Requirements Eng (1998) 3:138-142 9 1998 Springer-Verlag London Limited
Requirements Engineering
Computer-Based Systems that Support the Structural, Social, Political and Symbolic Dimensions of Work Isabel Santos a and Joao A. Carvalho b alnstituto Politecnico de Viana do Castelo, Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gest~o, Viana do Castelo', and bUniversidade do Minho, Departamento de Informatica, Guimar~.es, Portugal
The requirements definition needs attention to a number of issues related to the way people understand organisations, do their work and use the tools available to support that work. Most well-known requirements engineering methods focus on technical aspects of work. This paper proposes a way of looking at work situations in order to gain a deep understanding of their inherent complexity. The knowledge obtained will help to define requirements for a computer-based system that supports both explicit and tacit aspects of the organisational work.
Keywords: Organisational knowledge; Political per-
However, 'organisations are created and shaped by their people. They do not have an existence independent of them' [2]. Adopting computer-based systems without considering the values, behaviour, psychological needs and interests of their future users may lead to the costs of the innovation being higher than the benefits. This paper proposes a way of looking at work situations in order to gain a deep understanding of their inherent complexity. The knowledge obtained will help to define requirements for a computer-based system that supports both explicit and tacit aspects of the organisational work.
spective; Requirements definition process; Social perspective; Structural perspective; Symbolic perspective
2. Organisations as Work Systems 1. Introduction The requirements definition process has been described and carried out as a mainly technical process. Computerbased systems are developed to achieve technical and operational goals. When defining the requirements of a computer-based system, the explicit aspects of work are analysed. Organisational goals serve as a basis to define quantifiable criteria for system performance and functionality. It is assumed that the future impact of a computer-based system can be anticipated and managed if the essential business processes and their relationships with other processes are understood. Often, work practices are changed in order to mirror the system's operation [ 1]. Correspondence and offprint requests to: ]. Santos, Instituto Polit6cnico de Viana do Castelo, Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gest~o, Av. do Atl~ntico- Apartado 574, 4900 Viana do Castelo, Portugal. E-mail: mailto:
[email protected]
The adoption of a computer-based system may lead to deep changes in an organisation and in the way the work is done [3]. This adoption shapes and is shaped by the structural, social, political and symbolic aspects that define the specific reality of each organisation [4]. This means that it is not enough to know organisational goals, objectives, structure and processes to determine what computer-based systems to adopt to improve work practices. It is also necessary to know what its victims/ beneficiaries understand by the work being done and improvements, what are the involved interests, what informal channels are implemented, and what are the symbols used to give meaning and order to the work. The human action in organisations can be understood through the concept of system [5-8]. In this paper, such a system is called a work system; the word 'work' refers to activities performed by humans in organisations. The organisation gives the context needed to elicit the meaning of those activities.
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are connected [2] - and processes. A process is a set of related activities that takes one or more kinds of input and creates an output of value to a client [2]. A work system is responsible for a transformation. The processes of the system are determined by the transformation that it carries out. A process is the result of interactions between the resources.
3. Applying Filters to Organisational Knowledge Fig. 1. Structure and processes of a work system.
When representing an organisational situation as a system, it becomes possible to make visible certain aspects of work and to omit others. This helps to reduce the quantity and diversity of knowledge that must be elicited to understand organisational work. This mechanism for complexity reduction is called abstraction [911 ]. The purpose of an abstraction is to limit the universe o f discourse so action can be enabled. Abstraction must always be for some purpose, because the purpose determines what is and is not important. A work system has a structure - the set of arrangements by which the resources of an organisation
The representation of a system may be guided by organisational filters [2] in order to better define which aspects of work are elicited. The authors of this paper acknowledge the existence of four perspectives that can be used as filters to organisational knowledge: structural, social, political and symbolic perspectives. These four perspectives consolidate key assumptions of organisational theory: 9 The structural perspective emphasises goals, tasks, formal roles and relationships, activity co-ordination and control, and formal structures and processes. 9 The social perspective emphasises human behaviour, action, needs and capabilities, and the integration of the individual and the organisation, e.g. through participation of the former in decision making.
