Activity as the Focus of Information Systems Research, / [ed] Greg Whymark and Helen Hasan, Eveleigh, Australia: Knowledge Creation Press , 2005
Socially organized production of commodities implies a division of labor between different activi... more Socially organized production of commodities implies a division of labor between different activity systems, each specializing in a particular type of production. In order to coordinate these activity systems, an objective or shared meaning concerning goals, outcomes and work distribution needs to be constructed and maintained. The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical approach guiding this task. In this approach activity systems are structured as activity domains. The activity domain is the central construct in a new theory for coordinating human activitythe Activity Domain Theory. This theory is grounded the praxis philosophy, the affordance concept and the Russian theory of activity. According to the Activity Domain Theory, activity systems develop along certain dimensionsactivity modalitiesthat can be seen as a categorization of objective meaning. This enables a recursive view on activity systems which can be extended to interacting systems. The proposed approach has been successfully implemented in the coordination of extremely complex tasks developing the 3 rd generation of mobile systems at Ericsson, a leading supplier of telecom systems worldwide. Based on these and other empirical results, we suggest that our approach provides important insights for the elaboration of the 3 rd generation of Activity Theory.
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Papers by Lars Taxén
Några insiktsfulla personer på Ericsson insåg att man måste förändra arbetssättet totalt. Man prövade sig fram mot en s.k. inkrementell metodik där integrationsverksamheten är styrande. Systemet byggs upp steg för steg, och i varje steg testas enheterna tillsammans vartefter de blir klara. Detta sätt att utveckla kräver nya metoder och verktyg. En grundpelare i det integrationsdrivna arbetssättet är den s.k. anatomin, som är en enkel bild – oftast ritad i PowerPoint eller Excel – över de mest kritiska funktionella beroendena i systemet.
Det är uppenbart att kompabilitetsproblem mellan Catia v4 och Catia v5 är en av orsakerna till Airbus förseningar. Men problembilden är betydligt mer komplex än så, vilket framgår av diskussioner och artiklar på nätet. Det intryck man får är att Airbus och Boeing har valt olika strategier inom framför allt tre områden: kompabilitet mellan verktyg, integration av delleveranser och styrning av verksamheten.
Kan man hitta metaforer som får oss att tänka mer fler-dimensionellt; d.v.s. hålla flera aspekter i luften samtidigt, utan att därför försumma kopplingarna mellan dessa? Om detta finns olika meningar, men en alltmer dominerande gren inom forskningen (till vilken jag själv räknar mig) är praktik-perspektivet (praktik i samma betydelse som ”läkarpraktik”).
Några insiktsfulla personer på Ericsson insåg att man måste förändra arbetssättet totalt. Man prövade sig fram mot en s.k. inkrementell metodik där integrationsverksamheten är styrande. Systemet byggs upp steg för steg, och i varje steg testas enheterna tillsammans vartefter de blir klara. Detta sätt att utveckla kräver nya metoder och verktyg. En grundpelare i det integrationsdrivna arbetssättet är den s.k. anatomin, som är en enkel bild – oftast ritad i PowerPoint eller Excel – över de mest kritiska funktionella beroendena i systemet.
Det är uppenbart att kompabilitetsproblem mellan Catia v4 och Catia v5 är en av orsakerna till Airbus förseningar. Men problembilden är betydligt mer komplex än så, vilket framgår av diskussioner och artiklar på nätet. Det intryck man får är att Airbus och Boeing har valt olika strategier inom framför allt tre områden: kompabilitet mellan verktyg, integration av delleveranser och styrning av verksamheten.
Kan man hitta metaforer som får oss att tänka mer fler-dimensionellt; d.v.s. hålla flera aspekter i luften samtidigt, utan att därför försumma kopplingarna mellan dessa? Om detta finns olika meningar, men en alltmer dominerande gren inom forskningen (till vilken jag själv räknar mig) är praktik-perspektivet (praktik i samma betydelse som ”läkarpraktik”).
This book suggests an alternative approach to the development of complex systems. Technology, methods and tools are still important, but human-centric aspects like common understanding, coordination, visualization, and reduction of complexity, need to be brought to the forefront.
The core of the alternative approach is the system anatomy, a means that was invented in the early 1990s by Jack Järkvik, who at that time was working for the Ericsson telecommunication company. Since then, Ericsson has been using the anatomy extensively for managing extremely complex system development tasks. The system anatomy is a simple but powerful image showing the dependencies among capabilities in a system, thereby representing a novel way of conceptualizing systems.
The book is a collection of chapters from authors who, in one way or another, have been working with the anatomy concept. The intended audience is both practitioners and researchers, who are interested in exploring new perspectives and theoretical frameworks for managing complexity in system development tasks.
Using Activity Domain Theory for Managing Complex Systems offers a new approach towards managing complex systems that informs the co-construction of technical support for coordination and communal meaning regarding this support. Compiling and structuring empirical observations from the Ericsson™ Company and theoretical developments from the perspective of meaning construction, this unique book combines a deep understanding of concrete, every-day conditions of the telecom industry with innovative theoretical development of the Activity Domain Theory (ADT).
