`Afterwards we can understand what went wrong, but

1
Authors name
‘Afterwards we can understand what went
wrong, but now let’s fix it’: How situated work
practices shape group decision making
Francesca Alby and Cristina Zucchermaglio
Abstract
Francesca Alby
University of
Rome, Italy
Cristina
Zucchermaglio
University of
Rome, Italy
The paper proposes an ethnomethodological approach to the study of naturalistic
decision making. We present an analysis of design practices in an Internet company,
showing that, besides ‘professional design’ of technological systems, designers are
continually involved in an activity of maintenance and replanning of these same
systems (‘design-in-use’). Through an interaction-based analysis, we describe a
serious emergency design-in-use situation. Results show that (1) decision-making
activities are not clearly identifiable in ongoing problem-solving action but are
embedded in complex work practices; (2) work practices and organizational features
shape when, how and which decisions are made, underlying the situated character of
the decision-making process; (3) considering the group of designers as unit of analysis
allows the complex and distributed nature of decision making in organizations to be
described.
Keywords: naturalistic decision making, situated action, technological design, work
practices, work groups
Organizational Rationality as Rhetorical Practice
Organization
Studies
27(X): 000–000
ISSN 0170–8406
Copyright © 2006
SAGE Publications
(London,
Thousand Oaks,
CA & New Delhi)
www.egosnet.org/os
According to the perspective adopted in this study, organizations and groups
do not exist independently of their social actors and, on the contrary, exist
only through the actions and discourses of the latter. The daily interactions
between members of work groups are, therefore, a constituting characteristic
of the organizational context and the way through which organizations exist
and work. This means considering the organizational order as created interactively through the actions — mostly discursive — of the organizational
actors. In this perspective, the organizational structure is an emergent property
of the discursive interactions among its members. Indeed, it is through
discourse that organizations act, decide and plan. These actions are social,
widespread and incremental processes, carried out interactively and often
under time pressure or economic limits by the organizational actors who move
through a ‘fluid whole consisting of identifying problems, negotiating objectives, searching for solutions and decision-making processes that rarely show
the rational and logical characteristics taught in business schools’ (Boden
1994: 22). This also means considering organizational rationality as an
interactively produced phenomenon (and not a characteristic of individual
DOI: 10.1177/0170840606065703
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Organization Studies 27(X)
thought), connected to political problems, relevance, priorities and organizational rhetoric rather than to a formal decontextual logic. And, on the basis
of these limitations, the social actors make available and rhetorically organize
information into a meaningful system which takes into account relevancy and
priorities.
This view clearly contrasts with all classical analyses of the decisionmaking process based on rational choice theories. According to these theories,
the decision maker first lists all possible opportunities for action, then
identifies all consequences deriving from the choice of every action and,
finally, selects the action that will be followed out of the best and most optimal
consequences (Simon 1978). On the basis of this model, decision making is
an individual cognitive activity that takes place ‘before’ and in any case ‘far
from’ operational activities.1 For this reason, these rational models are mostly
thought of as general, that is, cognitive strategies that are always valid,
independently of the social, organizational and cultural practices in which
these processes of choice, decision making and planning occur (and which,
on the contrary, they contribute in large measure to defining).
The situated and cultural view (Suchman 1987; Engeström and Middleton
1996) provides a completely different picture of the role of rationality: ‘Stated
in the broadest terms “being rational” is not so much carrying out a function
of obscure and internal “thought”, as much as participating in forms of
cultural life’ (Gergen and Tojo 1996: 359). Therefore, it is not a question of
acting rationally in more effective ways with respect to non-rational ways but
of effectively using the resources and rhetorical devices made available to us
by the organizational culture we belong to: ‘rational planning has the character
of an organizational rhetoric which serves primarily as a resource for those
who have to produce plans as accountable, public documents’ (Dant and
Francis 1998: 5). In this sense, plans are a culturally and socially accepted
way for organizations to represent their behaviour abstractly and rationally
and for this reason they have an important rhetorical and social function
(Suchman 1987). Plans are an attempt to bridge the distance in rhetorically
effective ways between ‘ideal’ rational planning and the ways things are
carried out interactively to face contingent and socially situated reasons in
the course of daily organizational life. Therefore, the plan is seen as a device
for justifying and rationalizing post-hoc organizational action, produced by
means of continuous negotiation with the other organizational actors. Briefly,
plans do not determine action but are rather resources constructed and
consulted by the actors before, during and after the facts.
March (1991) showed that, rather than prefiguring future actions, organizational decisions are often a posteriori justifications — rhetorically appropriate
and negotiated — of already obtained results. In other words, they are narrative
and social, rational and linear reconstructions of what has taken place
interactively (often in disorderly ways) to face specific events. In this view,
decision-making activities are also social and discursive processes more than
individual processes, as in classical models (Mintzberg 1973; March and Olsen
1989). Therefore, rational decision making is the rhetorically appropriate
product of a reconstruction of events and organizational processes, which have
Alby & Zucchermaglio: “Afterwards we can understand what went wrong”
3
a rather problematic and situated character as they are taking place (Star 1996).
In this perspective, therefore, rationality is not a characteristic of individual
thought, a phenomenon that takes place ‘inside the head’, but rather a form of
reconstruction carried out through social participation in the discursive and
rhetorical practices of a certain community.