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9 The political perspective emphasises issues related to power, influence, conflict, and coalition-building, with a priority on decisions about scarce resources. 9 The symbolic perspective emphasises the importance of symbols, meanings and interpretation, social interaction, and sense-making processes. These four perspectives help in understanding the work done and what can be done to improve it. By using them, it becomes possible to represent work as having four dimensions. In each dimension, the work is done to achieve a different purpose. According to the structural perspective, work is done to achieve organisational goals and objectives. The main concern is to define the right structure for the transformation, goals, strategies, environment, and people. The purpose of work according to the social perspective is to integrate the individual and organisational interests. According to the political perspective, the main concern of people working in organisations is to reinforce individual or collective ability to access scarce resources. According to the symbolic perspective, the purpose of work is to give meaning to organisational events. Each of the perspectives proposes the implementation of specific strategies in order to fulfil a purpose of the work. These strategies define different ways of intervention in organisational situations. Returning to the concept of a work system, its structure and processes are seen differently if one sees them from the structural, social, political or symbolic standpoint. The structural perspective enables us to see the system's structure as the set of arrangements by which the resources of an organisation are connected to provide the means for the system to achieve its goals. The social perspective makes us see a system's structure as the set of arrangements by which the resources of an organisation are connected to support job variety, aggregation of related tasks, autonomy, and feedback. The political perspective enables us to see a work system's structure as the set of arrangements by which the resources of an organisation are connected to define who has the authority to access the scarce resources. The symbolic perspective enables us to see it as the set of arrangements by which the resources of an organisation are connected to act as a symbol to create order and direction and to promote cohesion. The view of processes also depends on the perspective used. As an example, decision making can be seen as a rational sequence of steps to produce the right decision (structural perspective), an open process to produce commitment (social perspective), an opportunity to gain
L Santos and J. A. Carvalho
or exercise power (political perspective), or a ritual to provide comfort and support until the decision happens (symbolic perspective). The representation of work systems from these four perspectives leads to a deeper understanding of organisational situations and enables more informed decisions about what must be changed and how it can be done.
4. Requirements of a Computer-Based System that Supports the Four Dimensions of Work People need and expect specific support for the tasks they do. When the experience of using a computer-based system meets these needs and expectations, people should be highly satisfied. The needs and expectations of the system's users refer to the support of the structural, social, political and symbolic aspects of the work they do. When defining the requirements of a system, some of them result from structural aspects of the work system, and others result from social, political, and symbolic aspects. This paper proposes abstracting the relevant aspects of work through the use of three main concepts: work system, process and action [5,12,13]. Presented below are the characteristics (in italics) that enable the description of these concepts; they must be represented in the indicative 1 and prescriptive 2 work system models. A work system has a structure and processes. The structure is defined by the set of arrangements by which the organisational resources 3 are connected through relationships. A process takes one or more kinds of input and creates an output. The set of processes of a work system enables the transformation for which the system is responsible. The transformation defines the kind of work done by the system; it results in the conversion of input (entity/ies) to output (entity/ies in a transformed state). The customers of the work system are the victims or beneficiaries of the transformation. The work system has a boundary; the boundary helps us to define what elements constitute the system as well as to define the relevant elements of the environment. It has people interested in the system design, improvement, problem solution, etc. - its owners. Owners use a combination of structural, social, political, and symbolic perspectives that makes the transformation meaningful world-view. In the indicative model, the world-view ~Shared view about the reality of work. 2Agreed changes (includes the system requirements). 3Human and others (time, money, technology, power...).
information,
Computer-Based Systems that Support the Structural, Social Political and Symbolic Dimensions of Work
describes the structural, social, political, and symbolic assumptions about work practices; in the prescriptive model, the world-view describes the structural, social, political, and symbolic expectations about work practices. A work system can include other work systems or can be an element of another work system. A process is a set of related actions, performed sequentially or concurrently. A process takes one or more kinds of input (entity) and creates an output (entity) of value to a c u s t o m e r inside or outside the work system. The process is a property of people interested in the process design, improvement, problem resolution actors. A process is created for a p u r p o s e - the structural, social, political and symbolic assumptions/ expectations that make the process's existence meaningful. An action is atomic and sequential. They change reality in a deliberated way. This change falls into one of the following categories: creation, destruction, initiation, observation, or message sending and reception. The action is directed to some actand. Actions are subject to control. Actors control, perform, or take responsibility for actions. When building the prescriptive model, it is important to clearly define the actors that control the actions: the system or other. An action can be controlled by the system or by its environment. Actions can be shared between the system and an actor from its environment; if the action is not shared, then it is private to the system's environment and unobservable by it. Actions private to a system are not relevant to requirements engineering. In conclusion, actions can be environment-controlled/shared, systemcontrolled/shared or environment-controlled/unshared. The actions can be constrained. Constraints are assertions about actions. These can be structural, social, political and symbolic assertions. Actions have a p u r p o s e . The purpose is the set of structural, social, political and symbolic assumptions and expectations that gives meaning to the action.
