Designing for User Satisfaction:Sociotechnical design with ETHICS

7.1 Introduction

In applying traditional systems analysis methods, whether structured or object-oriented, the developer tends to place an emphasis on functional requirements that can be specified explicitly using simple but technically powerful diagramming notations, such as UML class diagrams and interaction diagrams.

Sociotechnical approaches seek to engage the user of the information in genuine participation and to achieve an acceptable fit between people and technology rather than attempting to force one to change and adapt to the other. In an invited talk on participatory design Ellen Bravo (1993) described the winner of the 'pettiest office procedure' competition, a law practice that installed a new carpet in their offices. They wanted to keep the carpet looking pristine, so to stop the secretaries rolling back and forth on the carpet on their chairs they nailed the chairs to the floor. The lawyers did not consult anyone in making this decision. When the secretaries came back to work they could not do their jobs since they needed to roll their chairs from typewriter to telephone to computer. These workers had been excluded from the design process. If we extrapolate this exclusion to different levels of user and a full range of business processes we begin to see the implications of leaving the user out of the IS and work design process. As Bravo (1993) went on to say:

Leaving out the users isn't just undemocratic – it has serious consequences for worker health, human rights, job satisfaction, and also for the work process and the bottom line (p. 4) Information systems should not conflict with the essential activities of the organization. If, for example, the response time of a sales recording system is long, the computer terminal awkwardly situated on the counter, or the printer too slow then the sales assistants will struggle to serve customers, queues will build, and sales and customers will be lost.

The province of sociotechnical design approaches has typically been the interest of the user in the role of employee, or worker. With the advent of the Internet it is likely that many of the users of the information system will be external to the organization, in the role of customers, suppliers, partners, collaborators, investors, and so on. In this explication of WISDM we will concentrate on two key user roles: employee and customer. In the context of an Internet box office for the Barchester Playhouse we will be interested in the job satisfaction of employees (work) and the level of customer satisfaction with the Internet service of theatre-goers (play/leisure).

In investigating the employee/work aspects of information system development we will look at two sociotechnical approaches to information system design: ETHICS and participative design. The interests of the theatre-goer as customer would more typically be addressed by market researchers and customer services personnel. To assess theatre-goer satisfaction with the box office information system we will use the WebQual instrument, which enables an organization to understand web site quality from the perspective of the customer.

7.2 Sociotechnical design with ETHICS

ETHICS (Effective Technical and Human Implementation of Computer-based Systems) is a sociotechnical approach to information system design and implementation developed by Enid Mumford. The aim of ETHICS is to foster genuine participation, going beyond users 'participating' by providing input to requirements specifications and after-the-event prototype evaluation. In ETHICS users work with technical designers to identify the issue the new information system is to tackle, to set objectives for the new information system, and to redesign work practices and organizational structure so that the sociotechnical system as a whole works efficiently and effectively. The ETHICS approach builds on Leavitt's framework (figure 7.2), which illustrates the need to align and integrate people and tasks with technology and organization.

In the context of the Playhouse, this might lead to box office clerks and supervisors identifying problems with the current operations and systems, specifying their information needs to address the problems, setting performance targets for a new system, and reorganizing their work as appropriate to get the best out of a new booking system. Genuine participation is a multi-way process in which users, managers, developers, and others influence each other's plans, policies, and decisions, thus affecting future outcomes. IS technical staff, therefore, do indeed have an important role to play as advocates for technology, but their role is not to come in and nail the box office staff's chairs to the floor!

Perhaps one of the fundamental problems of relying on formal specifications of business processes is the assumption that it is possible to make a rational description of how work really gets done in practice. This problematical theme has been investigated by Sachs (1995) who describes a case study of a Trouble Ticketing System (a database for recording and scheduling jobs) in which new technology and new working practices are introduced. On the face of it, the new technology and redesigned work processes should have led to gains in efficiency. Unfortunately, in actuality, the opposite happened – work became less efficient. The systems analyst had failed to understand how the experienced maintenance engineers shared their knowledge through informal mentoring schemes, how knowledge was shared through social interaction (the 'coffee machine' effect), and how the new data entry requirements would slow productivity. In the extreme, we can imagine two different worldviews, one a mechanistic view of the organization and the other a social work view (table 7.1).

The dangers of assuming that the analyst knows best, coupled with the difficulty of workers being able to articulate clearly just exactly how they accomplish work, points to the need for users to participate fully in information system development.

7.2.1 Participation

Mumford suggests three motivations for organizations to adopt a participative approach:

• because it is morally right – those affected by an information system development project should have input and influence on their destinies;

• because participation can build an involved and committed work force;

• because participation is an educational experience that provides insight, understanding and knowledge that will help an organization better achieve its policies. The people actually doing a job usually know more about it than the people who direct and manage it.

Participation can be categorized as consultative, democratic, and responsible (Land, 1982). Inconsultative participation, the lowest level of participation, users input ideas and suggestions to the design process, but the system analysts make the majority of decisions. With democraticparticipation all user groups are involved and given an equal say on the development of the information system. However, although the users make the decisions, management are responsible for implementing them. In the highest level of participation, responsible, all participants are involved in making the decisions and in implementing them. With responsible participation there is the chance of building a genuine commitment to an information system development rather than merely involvement.