Naturalistic Decision Making and Workplace Studies
In recent years there has been an increasing number of studies, defined as
‘workplace studies’ (WS; Luff et al. 2000), investigating how action is
socially and discursively organized in work contexts. These studies, following
an ethnomethodological approach, have a common interest in the ‘naturalistic’ analysis of work contexts and attention to the technologies and artifacts
present in that context. Workplace studies are primarily empirical studies of
action and organizational interaction in which technology is considered to be
just one of the resources utilized by the actors. The major studies investigated
air and ground traffic control centres (Goodwin and Goodwin 1996; Suchman
1997), emergency units (Whalen 1995), rapid urban transport control centres
(Filippi and Theureau 1993; Heath and Luff 2000), financial centres (Harper
1998; Jirotka et al. 1993), medical and surgical teams (Heath 2002; Heritage
et al. 2001; Hindmarsh and Pilnick 2002; Mondada 2001; Koschmann et al.
2001), high-tech companies (Newman 1998; Alby 2004), and laboratories
and scientific research centers (Latour and Woolgar 1986; Alac and Hutchins
2004). In these work contexts, people have to coordinate a complex set
of local and distributed activities. These activities are characterized by a
simultaneous flow of parallel courses of action occurring within the centre
and between the centre and other contexts. They require the coordination of
a variety of resources including paper documents, information systems, large
mechanical or digital displays (showing, for example, air traffic information)
and various communication instruments (such as telephones, radios, etc.).
These contexts provide the opportunity to examine how groups are able to
use these instruments and resources to ‘see’ and monitor distributed events
and activities and to develop coordinated decisions to problems and emergencies (Luff et al. 2000).
These situated and social studies have a similar research object to NDM
studies, with which they share the attempt to understand how people act,
including how people make decisions, in real-world contexts that are
meaningful and familiar to them (Zsambok and Klein 1997; Lipshitz et al.
2001). However in WS, decisions are studied not as mental objects but as
forms of social practices. This crucial epistemological choice has relevant
consequences in terms of what is considered as unit of analysis and as data.
In fact, because of the very interest in studying social and distributed action,
not the individual (his mind or cognitive models) but dyads, teams and
communities are chosen as units of analysis. Furthermore, the data considered
relevant are the interactive practices — discursive, visual and material —
among social actors. Interactions are considered essential to analysing how
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Organization Studies 27(X)
action is organized but also to studying distributed forms of cognition, which
are socially and publicly shared and constructed (Hutchins 1995).
Workplace studies also share with NDM studies an emic approach to
research2 (Pike 1971): instead of models’ formalization, the research aims to
analyse specificities and features of locally constructed social worlds, whose
descriptions will be less general but more credible and closer to actors’
everyday work experience.
Ethnomethodology is widely used because it fulfils emic requirements:
gathering actors’ point of view, emphasis on everyday activities, ‘thick’ and
context-sensitive descriptions of such activities (Geertz 1973). Ethnomethodology proposes the study of social order as it is constituted in and through the
socially organized conduct of the community’s members (Garfinkel 1967).
In an emic approach, defining what event we are observing relies upon the
meaning that social actors attribute to such an event. Conversation analysis
(CA), a research tradition that grew out of ethnomethodology, is a powerful
tool to understand how such meanings are interactively constructed in
everyday contexts, including organizational ones (see Boden 1994; Drew and
Heritage 1992; Firth 1995; Heath and Luff 2000; Goodwin 1994). It is in fact
through the integrated analysis of discourses, gestures and bodily conduct,
material and technological infrastructure that organizational practices (of
decision making, problem solving, knowledge sharing, collaboration, etc.)
become observable events.
Conversation analysis has some unique methodological features. It studies
the social organization of ‘conversation’, or ‘talk-in-interaction’, by a detailed
inspection of audio or videotape recordings and transcriptions made from
such recordings (for an overview of CA’s theoretical and/or methodological
position and/or substantive findings see Schegloff and Sacks 1973; Heritage
1984; Heritage and Atkinson 1984). CA researchers insist on the use of video
recordings of episodes of ‘naturally occurring’, that is, non-experimental,
interaction as their basic data. The transcriptions made after these are to be
seen as a convenient form to represent the recorded material in written form,
but not as a real substitute (Ochs 1979). The idea of CA is that language is
not just a sign but ‘a constitutive element of human agency, that is of our
making and unmaking the world’ (Duranti 2003: 47). Analysing discourses
allows us to study social action (including decision making) in the very
moment of its ongoing construction and to do it with the interpretive categories used by the participants themselves.
Design as Social Practice
Decisions can be broadly defined as ‘committing oneself to a certain course
of action’ (Lipshitz et al. 2001: 346). In everyday work settings such a
commitment is always interwoven with many processes and embedded in
other activities. In order to understand how naturalistic decisions are made it
is in fact necessary to analyse the organization of the broader activity in which
decisions ‘happen’. This wide focus lets the situated interrelation among
Alby & Zucchermaglio: “Afterwards we can understand what went wrong”
5
different kind of social and distributed processes — i.e. planning, problem
solving, team coordination, decision making — emerge and be studied in its
complex and located relations.
In this paper we are going to analyse how specific features of work
practices organize decision making (intended as choices of a certain course
of action) in a particular type of technological design.
Before making a detailed analysis of the data, it may be useful to reflect on
the nature of the design practice. Design is a particular type of activity that
goes beyond the confines of different communities of practice (different
communities of designers but also of users), and it links the past and the future.