The “common to all” aspect of the individual departs from the fundamental fact that “brains evolved to control the activities of bodies in the world” (Love, 2004, p. 527). Thus, evolution has equipped humans with a requisite set of neurobiological predispositions for action. Among these are:
• Objectivating - focusing attention on the object for action
• Contextualizing - foregrounding relevant phenomena and disregarding irrelevant ones
• Spatializing - spatializing the environment and position phenomena in relation to each other
• Temporalizing - anticipating and executing actions
• Habitualizing - routinizing pertinent actions in recurrent situations
• Recontextualizing - refocusing attention from one situation to another.
These predispositions, which I have referred to as activity modalities (e.g., Taxén, 2020), are requisite in the sense that a lesion impacting any of the modalities aggravates or inhibits action. Thus, every healthy infant meets the world, equipped with a neurobiological “infrastructure” by which a fabric of meaning is conferred onto action relevant, external phenomena. Out of the ceaseless stream of sensations arriving through our sensory modalities, we attend objectual, contextual, spatial, temporal, normative, and transitional phenomena in the environment.
Individual predispositions develop into abilities after birth. These are manifested differently depending on the historical and cultural circumstances the individual encounters. However, in all these particularises, there always exist phenomena apprehended as activity modalities, otherwise action would not be possible. In activity systems, where individuals jointly act to achieve a social goal, individual lines of action are fitted together around common identifiers (Blumer, 1969). Such identifiers develop in the process of idealizing activity modality phenomena. For example, the Polaris star acquired an ideal form as a means to navigate at sea (a common identifier for the spatializing and temporalizing modalities).
The upshot of this conceptualization is that the activity modalities can be regarded as a concrete universal: “the genetic root of a concrete whole, the particular component within it that, in the course of its development, determines the nature and function of all the others” (Bakhurst, 1991, p. 158-158). Such development proceeds in two aspects. First, the individual develops from the infrastructure of neurobiological predisposition into a conscious, sentient individual. Second, activity systems develop from the infrastructure formed by cultural-historical circumstances, by the idealization of common identifiers. The underlying universal is the construct of activity modalities. I will illustrate how this understanding may resolve some die-hard conundrums in the Information Systems discipline.
References
Bakhurst, D. (1991). Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy: From the Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov. Modern European Philosophy Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and method. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.
Ilyenkov, E. V. (2017). The Ideal in Human Activity. A Selection of Essays by Evald Vasilyevich Ilyenkov. Pacifica, Calif: Marxists Internet Archive.
Love, N. (2004). Cognition and the language myth. Language Sciences, 26(6), 525–544.
Marx, K. (2007). Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. (Ed. Milligan, M.) Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
Taxén, L. (2020). Reviving the Individual in Sociotechnical Systems Thinking. Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly, CSIMQ, 22, 39–48. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7250/csimq.2020-22.03
The “common to all” aspect of the individual departs from the fundamental fact that “brains evolved to control the activities of bodies in the world” (Love, 2004, p. 527). Thus, evolution has equipped humans with a requisite set of neurobiological predispositions for action. Among these are:
• Objectivating - focusing attention on the object for action
• Contextualizing - foregrounding relevant phenomena and disregarding irrelevant ones
• Spatializing - spatializing the environment and position phenomena in relation to each other
• Temporalizing - anticipating and executing actions
• Habitualizing - routinizing pertinent actions in recurrent situations
• Recontextualizing - refocusing attention from one situation to another.
These predispositions, which I have referred to as activity modalities (e.g., Taxén, 2020), are requisite in the sense that a lesion impacting any of the modalities aggravates or inhibits action. Thus, every healthy infant meets the world, equipped with a neurobiological “infrastructure” by which a fabric of meaning is conferred onto action relevant, external phenomena. Out of the ceaseless stream of sensations arriving through our sensory modalities, we attend objectual, contextual, spatial, temporal, normative, and transitional phenomena in the environment.
Individual predispositions develop into abilities after birth. These are manifested differently depending on the historical and cultural circumstances the individual encounters. However, in all these particularises, there always exist phenomena apprehended as activity modalities, otherwise action would not be possible. In activity systems, where individuals jointly act to achieve a social goal, individual lines of action are fitted together around common identifiers (Blumer, 1969). Such identifiers develop in the process of idealizing activity modality phenomena. For example, the Polaris star acquired an ideal form as a means to navigate at sea (a common identifier for the spatializing and temporalizing modalities).
The upshot of this conceptualization is that the activity modalities can be regarded as a concrete universal: “the genetic root of a concrete whole, the particular component within it that, in the course of its development, determines the nature and function of all the others” (Bakhurst, 1991, p. 158-158). Such development proceeds in two aspects. First, the individual develops from the infrastructure of neurobiological predisposition into a conscious, sentient individual. Second, activity systems develop from the infrastructure formed by cultural-historical circumstances, by the idealization of common identifiers. The underlying universal is the construct of activity modalities. I will illustrate how this understanding may resolve some die-hard conundrums in the Information Systems discipline.
References
Bakhurst, D. (1991). Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy: From the Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov. Modern European Philosophy Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and method. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.
Ilyenkov, E. V. (2017). The Ideal in Human Activity. A Selection of Essays by Evald Vasilyevich Ilyenkov. Pacifica, Calif: Marxists Internet Archive.
Love, N. (2004). Cognition and the language myth. Language Sciences, 26(6), 525–544.
Marx, K. (2007). Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. (Ed. Milligan, M.) Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
Taxén, L. (2020). Reviving the Individual in Sociotechnical Systems Thinking. Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly, CSIMQ, 22, 39–48. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7250/csimq.2020-22.03