Artifact-Based Coordination in Multimedia Production Hilda Tellio - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Artifact-Based Coordination in Multimedia Production

Hilda Tellioğlu Vienna University of Technology Institute of Design & Assessment of Technology Multimedia Design Group

hilda.tellioglu@tuwien.ac.at http://as43.media.tuwien.ac.at CSAC 2007

4th International Workshop on Computer Supported Activity Coordination

June 12, 2007 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

Outline

• Introduction
• Multimedia Production
• Case Studies: Webcom, Telecom, Archcom
• Coordination with Partners
• Artifacts - specialized, material, coordinative,

common, visual

• Artifacts in our Cases
• Artifact-based Coordination
• Conclusions

Introduction

• study coordination applying theories [Malone & Crowston, 1994;

Tellioğlu, 2007]

• investigate (the impact of technology on) work practices -

ethnography, CSCW [Andersen, 1994; Carstensen et al., 1995; Pycock & Sharrock,

1994]

• understand what actors do & why they do certain things in

a certain way

• characteristics of multimedia production
• iterative & cooperative design processes
• multiple representations
• lack of design methods & best practice examples
• importance/relevance of intentional networks & strategic

partnerships

• differences & similarities in coordination work

Outline

• Introduction
• Multimedia Production
• Case Studies: Webcom, Telecom, Archcom
• Coordination with Partners
• Artifacts - specialized, material, coordinative,

common, visual

• Artifacts in our Cases
• Artifact-based Coordination
• Conclusions

Multimedia Production

• dynamically arranged internal & external collaboration
• coordination of parallel activities
• to keep deadlines
• to consider customers’ requirements
• to optimally use companies’ human & non-human

resources

• coordination work in multimedia production
• contolled individual work
• cooperative development
• multidisciplinary teamwork
• coordination with partners

Outline

• Introduction
• Multimedia Production
• Case Studies: Webcom, Telecom, Archcom
• Coordination with Partners
• Artifacts - specialized, material, coordinative,

common, visual

• Artifacts in our Cases
• Artifact-based Coordination
• Conclusions

Case Studies

Webcom 1/2

• Controlled individual work
• standardized procedures with strict deadlines & controls of

intermediate results

• a first meeting with customers for communication of main requirements
• research about the customer in the Internet, its current web site, web sites of

customers’ competitors

• creation of an offer including graphic design
• management meeting with creative director, customer supporter, graphic

designer

• start of the creative phase -> final graphic design
• implementation of the design -> prototype
• customer evaluates the prototype -> feedback to design
• conventions from graphic design

Webcom 2/2

• Controlled individual work
• work simultaneously on 3-4 projects, a small team for each

project

• transparent progress status of ongoing projects
• individual work, controlled intensively by the Managing

Director (MD)

• process & temporal structures established -> status,

quality & quantity check

• tight deadlines monitored closely
• face-to-face communication & feedback in front of

computer -> dense cooperation

• avoid or keep contingencies under control -> avoid any

increase of project costs -> controlled improvization

• standardized format of offers
• cover page, description of project team, introduction, goals & requirements,

contents, branding, home page, detail view ...

• all offers have the same structure and length
• + online presentation with links to the already developed web pages

(accessible for customers before the face-to-face presentation)

Telecom 1/2

• Cooperative development - Work process of iterative

cycles

• idea of a new product or service
• research about standards, technical challenges,

implementation possibilities, competitors’ products, market demands ... using the Internet, magazines, studies ...

• choose of a product or service -> substantiation of design

idea

• production of a simple user interface of the product-in-

development

• focus on products’ functionality
• revision & refinement of the product-in-development
• presentation of the product in trade fair events
• enhancements & adaptations by considering customers’

feedback

• final product available on demonstration server

Telecom 2/2

• dense teamwork in a small interdiscipinary team
• chaotic communication
• well-organized team
• always present in the same room, all involved in all

decisions, no hierarchy, open to critique & discussions, active participation of all

• isolated from the rest -> garage company
• their work is not accepted & appreciated by department’s

software engineers

• differences in methods & priorities -> clash of working cultures

improvization & bricolage vs. traditional software design methods of research & implementation programming languages coding styles & programming conventions use of ready-to-use-products informal vs. written specifications

Archcom 1/3

• Multidisciplinary teamwork - best practice
• plan used actively for project management
• weekly project meetings with detailed minutes
• detailed to-do lists used to organize the cooperative work
• thorough research to support decision-making of

functionality & layout

• detailed sketches of navigation & graphic layout of pages
• detailed description of data for persistence layer
• discussion before implementation