In general, the methods proposed for developing technological systems are
often detached from practice and presented as ‘recipes’, which do not consider
the specifics of the design context or the designers’ competencies. Also, these
methods present design as a monolithic activity and often prescribe a strictly
sequential work process, e.g. from analysis to system programming, as if the
adequacy or effectiveness of the product was assured by the rational and
sequential nature of the construction process (Bødker and Christiansen 1997).
On the contrary, in daily work practices design is a varied and complex
activity. Technical design turns out to be divided into two interdependent work
processes, not only consisting of planning but also of maintenance and
replanning of what had already been constructed (Zucchermaglio and Alby
2005). The two types of process meet different needs and both are necessary
for developing effective technological systems. The primary need around
which these two types of processes are structured is the management of
different time dimensions, a question intrinsic to the nature of the design
practice. In fact, the aim of the formal planning — which we called ‘professional design’ and that is usually associated with a technical type of design
— is to create a future object. Since what will be created is by definition new
and to some degree unknown, neither the product nor the process can be
completely known or planned ahead of time. Therefore, an activity of maintenance, ‘troubleshooting’ and replanning — which we called, according to
Suchman (1997), ‘design-in-use’ — is also required to create effective
technological products. This type of ‘invisible work’ (Star and Strauss 1999)
tends to be unrecognized as work routine and, therefore, is less studied.
While in the first case the focus on representing the future orients action
toward stability and regularity, in the second case ‘speed’ becomes a central
issue due to the need to manage the present and the variability and urgency
of situations. In the latter case, on which we will focus here, team coordination
mechanisms are mainly based on tacit shared knowledge to support a quick
collective action and decision.
Enter the Setting
The data that we are going to analyse come from a research project on work
practices in an Internet company (Alby 2004; Zucchermaglio and Alby 2005).
The company (which we will call ‘Energy’) manages a portal that provides
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Organization Studies 27(X)
services to a mass audience (personalized homepage, news, e-mail, SMS,
thematic channels, e-commerce, etc.). It employs about 40 people divided
into two main work groups, i.e. producers and engineers. The former manage
the editorial content and the latter the portal systems and applications.
The data were collected in a three-month ethnography, through field
observations, video recordings and interviews. In the first month we realized
a preliminary field observation aimed to describe the everyday organization
of work practices. Selected interviews with key informants were also realized
in this phase. In the following months we recorded about 10 hours’ video of
interactions, which were transcribed using the Jefferson notation system
(Jefferson 1989; see Box 1). In order to have a broader view of the work
practices under study, we also collected instant messenger logs (about 3 hours),
e-mail (related to the interactions, 23 items), papers (related to the interactions,
10 items), photos (20), print screens of the web site and various applications
(10 items). The analysis of the entire data corpus enabled us to describe the
specific organizational features of Energy. The conversation analysis of
discursive and interactive data allowed us to study the situated and emergent
organization of social action, including decision-making processes.
As a first result, Energy turned out to have an organizational culture typical
of Internet companies, defined by the designers as a ‘start-up’ culture, whose
characteristics are described by Paolo, the chief engineer, in an interview (see
fragment 13).
Symbol
Explanation
Line number
[
Box 1.
Jefferson’s
Transcription
Notation
]
Indicates an overlap in speaker’s talk
(0.5)
Indicates a pause in speech, in this case 0.5 seconds
(.)
Indicates a pause of less than one tenth of a second
=
Used at the beginning or end of a new line to indicate continuous speech
word
Indicates speaker’s stress on a word or phrase
*word*
Indicates a quietly spoken word or phrase
(word)
Indicates transcriber’s uncertainty about what was said
wo::rd
Indicates extensions of this word or sound preceeding
word
Indicates a rise in intonation occuring after the symbol
word
Indicates a fall in intonation occuring after the symbol
:h:h
Indicates an outbreath
Alby & Zucchermaglio: “Afterwards we can understand what went wrong”
7
Fragment 1
1. Paolo:
la velocità è la cosa più importante, non la perfezione... è vero che i
problemi non scompaiono ma ragionandoci troppo perdiamo altre
opportunità
speed is the most important thing, not perfection … it’s true that
problems don’t just disappear, but if we spend too much time discussing
them, we lose other opportunities
A good part of Energy’s activity involves short or unexpected projects or
troubleshooting4 activities, which changes the times and priorities established
during more formal planning.5 Another variable that influences design is the
type of market the Internet companies move in (see fragment 2).
Fragment 2
1. Paolo:
forse sbaglio ma l’ambiente mi ha formato così. è un mercato sempre
incerto, non si sa mai qual è il futuro (...) i progetti cambiano sempre,
che me ne importa di lavorare tanto su una cosa che forse si chiude! Noi
stessi fra un anno potremmo essere chiusi!
maybe I’m wrong, but the environment has made me that way. The
market is always uncertain, you never know what the future will be (…)
plans change continuously, what do I care about working a lot on
something that may close! We could even be closed in a year!
The company is one of the few which survived the crisis in the sector; all
of the other offices abroad were closed and the American home office went
bankrupt. Also this premonition of a precarious future influences the work
choice for visible results in a short period of time.
The start-up culture was first launched by Claudio, who was sent by the
American home office to start the company. Then, this culture underwent
oscillations related to a succession of different leaders and company choices.
For example, the choice to keep the company small (recently even further
reduced) facilitates a loosely structured way of working, which it would be
difficult to manage in a larger company. This historical-organizational scenario
strongly influences the designers’ way of working and making decisions.
