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Chapter 2
The Evolving Artifact Approach |
Knowledge-intensive domains are those in which workers are surrounded by information sources, but have difficulty accessing the information they need when they need it. Workers in these domains rely on external information resources to augment their mental abilities to comprehend and solve complex problems. The problem for workers isn't the existence of information. It is that there is so much information available that relevant information is difficult to find when it is needed. Examples of knowledge-intensive domains include law, planning, and design.The amount of knowledge required to do work in knowledge-intensive domains is vast and constantly changing. The need for information often arises in the context of problem-solving, in which cases the needed information cannot be predicted a priori, but instead is determined by the demands of the particular problem-solving situation. Information sources are therefore necessary for learning while working, but the essential challenge is to find information when it is needed to solve a problem.
A special class of knowledge-intensive domains places severe time constraints on work, requiring that needed information be found very quickly. This class of domains includes telephone-based consulting, in which workers interact with customers over the telephone. These workers must locate and use information within the context of real-time conversation with the customer.
This chapter describes the particular knowledge-intensive domain of service provisioning at the regional telephone company of NYNEX. Service provisioning workers use computational tools and information sources as they interact with customers over the telephone. The domain of service provisioning provides a concrete 2. Setting: Redesigning Work for thinking about what it means to redesign work. This chapter presents a practice-oriented view of work that focuses on the tasks workers do, and the understanding needed to do the tasks. The development of new computational tools offers the possibility to change work by creating a new distribution of labor between workers, their tools, and their information resources.
This chapter contains two main sections. In the first, the service provisioning domain is described in terms of the tasks workers perform, the tools they use, and the problems they experience. The second section presents a perspective for redesign of work in knowledge intensive domains. Motivated by the problems experienced by service provisioning workers, this perspective highlights key tasks that workers in knowledge-intensive domains should be supported to do.
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