of acquiring knowledge. This accent on the process and practice of knowing, rather than on the result, is the first element in our characterization of design research. Leading design thinker Nigel Cross has been instrumental in establishing design as a discipline over the past 40 years. He notes that there is a lot of art in the practice

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of design and warns against trying to make design into an exact, replicable science (Cross 2008). Nevertheless, he is a strong proponent of design research that, he argues, can be useful in three forms (Cross 1995): • • •

research into design, by various kinds of observation, e.g. protocols research for design, to create tools (especially computer-based), design methods and forms of modelling research through design, e.g. abstraction from self-observation and other observations during designing, hypothesizing and testing.

All these types of design research imply an understanding of design as a process. This chapter addresses the ‘research through design’ approach, in the sense that here we have the engine of not only application of new and better knowledge but also the ‘subtle context of implication’ (Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons 2001: 97) into the area where design knowledge is relevant. It illustrates how trust is a precondition for design in organizations, and introduces a distinction between contexts of application and implication in the study of design. This allows design research to be more than copying, planning and counting, or the construction of theories that claim to correspond to objective methods of design. It reveals intentional, radical changes in knowledge through designing activity.

Design as process What characterizes the design process, or designing, as we will call it? Attempts at definition across fields as varied as engineering, architecture, fine arts or management generally agree that designing, as a process is creative. This creative process is often described as imaginative, intuitive, interactive, recursive, opportunistic, innovative, ingenious, unpredictable, refined, striking, novel, reflective. Designing is also goal-directed, a response to a perceived need. It is a pragmatic activity intimately related to the world around us. This response is often productive – to build or produce something. Alfred Schutz (1964: 75) reflects on the use of ‘modo future exacti’, where active people act on the basis of projects that they imagine as accomplished, as a part of their organizing of world order. They act and learn that something different happened, and then reformulate their project on the basis of the new worldview and act again. There are goals and intentions, but limited ability to predict, so acting is more like a series of social experiments. This is similar to the notion of enactment as acting that accomplishes the organizing process, where people design their practical world (Weick 1979: 130). Goaldirected designing may also be formulated as an attempt to make up for lack or absence. Whether formulated as a positive production or as a compensatory activity, designing has a connection with the world. This means that experience – past and in the moment – is important. This leads to another characteristic of designing: it is, to some extent, idiosyncratic. There may be a variety of personal solutions to a given problem. None is necessarily the best, all are possible, and some are better than others. Schutz

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(1964: 64) reflects with Mead how worlds are experienced in immediate contact (‘zuhanden’ in Heidegger’s term) and beyond reach (‘vorhanden’ in Heidegger’s term) and can thus exert influence directly or indirectly. One aspect of designing is to bring the world within reach, and therefore to bring oneself into direct contact with persons and things that are involved in this particular project. If a variety of responses or solutions are allowable in any given context, this implies the presence of multiple perspectives. Perspectives are the result of different experiences and life worlds, which are produced in and through interaction. While all may share the goals of a project, the different individuals involved may have different approaches to the situation. What is more, these perspectives are not fixed and may change and evolve over time as conditions (and experience) change. Longino points to plurality as a feature of contemporary Western science and argues for local epistemologies rather than a single unifying model or methodology, suggesting that a shared standard of empirical adequacy is sufficient: ‘If methodological rules and procedures are not claimed to be self-evident and contextindependent, then their rationale . . . must lie in the aims and goals of the inquiring community (or in its traditions)’ (2002: 187). Gherardi and Nicolini (2002: 434) point to the necessary integration of different epistemic practices through discursive practice, which results in an actual decision, which may not be canon, but eventually prevail as one decision among a cacophony of views. Designing has been characterized as knowing through making or doing. It happens only as it is instantiated in the moment. While it may be possible to build up a bank of design knowledge through experience, this experience does not take the place of designing. Although designing is informed by awareness of previous, related research, design knowledge is useful only when it is enacted. The process of designing involves a nonlinear response to a complex, relevant problem. This nonlinearity may be iterative, as when designers go through different moments of exploration with periodic returns to reflect, review and readjust. An iterative model suggests a sort of spiral in which the design takes form progressively and comes closer and closer to the set goal. Opportunistic actions can be taken when a likely avenue opens, but designers do not normally go off at any tangent. We suggest that designing is not necessarily iterative in the progressive sense, however. In our view, it may involve a series of jumps that participants hope will move things along but without certitude as to where the end may lie. Trust is, in this sense, a precondition for designing. Finally, designing can only come about within a field of constraints, both social and technical. If there are no limits to locate a potential design – the problem, the resources available, the goal – there will be no design. Here again, the social nature of the process is vital. Nowotny and others have expressed the changed conditions for creating quality by innovation in a ‘fragile future’, a reasoning that relates also to the complete sense of doing design and design research: ‘Driven by the capacity to aspire, it [innovation] does not predetermine either content or goal. Instead, it promises to provide new experiences that must measure themselves against and hone themselves on an equally changing reality to lead to robust results’ (Nowotny 2008: 9).