Decisions in Action
We will now examine a rather serious emergency design-in-use situation
(evaluated 9 by the designers on a scale from 1 to 10) in which content
different from that originally inserted was found on the site, visible to all the
users (see also Figure 1).
As we will see, specific and tacitly shared work routines and an expert use
of social, cognitive and material resources allow the participants to quickly
react and manage the emergency.
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Organization Studies 27(X)
Phase 1: Reconstructing Action from its Product
The process started with Carlo, a producer, who went to Paolo, head of the
engineers, saying, ‘Help Paolo, the site’s down!’ If there are serious problems
regarding users viewing the site, the phrase ‘the site’s down’ said aloud in
the open area immediately calls attention to the problem and gives it top
priority. A group of about seven people are gathered around Paolo’s desk.
Paolo, head of the engineers, has the task of facing emergencies to protect
the continuity of the other engineers’ professional design activities.
First, the diagnosis involves identifying ‘where’ the problem is: Paolo, in
fact, excludes that the problem is in the publication, that is, in the transfer of
content prepared by the producer, because the problem also exists in the
version of the site present on the development server (the machine used to
test the changes on the site before they are transferred to another machine and
made ‘public’; see fragment 3).
Fragment 3
1. Paolo:
okay, quindi c’è un problema col contenuto di: Tigre si vede che non è
stato solo un problema di pubblicazione perchè: vediamo lo stesso
problema anche qua prima di pubblicazione
okay, therefore, there’s a problem with the Tiger’s6 contents it’s clear
that it is not just a problem of publication because we see the same
problem also here before publication
Although they are now aware of the involvement of Tiger, the designers still
do not understand how the program is involved and what actually happened.
The diagnosis continues with an account of what the producers did right
before the problem appeared (see fragment 4).
Fragment 4
1. Gianna: io ho messo uno slot in società
I put a slot7 in society8
2. Carlo:
non è stato
it wasn’t
3. Gianna: in società io l’ho messo non è che
in society, I put it in society, it’s not that
4. Carlo:
aspetta, una cosa alla volta.in homepage è stato cambiato un link (.) e
basta. niente di più
wait, one thing at a time. in homepage a link (.) was changed and that’s
all. nothing else
5. Lisa:
poi è stato pure tolto
then it was also taken out
6. Carlo:
poi è stato pure tolto quindi è come era prima
then it was also taken out, so it’s like it was before
Alby & Zucchermaglio: “Afterwards we can understand what went wrong”
9
The collective diagnostic process proceeds through direct action on the
site. Various options are sequentially evaluated one at the time (Lipshitz
et al. 2001) linking actions (‘if I access without Tiger’, see fragment 5) and
their visible products on the screen (‘the page isn’t broken’, see fragment 5).
Fragment 5
1. Paolo:
perchè guarda se io accedo a un link senza Tigre
because look if I access a link without Tiger
2. Carlo:
ssh:: sentiamo
ssh:: let’s hear
3. Paolo:
se io accedo senza Tigre la pagina non è rotta
if I access without Tiger the page isn’t broken9
This expert practice is used forwards and backwards from the action to the
product and vice versa: if I carry out a certain action, I obtain a certain product
(‘If I access without Tiger the page isn’t broken’) but also: if I obtained this
product it means that there was a certain action. This second use is carried
out by Luca when he hypothesizes a problem pertaining to javascript10 (see
fragment 6).
Fragment 6
1. Luca:
no=no ecco ragazzi ma qua c’è stato qualche sputtanamento sul
javascript te lo dico io perchè dice error su homepage
no=no okay guys, but here there was some mess up in javascript,
I’m telling you because it says error on homepage
In this case, Luca reconstructs the type of action (‘mess up in javascript’)
from the type of result obtained (‘because it says error on homepage’). The
program’s action causing the problem is not visible to the actors, not only
because it has already happened but because it is hidden by the mediation of
technology and can only be inferred by analysing its product on the site. This
interpretative practice is a collective one and functions as a conversation in
which the various actors propose their interpretative hypotheses, giving voice
to the results of their action on technology (‘it says error on homepage’, ‘the
page isn’t broken’, see fragment 5).11
Phase 2: Not Losing Time
The group moves to a producer’s desk at Paolo’s request to see an open Tiger
slot. In this phase, the group seems to lose its concentration, almost overcome
by the seriousness and lack of clarity regarding the symptoms of the problem.
Paolo’s consideration of time (fragment 7: ‘we’re losing time’; about 3
minutes had passed from the beginning of the process) brings the group’s
attention back to the problem
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Organization Studies 27(X)
Fragment 7
1. Paolo:
okay well la cosa (.) non possiamo aprire Tigre adesso?
okay well the thing (.) we can’t open Tiger now?
2. Luca:
abbiamo fatto un restyling automatico ((ride))
we made an automatic restyling ((laughs))
3. Paolo:
okay ma (1.0) ma stiamo perdendo tempo
okay but (1.0) but we’re losing time
4. Luca:
stiawe’re-
5. Paolo:
apriamo Tigre
let’s open Tiger
The importance of not letting too much time pass is tacitly recognized and
shared by all since it is ‘heavy’ time, i.e., time in which the non functioning
site is visible to all users.
Phase 3: Solving First, Then Understanding
Paolo finishes closing the dispersion phase by proposing to give priority to
solving the problem rather than to analysing and understanding what
happened (see fragment 8).
