Benefits of Seeing Sociotechnical Systems through a Work System Lens
Benefit #1: Sociotechnical Work Systems Will Be More Understandable
Analyzing and designing sociotechnical systems from a work system perspective eliminates the artificial separation between the social system and the technical system. It also eliminates the misnamed concept of joint optimization. Using a work system lens brings the following benefits:
A more practical model. Seeing a sociotechnical system as a single work system is simpler and easier to discuss and analyze than seeing it as a combination of vaguely defined social and technical systems that actually overlap.
An organized approach to business topics. The work system framework outlines elements that must be considered in even a basic understanding of a work system. It covers social and technical aspects of the situation without assuming artificial separation of the social and technical which could complicate instead of facilitating.
A readily usable analysis method. WSM is an easily adaptable method for performing the initial analysis of a work system, clarifying its boundaries, and attaining agreement about what system is actually being improved. Many hundreds of MBA and Executive MBA students in the United States, China, India, and Vietnam have used WSM templates to produce preliminary management briefings suggesting work system improvements in their organizations (e.g., [8]). The core of WSM can be used at the beginning of agile development projects to clarify goals and direction.
Usable without consultants or researchers. Meaningful use of WSM does not require guidance by IT experts, consultants, or researchers even though ideal applications of WSM should involve collaboration between business and IT professionals.
Benefit #2: Analysis and Design Are More Likely to Reflect Business Realities
Customers. The placement of customers at the top of the work system framework is a reminder that work systems exist to produce product/services for internal and/or external customers who may be work system participants (e.g., patients in medical exams, users in IS development, students in education).
Product/services. Neither customers nor product/services appear in the depiction of social and technical systems in Figure 1 in [4]. Mumford’s description of STS (quoted earlier) seems to look inward and does not seem to highlight such topics, which should be included in a business-oriented analysis of a work system.
Transience and organizational flux. WST/WSM provides a relatively lightweight approach that can be used even in reorganizations, staff reductions, transitions from older to newer product/service offerings, changing job roles, and increasing trends toward project work. It can be used to think and negotiate about all of those situations.
Processes and activities. Many types of work are automated and/or controlled to a greater extent than in the past. ERP, CRM, and BPM enable tighter work modularization, operational control, and near real time monitoring, sometimes leaving work system participants feeling as though Big Brother is watching, at least in the United States. WSM analysis would address those issues because the motivation and goodwill of work system participants strongly affect work system performance.
Outsourcing. WST/WSM views outsourcing as a configuration of work in which a work system’s product/services are produced in a sociotechnical system that spans the original firm and the outsourcing vendor. It is not clear how traditional STS joint optimization would handle outsourcing situations.
Workarounds and noncompliance. An extension of WST called the “theory of workarounds” [9] serves as a reminder that work systems as documented may differ from work systems-in-practice even in the presence of monitoring systems.
Participants. WST/ WSM treats participants as integral parts of work systems, not just users of technology. WST/ WSM recognizes issues such as reduced social contact when working through computers and reduced value of existing knowledge and skills as technology and work arrangements change
New technologies. Many sociotechnical systems apply computer and network capabilities that were almost unimaginable several decades ago. The extreme pace of technical change challenges the whole notion of joint optimization because the technologies bring new levels of capability whose impacts may be difficult to anticipate.
Benefit #3: Humanist Values Are More Likely to Be Recognized in IS Development
Use of WST/WSM could encourage attention to humanist values in IS development. This would occur through empowerment, awareness, and better communication and collaboration between all stakeholders in sociotechnical systems.
Humanist values in IS development start with empowerment. WST/WSM potentially empowers business professionals by providing an organized approach for thinking about work systems for their own purposes and for collaborating with others.
Humanist values require recognizing the needs and skills of work system participants. WST/WSM recognizes that work system performance depends on how well participants’ skills, capabilities, interests, and ambitions fit with the characteristics of the rest of the work system.
Humanist values require communication and collaboration. An organized approach for thinking about sociotechnical systems potentially helps business professionals communicate effectively about how their roles in those systems affect them and their colleagues. Humanist values probably are less prominent in technologyfocused analyses that outsiders create and bring to work system participants.
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