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A short example may help clarify these different characteristics of designing. We draw on the field of safety management (described in more detail later), in which the design of rules and procedures is intimately caught up with how they are used in social situations. Suppose there is a problem with the speed of machinery creating hazards and stress for workers on the factory floor. The safety manager needs to change organizational practices in such a way that organizational productivity concerns are reconciled with the organization’s responsibility for maintaining wellbeing in the workplace. He must take into consideration the physical characteristics of the factory, the forecast work flow, safety requirements and regulations, characteristics of materials used, cost considerations, and so on. All these constraints will influence the direction of his actions. The safety manager may typically visit the site, and talk to various employees. He may draw on elements of his previous work in other contexts (bank of experience) in elaborating a plan. He will then have to discuss the plan with management and refine it. The safety managers know to some extent what must be done to change old habits and produce a serious improvement in organizational behaviour, particularly in management attention and strategies. Still the means to that end are uncertain. The activities must be constructed along the way, and they must all have the support from the peers and top management. The design process is systematic in that it follows a general pattern from definition to conception to realization within an envelope of possibilities. The actual path that is taken within this zone is infinitely variable, however, and does not follow a rational plan.

A few words on theoretical assumptions and method We view design as a product of human activity. In this interpretive, phenomenological perspective, both theoretical and methodological reflections can improve the quality of knowing. Following the reflection provided by Schutz (1967: 72, 76), the perspective that frames a situation is produced by the user of knowledge, whether that person is a researcher, manager, architect or other participant. Intentionality is a key element of designing activity. Rather than staying in people’s minds, however, we argue that these frames are actualized as activity in social context, resulting in goods and standards created in the social world. This links with Weick’s work on sensemaking and enactment as acting that accomplishes the organizing process (1979). In this sense, the lens we apply in our work is both phenomenological and sociological. In terms of method, we are guided by an assumption that all general theories and phenomena are constructed by micro situations in which the phenomenon is enacted. (Collins 1981: 81) (Knorr-Cetina 1981: 25). Though we do not observe and interpret micro situations, we assume that this is the construction process of designing activity. Design has to happen somewhere, and it is generalized through the influence of repetition or dominance in other situations. We assume, consequently, that changes are produced when micro situations are aggregated into time, space and numbers. This in turn implies that radical design has occurred. As part of a project studying new directions in safety management, we interviewed a number of safety managers about how they participate in the creation of

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new standards for safety management. In the rest of this chapter, we quote from interviews with two safety managers who have an understanding of their work as transformative and radical. One manager works in a serial production manufacturing company with international units in Europe and China (Coloplast Inc.), while the other works for a financial service firm, with 4,400 employees in several offices (Nykredit Inc.). In both cases, the safety managers were responsible for safety development throughout their organizations. The managers were interviewed about how they participate in a particular practice – top safety management – and their standards of organizing, and how they consider aspects of significant quality improvement activities for safety and well-being in the workplace. The interviews focused on actual processes, organizing and practising new goods, and new standards that developed in practice, that is they have taken steps to advance the practice of safety management, and thereby created more productive management activities that improve welfare in their companies. Trust and robustness were not addressed specifically but they emerged in the managers’ discourse of use and meaning. We use quotations from the interviews to support our theoretical argument. We view them as reports from the field on actual practices of organizing, not as expressions of intentions.

Safety management as a design activity Safety management has its roots in institutionalized obligations for safety and mental health at work. For several decades, it has been structured by legal demands and external involvement in problem identification and control. The internal motivation for safety management was strongly influenced by external stakeholders, who contributed to the specification of risk categories and organizational activity and formal structure. Since the 1980s, stronger emphasis has been given to the maintenance of well-being at the workplace, supported by stronger understanding of risk factors created by work organization and management behaviour. In this perspective, where risk and diseases are undesirable by-products of organizing activity, management decisions sometimes produce illegal situations (most often neglect, which results in illness, invalidity and death). In short, efficient, ethical management must incorporate mindful attention to safety and well-being in the organization. They must maintain ongoing reflection about the relationship between organizational activity and the employees’ and managers’ mental health. Far from being a successful and well-established competence in advanced companies, this is an activity gradually finding its way into management discourse. Examples of relevant discussions are presented by Heckscher (2007) about managing speed and complexity in knowledge-based businesses. Over time, safety management has developed into a particular management field that may be described as a practice with its own goods and standards. We are interested in safety management because it is a process of defining health and safety. This definition is new and original; it is integrated into the companies’ worlds at the management level, and explained as management and leadership objectives, whereas it was previously marginalized in collective management discourse.