Fragment 8
1. Luca:
dai dimme tutto
go on tell me everything
2. Paolo:
poi dopo possiamo capire che
cosa andava storto ma adesso
afterwards we can understand
what went wrong, but now
3. Luca:
adesso
now
4. Paolo:
mettiamolo a posto
let’s fix it
5. Luca:
sò d’accordo
I agree
Time pressure plays a basic role in this decision. When they see that the
analysis requires too much time (phase 1 and 2), they decide to intervene in
any case to solve the ‘public symptoms’ of the problem.
Alby & Zucchermaglio: “Afterwards we can understand what went wrong”
11
Phase 4: Intervening in Order to Diagnose (Strategy I)
Afterwards an iterative repair process takes place alongside the analysis of
the situation. Paolo proposes a first attempt which, however, does not produce
any positive results (see fragment 9).
Fragment 9
1. Luca:
che faccio Paolo?
what should I do Paolo?
2. Paolo:
si, cancella.
yes, cancel.
3. Luca:
da qua?
from here?
4. Paolo:
si
yes
5. Luca:
script language
script language
6. Paolo:
si, fino a ( )se=senza pushare e apriamo un’altra finestra solo per fare
( )cinque=cinque=cinque (2.0)mettiamo a posto quel numero (quando)
si vede bene sul cinque=cinque=cinque e poi pushiamo (2.0) così anche
non perdiamo [tempo]
yes, up to ( )wi=without pushing and let’s open another window to make
( ) five=five=five12 (2.0) let’s fix that number (when) it can be seen well
on five=five-five and then let’s push (2.0) also so we won’t lose [time]
7. Luca:
[niente]
[nothing]
The strategy is to make several changes and to see whether they produce
appreciable results. This strategy has double valence: on one side it aims to
solve the problem, at least the ‘symptoms’ immediately visible to the users; on
the other, it serves for proceeding toward a diagnosis and gradually understanding other parts of the problem. This involves the same interpretative
practice used before (phase 1) except that in this case the type of action is
different and takes shape as a true repair intervention. While in Fragment 5 (‘if
I access without Tiger the page is not broken’) Paolo’s action is a verification
(not a change) in the site status, here instead designers try to intervene directly
by making changes in Tiger to see what will happen.13 A second attempt at
such a ‘repair strategy’ gives better results (see fragment 10).
Fragment 10
1. Paolo:
h:: prova otto=cinque=cinque anche se è il mio è più o meno (.) no va
be’
h:: try eight=five=five even if it’s mine it’s more or less (.) no, okay
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Organization Studies 27(X)
2. Luca:
è cambiato un pò il layout della pagina
the page layout is somewhat changed
3. Paolo:
quindi non è solo quello (6.0) ma: (7.0)o: (8.0) quindi è questo occhio
a. magari togli tutto questo, fai un cut
so it’s not just that (6.0) but: (7.0) o: (8.0) so it’s this eye to. maybe take
out all this, make a cut
Even though neither the first nor the second repair attempt was successful
in terms of solving the problem, they actually served in the diagnostic process,
in fact they help to construct the subsequent intervention. The third attempt
led to the first appreciable result and pushed them ‘closer’ to the solution (see
fragment 11).
Fragment 11
1. Luca: °ah° qualcosa cambia eh?
°ah° something’s changing eh?
2. Paolo: almeno siamo più vicino
at least we’re closer
It is interesting to note that through this ‘active’ diagnosis the problem can
be solved even without understanding why. The dialogue between Luca and
Paolo is a sort of ‘navigation by sight’, in which they do not know where they
are going until after they have seen the results of the intervention. Thus, it is
the action that supports the process of diagnosis and problem solving. The
comprehension and analysis phase is not only cognitive and does not occur
before the action but is profoundly connected to and embedded in the action.
The action’s outcome is retroactive on the diagnosis of the initial situation,
either confirming or correcting it.
Gradualness is another element that characterizes this diagnosis process.
It develops by degrees toward the solution (‘at least we’re closer’) and is
discovered through a series of (more or less correct) intervention attempts
that have nothing to do with the complete and exhaustive understanding of
the nature of the problem. This way of proceeding, in which the action is
‘intelligent’ and supports comprehension instead of ‘pure’ rational analysis
of the situation, confirms what Suchman (1987) theorized about plans
understood as resources for action, reviewed moment by moment, rather than
as prescriptions for action.
Phase 5: Hiding the Problem from the Users (Strategy 2)
The strategy changes again at Luca’s suggestion (see fragment 12). The
strategy he proposes consists of taking out all the parts managed by Tiger
that contain the errors, to obtain an extremely basic, but at least coherent and
clean, site.
Alby & Zucchermaglio: “Afterwards we can understand what went wrong”
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Fragment 12
1. Luca:
fa na cosa.
do something.
2. Paolo:
hm.
hm.
3. Luca:
in dcg togli tutta la parte fissa Tigre (2.0) lasciamo soltanto la parte
personalizzata
in dcg take out all the Tiger fixed part (2.0) let’s leave only the
personalized part
4. Paolo:
okay. quindi forse salto [tutta]
therefore, maybe I’ll cut [all]
5. Luca:
[eh]
[eh]
6. Paolo:
questa sezione?
this section?
