The authors wish to acknowledge his tremendous contribution to the early drafts of this paper, and also to the field of organizational psychology and the design of sociotechnical systems, to which he dedicated his career.
AbstractThe socio-technical systems approach to design is well documented. Recognising the benefits of this approach, organizations are increasingly trying to work with systems, rather than their component parts. However, few tools attempt to analyse the complexity inherent in such systems, in ways that generate useful, practical outputs. In this paper, we outline the 'System Scenarios Tool' (SST), which is a novel, applied methodology that can be used by designers, end-users, consultants or researchers to help design or re-design work systems.The paper introduces the SST using an example of its application, and describes the potential benefits of its use, before reflecting on its limitations. Finally, we discuss potential opportunities for the tool, and describe sets of circumstances in which it might be used.
3
Practitioner SummaryThe paper presents a novel, applied methodological tool, named the "Systems Scenarios Tool". We believe this tool can be used as a point of reference by designers, endusers, consultants or researchers, to help design or re-design work systems. Included in the paper are two worked examples, demonstrating the tool's application.