Archcom 2/3

• Product quality
• structure of the product
• history of the company

requirement analysis technical description description of deployment & use flash animation prototype storyboard glossary

• UML to model the system & describe the use cases
• coding conventions for simple, readable, understandable &

easy-to-maintain code

• design representations: sketches, drawings, lists,

storyboards, HTML prototypes

• video movie to present the use of the system

Archcom 3/3

• highly developed communication culture
• weekly jour fix meetings for communication &

cooperation

• salient work meetings
• to solve problems together
• to make design decisions (moderated by project manager)
• to plan next steps
• in-depth discussions
• voice of users
• highly detailed & thorough meeting minutes used

intensively by all between meetings

Outline

• Introduction
• Multimedia Production
• Case Studies: Webcom, Telecom, Archcom
• Coordination with Partners
• Artifacts - specialized, material, coordinative,

common, visual

• Artifacts in our Cases
• Artifact-based Coordination
• Conclusions

Coordination with Partners

• different forms
• cooperation with specialists
• contracting out
• mergers, joint ventures, strategic partnerships
• cooperation in the Internet
• personal networks <-> intensional networks

to activate regularly / on demand [Nardi et al., 2002]

• work & particular skills of actors required

Outline

• Introduction
• Multimedia Production
• Case Studies: Webcom, Telecom, Archcom
• Coordination with Partners
• Artifacts - specialized, material, coordinative,

common, visual

• Artifacts in our Cases
• Artifact-based Coordination
• Conclusions

Artifacts 1/9

• permanent symbolic constructs,

which play a very important role in the coordination work

• examples: “instruments, signs,

procedures, machines, methods, laws, forms of work

• rganization” [Kuutti, 1995]
• clarify ambiguities & settle

disputes

• act as intermediaries with a

format -> mediate articulation work -> mediate coordination

• where is an artifact placed?
• when is an artifact accessed?
• by whom is an artifact modified?
• what are the exact modifications?

Specialized Artifacts 2/9

• needed to articulate distributed

activities [Schmidt & Simone, 1996]

• to reduce the complexity of

articulation work

• to alleviate the need for ad hoc

delibaration & negotiation

• examples: time tables,

schedules, catalogues, classification schemes for repositories

• in contexts of conventions &

protocols

Material Artifacts 3/9

• accessible to all involved in a

shared work process [Schmidt & Wagner,

2002]

• their location includes relevant

information -> some actors make sense of it, some cannot

• their history is often readable

showing the past work & the contributions

• materiality of artifacts

<-> affordances [Gibson, 1979] <-> immutability of inscriptions

• n paper & their mobility [Latour,

1986]

Coordinative Artifacts 4/9

• material artifacts with a

coordinative role

• communication objects &

persuasive [Wagner, 2000]

• boundary objects [Star, 1989]
• help actors in their daily work
• create a common understanding
• f an (design) idea or task
• enable talking about a design in a

rich way

• remind design principles,

approaches & methods, open questions

• keep track of activities &

materials [Schmidt & Wagner, 2002]

Coordinative Artifacts 5/9

• annotations on artifacts
• > create multilayers
• > “facilitate coordination

between activities (and the people who are responsible for them). They, for instance, provide a collective or individual space for experimentation and change” [Schmidt & Wagner, 2002]

• artifacts are interrelated to work

activities

• dynamic & static states of

artifacts [Schmidt & Wagner, 2002]

Coordinative Artifacts 6/9

• Trace - indicates aspects of past

activities of coordinating actors [Schmidt, 2001]

• Template - specifies properties of the

result of individual contributions, like product standards, drawings, style sheets etc. [Schmidt, 2001]

• Map - specifies inter-dependencies of

tasks or objects in a cooperative work setting, like organizational charts, classification schemes, taxonomies

• etc. [Schmidt, 2001]
• Script - specifies a protocol of

interaction in view of task interdependencies in a cooperative work setting, like checklists, productions shedules etc. [Schmidt, 2001]

Coordinative Artifacts 7/9

• in multimedia production

coordinative design artifacts contain

• work plans
• work to do
• project phases
• instructions
• material
• metaphors
• methods defining rules &

conventions

• illustrations
• references
• names of actors ...