7. Luca:
si
yes
8. Paolo:
okay
okay
9. Luca:
al volo
quick
10. Paolo: okay
okay
11. Luca:
tanto perchè qui la cosa è lunga
because this is a long story
12. Paolo: va bene
okay
The notations ‘quick’ and ‘because this is a long story’ show that again
lack of time is the limit the strategies of action follow; that is, if a strategy
does not function quickly, it has to be changed. Leadership of the process
passes from Paolo to Luca in a very natural and fluid way. It is marked by the
‘order’ Luca gives Paolo (‘do something’) and Paolo’s immediate acceptance
(‘hm’). Contrary to the preceding phase, now the strategy is Luca’s and the
execution Paolo’s. The strategy in this phase consists of taking all the ‘dirty’
contents out of the site to obtain a solution that will make the site presentable
to the users. At this point, intervention and diagnosis become two separate
courses of action: the first carried out by Paolo, the second by Luca.
14
Organization Studies 27(X)
Phase 6: Understanding What Happened
While Paolo implements the solution, Luca continues the diagnosis by
exploring the site and clicking on the various links to understand the problem
better. While clicking on ‘my energy’ (a link present on the site), Luca
discovers that the link connects to content that is different to what the
producers put on it (see fragment 13).
Fragment 13
1. Luca: ma no aspetta ma qua s’è sputtanato proprio il mondo!
but no wait, the whole world’s gone crazy here!
2. Carlo: te lo sto a dì
that’s what I’m telling you
3. Luca: ma no (.) sul mio energy c’è un altro contenuto
but no (.)there’s other contents on my energy
In these sentences — which occur simultaneously with the implementation
of the solution Paolo is working on — Luca takes an important step in the
diagnosis by defining what happened exactly (see fragment 14).
Fragment 14
1. Luca:
lo sai cosa?(.)Paolo? vedi qua il mio Energy contiene invece cose
(0.5)cioè, è proprio sbagliato il codice degli slot
you know what?(.)Paolo? look here my Energy contains instead things
(0.5) that is, the slot code is wrong
2. Paolo:
quindi dici:: che forse c’è stato un errore di Tigre che ha mis[chiato]
so you’re saying that maybe there was a Tiger error that mi[xed]
3. Luca:
[ha mis]chiato i contenuti
[mix]ed the contents
4. Carlo:
ha mischiato tutto [quanto]
it mixed up [everything]
5. Luca:
[guarda] dove è finito questo qua? ha scambiato=ha scambiato le cose
Tigre
[look] where did this end up? Tiger mixed=mixed up things
Through this dialogue, designers share a common understanding of what
happened, i.e. the Tiger program started mixing the contents by itself.
Alby & Zucchermaglio: “Afterwards we can understand what went wrong”
15
Phase 7: Reconstructing the Event
At this point, the emergency ends. The rhythm slows down, the group, which
was reduced, again includes four or five people. Several producers rush over
to see the solution. The site is actually accessible from their posts, but they
prefer to see and discuss it together.
The provisional solution was to ‘clean’ the site of all the parts that caused
the errors, and to have a bare, basic site without errors. The thematic channels
were among the parts eliminated; however, the section devoted to the news
was kept, because it is managed and updated automatically in outsourcing
(see fragment 15).
Fragment 15
((laughing))
1. Luca:
bella l’homepage
nice homepage
2. Carlo:
elementare immediata, senza fronzoli, tutta incentrata sulle news
elementary immediate, without frills, all centered on the news
3. Luca:
eh ‘nfatti
eh in fact
4. Carlo:
senza canali
without channels
5. Luca:
sembra=sembra la repubblica
seems=seems like la repubblica14
6. Carlo:
eh!
eh!
7. Gianna: è vero!
it’s true!
8. Luca:
bè almeno: è presentabile.
well, at least it’s presentable. ((becoming serious))
In this fragment, irony is used as a resource in the interaction to construct a
shared meaning. Comparing the site to the newspaper La Repubblica is
strongly ironic and at the same time it is a very effective synthesis of what
their site has become, which helps everyone have a better understanding of
the significance of the entire process (‘eh!’, ‘it’s true!’). Luca ironically
describes the current homepage as ‘beautiful’, a description continued by
Carlo (‘elementary immediate, without frills, all centered on the news’.) In
the joking, but realistic, description of the homepage is the history of
everything that happened and resulted in that type of product. Through the
description of the current homepage, the group reconstructs and makes sense
of what happened, until a solution is reached: to have a site that is presentable
16
Organization Studies 27(X)
for the users (‘well at least it’s presentable’.) The working out of the
problematic event is contained entirely in the product of the group actions.
For the group, looking at and collectively describing that process is a way of
reflecting on the event and reappropriating it for use in similar future
situations as a distributed competence of the group as a whole.
Phase 8: Understanding the Cause
Besides commenting on the final homepage, the participants reconstruct the
sense of what happened by reconstructing the story together. In particular,
Luca, Carlo and Paolo describe the various phases of the process to Bruno,
another engineer, to thoroughly investigate Tiger’s malfunctioning now that
the emergency is over. The report is made not only in words but also in images
from the site, animated by the participants’ gestures (see fragment 16).
Fragment 16
1. Paolo:
il mio Energy l’ha messo
qua (0.5) animazione l’ha
messo da un’altra parte
it put my Energy here (0.5)
and it put the animation
somewhere else
Bruno seems to be the main audience for the story. However, he was present
during a large part of the process and, therefore, has no need of this detailed
account. Instead, the story seems to have the specific function of permitting
a collective reconstruction of events. The narration is made by more than one
person. There are intervals during which the participants question each other
to reach a reciprocal understanding and to provide resources for interpreting
the cause of the problem (see fragment 17).