WORK SYSTEM Library of University TRANSFORMATION CUSTOMERS: OWNERS: WORLD-VIEW:
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4.1. Work Systems Models This section presents some guidelines that should help find world-views, purposes and constraints. An indicative model represents a shared view about work as it is currently done. This is not a complete or true description of reality, but it is a useful conception of reality. It represents a shared interpretation about a work situation, which is correct only if it is internally coherent. The aspects of work represented are those relevant to the people whose views built the model. The model is useful if it structures reality and, as a consequence, it reduces the ambiguity and uncertainty of work practices. In doing so, it enables the participants to develop work situations through the use of information and communication technologies. Users must express assumptions about the work situation under study and, then, represent the ones that they are able to share either by consensus or negotiation. It is assumed that assumptions about the work system, its processes, and actions are structural, social, political and symbolic explanations about phenomena perceived. When formulating an explanation about reality, people use a combination of the four perspectives; different people give different relevance to perspectives and to the aspects upon which they focus. Uncovering assumptions requires artistic skills as well as rational ones. Sometimes it is not desirable to completely describe assumptions. Sometimes people do not express important assumptions and these have to be discovered. A prescriptive model represents a shared view about the work as participants expect it will be with the support of a computer-based system. The system's users must express expectations about the changed work situation and, then, represent the ones that they are able to agree upon either by consensus or by negotiation. The discussion can be enriched by the introduction of a theoretical model that can be used to present a different way of doing things and to challenge established ideas.
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Structure = resources and relationships
Processes = Acquisition, catalogue and load of books, and training knowledge need --> the need met students and faculty members Chancellor of the University; Senior manager of the library (assumptions) Structural-the library's goal is to allow the quick and simple acquisition/access to the books. That can be achieved using information technology to support acquisitions and search of books. Social - the library must have the conditions to provide training whenever employees need it. Political -The strategies for the library are defined by the senior manager and must be approved by the Chancellor of the University before implementation. Symbolic - the library is the core support for all educational activities of the university. Fig. 3. A simplified version of an indicative model of a library.
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It is assumed that expectations are structural, social, political, and symbolic wishes about work practices and the system's future behaviour. Uncovering expectations also requires artistic skills as well as rational ones.
4.2. Requirements Refinement The requirements refinement process focuses on shared actions, either system-controlled or environment-controlled. These actions define the interface between the system and its environment. Some requirements are already implementable, so they can be copied directly from the prescriptive model to the specification document. This paper accepts the three general reasons Zave and Jackson [13] give for why some requirements are non-implementable: 9 'Some requirements are not directly implementable because the only way to satisfy them is to constrain an action that is controlled by the environment.' A requirement with an environmental constraint should always be verified by a demonstration or proof that specified properties, conjoined with work properties from the prescriptive model, guarantee the satisfaction of that requirement. 9 'Some requirements are not directly implementable because they are stated in terms of unshared phenomena.' Requirements with unshared information are defined using knowledge represented in the prescriptive model, in order to relate unshared information to shared information. 9 'Some requirements are not directly implementable because they are stated in terms of the future.' Requirements with future reference are satisfied with the help of knowledge represented in the prescriptive model, relating the future to the past.
5. Conclusions This paper has presented the key issues stressed by organisational theory that we consider relevant to the definition of the requirements of a system that better supports the complexity anal ambiguity inherent in human action in organisations. It has also presented a
way of integrating that theory in the models created during the definition process through the use of the key concepts of work systems, processes and actions. The next step in our research will be to structure the ideas presented in the paper into a method to guide the process of requirements definition and to define a notation in which to represent work and requirements. The innovative aspect of the method is that it will enable the explicit elicitation and representation of a broader set of computer-based system requirements. It will help in understanding the way people see their work activities as well as in eliciting expectations for adequate support. In this way we expect it to help define computer-based systems that are highly satisfying to their users. The method will be evaluated by applying it in organisational settings, on real requirements problems.
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