Designing for the dynamics of cooperative work activities
Jakob E. Bardram · 1998
CSCW seems to have a persistent problem of understanding the nature of “cooperative work”. This paper argues that this problem is a direct result of not looking at the dynamic aspects of work – i.e. that cooperative work is not one thing, but different things at differ-ent times and in different places. Based on Activity Theory the paper gives a conceptual frame for understanding the dynamics of collabo-rative work activities, and argues that the design of computer support should view cooperative breakdowns not as a problem but as an im-portant resource in design. These arguments are based on empirical studies of healthcare work and the design of a computer support for planning and scheduling operations and other activities within a hos-pital.