Fragment 17
1. Paolo:
non è:: non è chiaro quello che è successo. ci sono dei=dei log di Tigre
che: h: possono [aiutarci?]
it’s not it’s not clear what happened. are there Tiger’s logs that h: can
[help us?]
2. Bruno:
[si] (però cioè) si può vedere che ha fatto il push però:
[yes] (but that is) however we can see that made the push
3. Paolo:
non=non abbiamo modo di:
haven’t=haven’t we any way of
Alby & Zucchermaglio: “Afterwards we can understand what went wrong”
4. Bruno:
17
anche le eccezioni vai a beccarti (.) sono mega e mega di log
you’ll find even the exceptions (.) there are millions and millions of logs
5. Paolo:
ah tch
ah tch ((indicating disappointment))
6. Bruno:
vatti a beccare l’errore! (1.0) ma in quel momento non c’era nessuno
che faceva push? qualcuno proprio su un canale? uno slot?
try to find the error! (1.0) but at that moment, was someone doing a push?
someone on a channel? a slot?
From Bruno’s words, it emerges that a thorough analysis of Tiger’s behavior
would take a great deal of time (‘there are millions and millions of logs.’)
Time continues to be an important element in determining how to proceed
with the diagnosis. It seems that the participants tacitly share an estimate of
the appropriate amount of time to dedicate to the different phases of the
diagnosis as part of their expertise. They also consider what type of time is
involved: in the emergency phase, the time required for the diagnosis was
implicitly the time that passed with the ‘damaged’ site visible to the users;
here the time of the diagnosis is the engineers’ work time taken from other
design activities. In fact, it was the sense of time passing that made the initial
diagnosis situation an emergency to be solved quickly and at all costs and
that, instead, makes the final phases of the diagnosis calmer with less commitment and involvement of the participants.
From here on leadership of the process passes to Bruno, who has the
necessary competencies and an important role in the diagnosis and technical
analysis of the functioning of the Tiger program.
Phase 9: The Problem Dissolves
Actually, the reason why the Tiger program unexpectedly crashed remains
unknown. The group (and Bruno in particular) dedicates a certain amount of
time to this type of investigation, but when it becomes clear that the result is
not obtainable in a short period of time, the participants pass on to other
things, following a tacit rule of priorities. Throughout this phase, it can be
noted how attention to the topic gradually decreases, just like the composition
of the group and, at a certain point, the problem seems to ‘dissolve’ more than
be ‘solved’.
Conclusions
Considering the paper’s objectives, we can outline three main results, which
contribute to broadening our understanding of decision-making processes in
organizations.
18
Organization Studies 27(X)
ANALYSIS
PHASE 1
Reconstructing action
from its product
(time: 1´30˝)
PHASE 2
Not losing time
(time: 1´30˝)
TIME
about 20
minutes
INTERVENTION
Leader: Paolo
Group: large (5–7)
Leader: Paolo
Group: large (5–7)
PHASE 3
Solving first, then
understanding
(time: 1´00˝)
Leader:
Paolo
Group: large
(5–7)
Leader: Luca
Group: small (2–3)
PHASE 4
Intervening in order to
diagnose
(time: 2´30˝)
Leader:
Paolo
Group:
medium (3–4)
PHASE 6
Understanding what
happened
(time: 1´40˝)
PHASE 5
Hiding the problem
from the users
(time: 2´14˝)
Leader:
Luca/Paolo
Group: small
(2–3)
PHASE 7
Reconstructing the
event
(time: 1´30˝)
Leader: Luca
Group: medium (4–5)
PHASE 8
Understanding the
cause
(time: 2´40˝)
Leader: Bruno
Group: small (4–2)
PHASE 9
The problem
dissolves
(time: 6´30˝)
Figure 1. The Diagnostic Process
Leader: Bruno
Group: small (2–1),
decreases until dissolves
Alby & Zucchermaglio: “Afterwards we can understand what went wrong”
19
Decisions are Embedded in Social Practice
In the paper we analysed a problem-solving activity in a specific domain, such
as technological design. In particular we presented a detailed account of the
complex work practices through which designers managed an emergency
situation. During this process, designers made several decisions: for example
they stopped diagnosing the problem to find a quick solution for its visible
‘symptoms’, iteratively changed different solution’s strategies, and eventually
abandoned the search for a more durable solution.
However, what are the empirical borders of such decisions? In our data,
decisions are never signalled as such by the participants. They don’t explicitly
refer to what they are doing as ‘decision making’ (the word ‘decision’ never
appears in their talk), although they do decide in order to organize the
development of their shared and collective problem-solving action. This
means that there is not a dedicated time for decision making but that decisions
are ineluctably embedded in complex work practices. This ‘embeddedness’
of decision making in social practice is visible only if we adopt a sequential
analysis of interactive data such as the one presented here. If we instead adopt
decision-focused interviews or think-aloud protocols, we would more easily
find clearly defined borders of decision-making processes, although we would
necessarily lose how decisions emerge from and are continuously shaped by
the ongoing construction of work practices.
