Triggered by a great tip by @RuthMalan I think I'll redo my "Sociotechnical principle of the day" thread from Twitter here. I'll post one each...day.
[#]SocioTechnical
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Sociotechnical principle of the day:
"Compatibility – to get a system capable of self-modification a constructively participative organization is needed, e.g. workers taking part in the design of the jobs they are to perform."
More in this post.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sociotechnical-systems-design-digital-coal-mines-trond-hjorteland/
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
"Minimal Critical Specification – giving worker groups clear objectives but leaving them to decide how to achieve them."
More in this post.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sociotechnical-systems-design-digital-coal-mines-trond-hjorteland/
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
"Boundary location – boundaries should not be drawn so as to impede the sharing of information, knowledge, and learning."
More in this post.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sociotechnical-systems-design-digital-coal-mines-trond-hjorteland/
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
"Variance control – must be controlled as close to their point of origin as possible, e.g. in the team by the team."
More in this post.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sociotechnical-systems-design-digital-coal-mines-trond-hjorteland/
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
"The Multifunctionality Principle – members of a team should be multi-skilled in order for them to be flexible and able to respond to change. Redundancy of functions instead of parts"
More in this post:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sociotechnical-systems-design-digital-coal-mines-trond-hjorteland/
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
"Information flow – must go to the place where it is needed for action, i.e. not up any “chain of command” or any other teams."
More in this post.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sociotechnical-systems-design-digital-coal-mines-trond-hjorteland/
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
"Support Congruence – The rest of the organisation should support the teams as they are designed, be it payment, training, assessments, promotion, etc"
More in this post.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sociotechnical-systems-design-digital-coal-mines-trond-hjorteland/
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
"Design and Human Values – workers have demands that goes beyond the basic needs like pay and security in order to provide high-quality work and have a quality of work life."
More in this post:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sociotechnical-systems-design-digital-coal-mines-trond-hjorteland/
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
"Incompletion – the design process is never done, new demands and conditions in the work environment mean that continual rethinking of structures and objectives is required."
More in this post:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sociotechnical-systems-design-digital-coal-mines-trond-hjorteland/
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So far I've presented the 9 principles described by Cherns in his paper from 1976 and it still amazes me how much insight was gathered in these that the IT industry has had to rediscover. And we are still not at this level. So there is still a lot to learn from social sciences.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/001872677602900806
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I will go back to each principle and bring in some more details from that paper and Chern's updated list from '87 (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001872678704000303) as well as Clegg's take on them from 2000 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090?via%3Dihub). I hope threading works here...
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OK, as we now have covered all the original nine principles as described by Cherns in '76 let's take a look at the additions that have been made since, starting with the ones Cherns had for his revisit of them in '87 (link above).
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Power and Authority – People should be responsible for supervising and managing complete processes. They should have the authority and resources to do
it.
One of two additions by Cherns '87: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001872678704000303
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Transitional Organization – an organisation in transition is both different and more complex than old or new, requiring careful planning and design.
The second addition by Cherns '87: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001872678704000303
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Design is systemic
The first of Clegg's 19 revised principles, an attempt to make them more relevant in the modern ICT era, encouraging wider application and diffusion of STSD.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Design should reflect the needs of the business, its users and their managers
This is a new one from Clegg and his added focus on stakeholder needs as well as the workers.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Design is an extended social process.
This is also a new one from Clegg and accounts for the system's users and their evolving needs.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Design is socially shaped.
What this covers is that "design is subject to social movements and trends. These themselves may be manifest in various fads and fashions."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Design is contingent.
The last of Clegg's meta-principles, making what was implicit explicit, namely that design is highly contextual.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0003-6870(00)00009-0
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Core processes should be integrated.
This content principle covers Cherns' principles on boundary location, information flow, and power and authority.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Design entails multiple task allocations between and amongst humans and machines.
This covers Cherns' multifunctional principle and job design, extended with task allocation between humans and machines.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Systems should be simple and make problems visible
This new principle proposes that sociotechnical systems should be simple and promote their ease of use.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Systems and their design should be owned by their managers and their users.
This amends the participative design aspect, moving the focus from user participation to user ownership.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Evaluation is an essential aspect of design.
Cherns covered this in Incompletion but it's dealt with explicitly here as evaluations are frequently omitted for human, political, and organizational reasons.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Design involves multidisciplinary education.
Again Clegg makes what is implicit in Cherns' principles, highlighting the importance of multiple perspectives in design, with partial forms of expertise and views of the world.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Resources and support are required for design.
Not included in Cherns' but is implicit in his arguments. Resources here are interpreted very broadly, e.g. money, time, knowledge, skill, methods, techniques, and mechanisms.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
System design involves political processes.
"Design debates concerning values, choices, ownership, processes, task allocation, evaluation, and resources inevitably raise political issues in organizations."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687000000090
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The 24 principles presented so far are lifted from Cherns '67 and '87 and Clegg '00. I recently was made aware of other sources covering a similar list but some also have a few additions. One was from Eli Berniker who sent me his unpublished paper from '96 and permitted me to share it with you.
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Work as Problem-Solving Action and Motivated Behavior
Paradoxically, work can be seen as behaviour controlled by psychological needs and job satisfaction on one side, while on the other it is about autonomous capacities to adapt, control, and manage problems.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-GsDvi9hAZjaxrL1LkBA5TqsuNPW-IEz/view?usp=sharing
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Berniker '96:
"Work is a purposeful causal interaction between a person and an environment that produces changes valued by that person."
"Work is motivated behavior conditioned by individual needs, expectations and opportunities."
"Practical design requires that we attend to both sets of concerns."
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Berniker '96: "We can interpret the widespread acceptance of needs-satisfaction models by management as an extension of their manipulative and controlling roles to psychological domains. Some researchers suggest that managers manage employee perceptions of autonomy, responsibility and variety as a substitute for changing their organizations."
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Berniker '96: "The STS literature suggests a deep belief that groups of skilled workers, organized cooperatively with the responsibility, autonomy, and knowledge to deal with challenges, and motivated by the opportunity to meet their own goals at work, are the most effective organizational means to deal with emergent challenges to their productive performance."
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[#]Sociotechnical principle of the day:
Self-Regulating Work Groups
This makes an organisational pattern frequently used in STS explicit.
Berniker '96: "The self-regulating work group is the building block of the organization. Design work groups rather than individual jobs."
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Berniker '96: "The primary implication of self-regulating work group design is that we should avoid designing individual jobs. Individual job design is a traditional means of direct control through the fragmentation of work into tasks that can be readily supervised."
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