Achieving genuine participation is not a trivial undertaking and Mumford is realistic about the difficulties involved. There needs to be trust between workers and management; workers have to believe that management's intentions are good and management believe that workers will work in the interests of the organization. Members of the design group have to be identified – this could be by selection or, more democratically, by election. With genuine participation, the role of the IS designer is altered; rather than playing the role of 'expert' the IS professional has to work as a consultant to the design group. The role of the departmental manager, such as the box office manager or the sales and marketing manager, also changes. The manager might decide not to be a permanent member of the design group so that they do not stifle discussion or overly direct the outcome of the design process. On the other hand, the manager needs to be informed and kept uptodate of progress since the manager will still be responsible for approving the solution the design group suggests.

7.2.2 Job satisfaction

In addition to the idea of participation is a concern with job satisfaction (figure 7.3), which Mumford defines as the goodness of fit between what employees expect and need from work and what they are required to do by the  organization. The ETHICS framework for job satisfaction draws on the work of Talcott Parsons, an American sociologist, to give five dimensions of fit (table 7.2). If an employee's needs are met in all five areas then a good fit is obtained and high job satisfaction should result.

Knowledge fit: some of the older box office clerks might be looking for routine work with limited responsibilities and challenges. Other clerks might need more opportunity to use skills already acquired and to develop new ones. The degree of knowledge fit is the extent to which employees believe their skills are being used and the extent to which they are being helped to develop those skills and to acquire new ones.

Psychological fit: according to Herzberg people have psychological needs for recognition, achievement, responsibility, and status. The workplace is one setting in which these needs can be fulfilled and the design of work should, wherever possible, help people satisfy these needs. Organizations need to be aware that a new information system and accompanying work practices might indeed worsen the efficiency fit. The introduction of new technology can lead to deskilling, the taking away of responsibility, and the creation of an environment where it is more difficult for workers to create a sense of achievement.

Efficiency fit: however good the psychological fit people still need to be compensated at a level that they consider to be fair. Controls over their working life should be acceptable and support services available to help them carry out their tasks. For the effort-reward bargain to work, both parties – the employer and the employee – must feel that a fair balance has been struck between what is required by the organization in terms of skills and competences and the employee's assessment of what they are worth to the organization. The new working practices and organizational structures associated with business process redesign need to be considered in the light of compensation plan factors such as salary levels and bonus plans.

ask structure fit: there should be sufficient variety in the tasks employees are required to carry out. A task should have a clear boundary so that employees know when they have completed a task, and targets to allow them to evaluate how well they have performed. In any given situation there will be many ways of designing work and using IT, but a good design will stimulate employees by providing variety and scope for discretion while not overwhelming employees with overly onerous tasks or unrealistic performance expectations.

Ethical fit: a company focused on sales to the exclusion of pretty much all else is likely to concentrate on hard measures of success, such as the number of leads converted into sales. A provincial theatre might lay emphasis on a range of values, such as a belief in community service and an empathy with the creative arts and performers. Employees in the theatre setting would expect to participate in the design of a new information system and the ethical fit would be poor if they were not consulted or not involved.

7.2.3 Sociotechnical systems design process

From an IS development process perspective the ETHICS method entails a matching of business/technical objectives with job satisfaction/social objectives (figure 7.4). By 'technical' we are not referring only to information technology but also to things that are now technically possible in the organization, such as theatre-goers making ticket bookings for themselves. Wherever possible, people should be allowed to see the alternatives through the use of prototypes and have the opportunity of acting them out. It is important to note that the same piece of information technology can be blended with different business processes and social objectives to produce very different results. For example, assume an insurance company builds a new customer information system allowing customer service representatives to see the details of each product a customer has purchased from the insurance company. Using this information system the insurance company could pursue a business efficiency objective of improving customer service while at the same time reducing the number of customer representatives. This business objective would require that personnel are trained to deal with customers quickly using the information in the customer system while human resources would need to ensure that the compensation plan rewards short 'customer moments' (as well as reallocating representatives and negotiating severance packages).

Using the same customer information technology the insurance company could decide to use the information about the relationship the customer has with the company to cross-sell more insurance products. In this case employees would need to be trained to identify cross-selling opportunities and the compensation plan revised to reward sales. Although the two business objective scenarios use the same piece of IT (a customer information software system) they lead to very different outcomes: the first scenario (the efficient handling of customer enquiries) will lead to redundancies and the possibility of repetitive and dull work for the service representatives remaining; the second scenario (cross-selling) will require extensive retraining for existing staff and possibly the introduction of new staff with different skills.

One way of assessing the level of job satisfaction quality is to use a questionnaire (table 7.3). This instrument was developed by Mumford as a practical guide to assessing the five fits of table 7.2. Application of this instrument before and after the information system implementation should provide a guide to how well the social objectives of increasing the quality of work life have been met.

Some general questions that might be asked of any information systems development project are:

• Are the existing staff going to use the system?

• Will some staff be lost or redeployed?

• Will the good features of the existing system be kept? Such features could include an acceptable level of job variety, easy interaction between people, and a friendly working atmosphere

• What emphasis is to be placed on general objectives such as improving job satisfaction or acceptability to all employees?

Once the social and business objectives have been identified and matched they need to be ranked, costs and constraints considered, and then the 'best' sociotechnical solution selected. The task of assessing the costs and benefits is considerable and even then there is no guarantee that there will be enough information to ensure a successful outcome. There will be some people or groups who will not be happy about the proposed system – indeed there will be situations where the new system is seen as a direct assault on vested interests leading to a power struggle.

Table 7.3: Job satisfaction survey. Source: New Partnerships for Managing Technological Change, pp. 158-160, © Nancy H. Bancroft, 1992. This material is reproduced by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Bancroft uses original material from Designing Human Systems, © Enid Mumford, 1983. This material is reprinted here with permission of the author.