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The safety managers we refer to are active at the top management level and their actions affect their entire organizations. Some safety managers are in the midst of a change process, where their points of reference move from an institutionalized, rationalizing, planning and apparently predictable perspective to a perspective where they must create and design a valid understanding of their task, based on internal reasoning – moral, ethical, rational and appropriate for the relations that the company wants to develop. Their responsibilities also extend to things such as the relationship between work and family obligations. While not all safety management work is design activity, we argue that their creation of new standards and procedures is design. The safety managers must construct organizational understandings and procedures that change old habits and make sense of aspects that managers did not need to care about before. In that situation, the safety manager may contribute to the change process, that ends up with results in a better coexistence between business and management practices and the producers’ well-being and safety. The product is a changed organization and a new definition of safety in a particular context. Safety managers design the safety in their organizations by designing epistemic structures and cultures. An institutional perspective sees safety and welfare as a planned, predictable and foreseeable phenomenon that can be constructed on the basis of experience and solutions that have worked in other situations. A more radical perspective approaches safety and welfare organizing as a dynamic, ongoing accomplishment based on steps that involve top management because they can include radical reformulations of how to understand the well-being of the firm with its employees and tasks. It may be a dangerous activity, because convergent sensemaking is a difficult task. Top managers must be convinced, and peer managers must accept. It is easy to make enemies among peer managers, and all managers are also dependent on strong support among top management, and resourceful organizing activities, that make sense for all involved: managers and employees. Our look into radical safety management design activity relies on the premise that an unfolding situation cannot be managed as a rational system, but must rather be enacted by involving considerations of an experimental process, which can be influenced but whose outcome cannot be predicted with certainty. Purpose and intention are important elements that are actualized by active leadership. This leadership includes active and, to some extent, creative work on the process, in order to overcome path-dependency in organizing processes. Safety managers maintain their preparedness for enactment and for dealing with uncertainty by being active in situations where trust is the mediating tool for decisions. This supports the ‘willingness to forego planning and rehearsing in favour of acting in real time’ (Weick 1999; 2001: 299) that is a condition for radically influencing in the future. Safety managers’ activities always involve intersubjective negotiations and processes based on acknowledgement that different participants bring different perspectives to the situation. They are embarked on a process of continuous learning, punctuated with some remarkable points.

Knowing through design

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Implicit judgement A key element of design is the implicit judgment of quality attached to it. Not all products qualify as design objects and not all processes are design. Designing requires an element of mindfulness, the thoughtfulness based on cues signalling that one’s frame and theory of the situation should be altered (Olsen 2008: 296; Weick et al. 2001: 42). In the remainder of the chapter, we will elaborate on three concepts with which to reflect on how quality is produced and what it means. We will address notions of quality, robustness and trust and relate them to a detailed example of safety management. We use the term quality to refer to improvement of standards in a field, while designing is defined as creating better organizational understanding. Robustness refers to effective knowing – better integration of the new understanding. Quality is, as mentioned, the orientation that participants have when they create new perspectives and accomplish enactments of them. The creation of significant powerful new microsituations, imply trust between the involved managers.

Slow design – designing to know The safety managers see the contextualization of knowledge as a very difficult as well as very important part of their activity, since the design of safer behaviour is a constantly unfolding process that always involves active contributions from others. ‘The choice of a design configuration is also the choice of the team that will develop it’ (Nowotny et al. 2001: 155) is one of the many formulations about design that expresses its social and personal character. Within our one-hour interviews, both safety managers make several references to the micro-social character of the establishment of better social structures (Collins 1981: 81). They design an ‘ongoing social improvement without end’, together with some more or less convergent co-managers and producers, and in doing so, they create remarkable milestones in the organization. Trust is a precondition for socially integrated improvements. Swift trust, as well as a generalized climate of trust, allows the safety managers to imagine new and improved configurations, so that the entire organization is enabled to care about particular aspects of relevance for safe organizing. The trusting expectation of other participants’ approval of the general aim and experiments towards it, and work on t