Common Artifacts 8/9

• used by more than one actor

[Robinson, 1993]

• implement the basic

functionality to fulfill the requirements [Berlage & Sohlenkamp, 1999]

• their structure & operation are

predictable

• give an overview of the

cooperative work

• enable implicit communication

within a team

• serve as templates representing

a limited model of the work -> filled in templates -> records of the work

Visual Artifacts 9/9

• visualizations [Schmidt & Wagner, 2002]
• support individual & cooperative thinking & organizing
• help to keep the design concept present in the team
• help to coordinate the work around it
• used to illustrate the design ideas to different stakeholders

in the project, convincing them of the design idea & mobilizing their cooperation

• visual artifacts
• used for coordination
• as part of discussions
• as integral part of explanations
• re-used in follow-up meetings
• sometimes annotated

Outline

• Introduction
• Multimedia Production
• Case Studies: Webcom, Telecom, Archcom
• Coordination with Partners
• Artifacts - specialized, material, coordinative,

common, visual

• Artifacts in our Cases
• Artifact-based Coordination
• Conclusions

Artifacts in our Cases 1/2

• standard format used to write an offer (Webcom)
• deadlines kept in a spreadsheet (with responsible

persons assigned) (Webcom, Archcom)

• the first prototypes created by using Adobe Photoshop

& displayed on the screen of the web designer (Webcom)

• images an external programmer sends to show the

computer game programmed with Flash (Webcom)

• emails they send & receive (Webcom, Telecom, Archcom)
• written guiding themes MD uses to communicate the

design idea & related constraints (Webcom)

• printouts of the web sites, annotated with short

descriptions & open questions (Archcom)

• flip charts, PDAs, desktop computers (Telecom)

Artifacts in our Cases 2/2

• sketches & notes on papers or computers (Webcom, Telecom,

Archcom)

• (annotated todo) lists, MS Word documents,

spreadsheets (Webcom, Telecom, Archcom)

• a wallet & the image of the wallet (Telecom)
• project plan in form of a spreadsheet for the

management of deadlines, responsibilities & work flows (Archcom)

• sketches of navigation & graphic layout of the pages

(Archcom)

• detailed descriptions of the data for the persistence

layer of the system (Archcom)

• design representations in different media like sketches
• n paper, computer-based drawings & lists,

storyboards, HTML prototypes (Archcom)

Outline

• Introduction
• Multimedia Production
• Case Studies: Webcom, Telecom, Archcom
• Coordination with Partners
• Artifacts - specialized, material, coordinative,

common, visual

• Artifacts in our Cases
• Artifact-based Coordination
• Conclusions

Artifact-based Coordination 1/3

• artifacts enable (implicit or explicit) communication

between actors cooperating

• artifacts mediate the status of work-in-progress
• artifacts make participants aware of others’ activities
• artifacts sometimes act as coordinators of work by
• being communication objects
• creating a common understanding of a task
• enabling talking about tasks
• reminding principles, approaches & methods connected to

tasks

• keeping track of activities & materials
• hosting work plans

Artifact-based Coordination 2/3

• artifacts can be used to
• initiate & establish coordination within a work group
• exchange data
• deal with dependencies between activities
• exchange work-in-progress implicitely
• support articulation work e.g. by representing work carried
• ut
• point out possible & actual gaps in coordinating

dependencies between tasks

• communicate the to-dos explicitely
• assign tasks to persons
• define & refine work to do
• ...

Artifact-based Coordination 3/3

• artifacts can be basically used to coordinate the work
• Artifact-based coordination is the coordination that
• ccurs implicitely in work practices when work flow is

driven by artifacts.

• artifacts help reduce coordination effort

e.g. by making coordination a part of the product to be developed or integrated in the product & therefore by making additional communication or articulation

• bsolete

Outline

• Introduction
• Multimedia Production
• Case Studies: Webcom, Telecom, Archcom
• Coordination with Partners
• Artifacts - specialized, material, coordinative,

common, visual

• Artifacts in our Cases
• Artifact-based Coordination
• Conclusions

Conclusions 1/2

• ethnography-based investigations can be used to

understand how coordination is actually supported in real work environments

• a first step to implement a new framework for

coordination mechanisms

• investigate the use of artifacts in multimedia production

teams for coordination purposes

• identify the different types & roles of artifacts:

composed or atomic accessed simultaneously or asynchronously

• wned by one or many

visual or textual material or virtual common or private

• some artifacts are certainly shared & host several

coordination-related data accessed by many -> artifact- based coordination focuses on these common artifacts used in coordinative work practices

Conclusions 2/2

• the new attention point in the research of coordination

mechanisms = common artifacts

• this is different than theories or systems based on

tasks, interdependencies between tasks, events, constraints, workflows

• future work
• new frameworks needed to analyze & describe properties
• f artifacts

which can be primary or secondary depending on importance & relevance to the artifact itself & to the use of the artifact in a collaboration context

• artifact-focused analysis of coordination work might be

used further to think about coordination patterns identified in cooperative work environments

Thanks for your attention!

Hilda Tellioğlu hilda.tellioglu@tuwien.ac.at