Conference Paper
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The work to make coordination technologies work
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Date
2024
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European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies (EUSSET)
Abstract
Motivated by the long-standing concern in CSCW with the state of digital coordination technologies and the ensuing accumulated empirical evidence of how the shortcomings of coordination technologies are handled in practice, this paper presents four examples of coordination technologies and coordinative artifacts that show how workers cope with their shortcomings through workarounds and hacks: CAD systems in architectural practice; the medical record in a cardiology clinic and the problem of ICD data; the IMDS database in the car industry; and the problems of making MRP systems work for the purpose of local planning. Concluding with the question what is required to support workers in their cooperative effort to ‘make coordination systems work’, the notion of computer support for ‘peer-to-peer plan management’ is introduced.