Work Practices Shape Decision Making
We analysed a specific work practice called design-in-use. The features of
such a work practice (action-based, fast, influenced by organizational priorities) have been described in several high-tech settings (Goodwin and
Goodwin 1996; Suchman 1997; Engeström and Middleton 1996; Heath and
Luff 2000). In our study, this practice constitutes the context in which
decisions are made. For example, in design-in-use system functioning is
understood through direct interventions on it. Results show that action serves
for exploring the system and analysis takes place a posteriori, with a
retroactive interpretation that follows exploration. In design-in-use, action is
‘intelligent’ and guides problem solving. Our data show that the problematic
system is repaired without the designers needing to have a clear idea about
what actually happened, or of the internal functioning of the system. The
action on the system supports the situated problem solving and decision
making. It is the action that guides the repair, not rational analyses of the
situation or abstract models of the system’s functioning. In short, the diagnosis
takes shape as a process of gradual interpretation based on the visible products
of the mediated action. Contrary to traditional problem-solving models (in
which the analysis phase precedes and is completely separated from the
successive intervention), here the problem is actually analysed by making an
incremental series of small interventions.
In design-in-use, when a ‘breakdown’ occurs, the need for repair is urgent
and must be faced immediately. Time is a fundamental constraint which
influences when, how and which decisions are made.
20
Organization Studies 27(X)
The decision to not repair the program is also a consequence of the type of
business and of the Energy management philosophy. Another decision might
have been made in a different organization with a different history or business.
For instance, another organization could decide to invest more time to tracing
activities, dealing with systemic details and, thus, avoiding the risk of future
technical problems, for example, by dedicating more time to ‘technical’
projects.
In short, work practices and organizational features deeply affect designers’
decision making. This result underlies the situated character of the decisionmaking processes. Within other work and design contexts, the decision-making
phenomena would have been different (for nature, frequency, modalities, and
so on). For instance, in our data we have several examples of how decisions
are differently shaped in what we called ‘professional design’. In the latter,
for example, decisions are based on progressively and interactively shared
representations of ‘future’ technological systems (rather than on direct action
as in design-in-use) (Zucchermaglio and Alby 2005).
Conceiving decisions as situated phenomena makes NDM studies
particularly interesting since it makes possible the study of specific local
features of decision making which would never emerge in laboratory studies.
Decisions are Distributed Processes
In the design practice described, the group behaves as an organism with
different knowledge and expertise, operating as a system in which different
activities (including decision making) are distributed among its members and
in which some functions are carried out by some members.
The group is also an ‘emerging’ phenomenon. Its confines and organization
do not directly coincide with belonging, roles or formally decided rules, but
are instead constructed by the practical and situated organization of work
activities. For instance, design-in-use practices shape groups characterized
by open and permeable borders, unstable participation structures, variable
and distributed leadership, fast activity and by a rather short duration.
The tight relation among work practices and groups highlights that the
individual is too narrow a unit of analysis to account for the complex and
distributed nature of decision making in organizations. Instead using the group
as unit of analysis allows tacit knowledge and shared strategies of decision
making, typical of groups of experts (such as our designers), to be described.
At a more general level, these results suggest that there are several
organizational phenomena (such as the embedded, situated and distributed
decision making described) not visible at an individual level, which would
emerge only with a detailed analysis of group’s work practices.
Notes
1
2
On the other side, separating thought from action is a common and constant characteristic
in traditional cognitive research (see Latour and Woolgar 1986; Scribner 1984).
Linguist Kenneth Pike says that we can describe behaviour from two standpoints: ‘the etic
viewpoint studies behaviour from outside of a particular system, and as an essential initial
approach to an alien system. The emic viewpoint results from studying behaviour as from
inside the system’ (Pike 1971: 37).
Alby & Zucchermaglio: “Afterwards we can understand what went wrong”
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
References
21
The transcripts are composed of the original discourse in Italian and its colloquial
translation in English.
By ‘troubleshooting’ the designers mean a management activity involving unexpected
situations and problems.
In other types of companies, for example in one that produces software, the design concept
is completely different since the main objective is to produce a product that is as perfect
as possible, without functional defects. This requires a work modality involving long-term
projects, accurate analyses and tests. In this case, speed is secondary in importance to the
cost risk of producing a defective product.
The Tiger program allows the producers to transfer content to the site, without the
intervention of the engineers. The program was developed by the American home office.
The slot is an empty frame in a web page, successively filled with contents or images.
‘Society and ‘eye to’ are two channels on the site.
The use of the term ‘broken’ (as the Italian rotta) for a page indicates that designers are
constantly aware of the programs that are ‘behind’ the website’s pages and make them
active and functioning.
Javascript is a scripting language for websites.
Suchman (2002) effectively defined these interactions between actors and interface as
‘trialogue’.
555 is one of the machines where the website is hosted.
This ‘repair strategy’ is achievable because in this domain the consequences of a possible
failure are lower than in other high-risk activities (e.g. nuclear power, military, or aviation
domains).
La Repubblica is an Italian daily newspaper that can also be consulted via the Internet.
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23
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Francesca Alby (PhD) works as a researcher at the Faculty of Psychology, University
of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. Her main interests are workplace action and interaction, social
organization of cognition, and ethnographies of sites of technology production and
use.
Address: Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, University of Rome
‘La Sapienza’, via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Rome, Italy.
E-mail: [email protected]
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Organization Studies 27(X)
Cristina
Zucchermaglio
Cristina Zucchermaglio (PhD) is full professor of social psychology at the Faculty of
Psychology 1, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. Her research focuses on many
aspects of social interaction and discourse, including working, learning and
communicative practices in organizational settings and ethnographies of technologiesin-use.
Address: Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, University of Rome
‘La Sapienza’, via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Rome, Italy.
E-mail: [email protected]