Overview Coordination Breakdowns: How flexible is collaborative work?

This chapter address the question of why requirements gathering for CSCW systems is substantially different (harder) than other types of computer system, by considering (i) that single user systems often are only useful because users are so flexible; (ii) that we don’t really understand how collaboration works, and hence whether collaborative activities are as flexible; and (iii) that field studies of work activities may tell us much about how that work is arranged, but give us virtually no ideal about how the activities will change as a result of introduction of computer support. The chapter then sketches out a framework for understanding the dynamics of change in work activities, based (loosely) on the role of coordination mechanisms in development and breakdown of shared understanding. This framework is applicable to both the requirements gathering for and user evaluation of CSCW systems. For requirements gathering, it provides a checklist of coordination mechanisms to guide the study of existing work practices. For evaluation of CSCW it uses the key notion of a "coordination breakdown " as an observable phenomenon in use of CSCW systems, with the framework providing a way of diagnosing problems that lead to such breakdowns. 1