The paper is an investigation of challenges in assessing parameters of a socio-technical system. The investigation is carried out using an augmented socio-technical matrix the quadrants of which represent culture, type of structure, methods/technique and type of technology. Investigation concerns a specific kind of matrixes developed for the purpose of achieving the right level of flexibility f...

This paper proposes a socio-technical assessment tool (STAT-HI) for health informatics implementations. We explore why even projects allegedly using sound methodologies repeatedly fail to give adequate attention to socio-technical issues, and we present an initial draft of a structured assessment tool for health informatics implementation that encapsulates socio-technical good practice. Further...

S OFTWARE engineering has long been recognized as a human activity that is managed through a system of methods, tools, processes, and work practices. This interaction between the nature of the product, the work, and the people doing it represents the socio-technical environment of a software development project. Software projects that fail to adequately consider the people's social behavior in ...

Integration and adaptation between an information system and the related business organisation is an important challenge for IS development project managers. Both IS research and software engineering research have contributed important lessons on integration, but at the practical level of IS development projects the processes of integration and mutual adaptation is less well understood. In this...

A (truly) integrated approach to the management of urban water should take into account, further to the characteristics of the technical system, a range of socio-economic processes and interactions – combined into what has been termed the “socio-technical system”. This is by no means an easy endeavour: conventional simulation tools often fail to capture socio-economic processes and their intera...

The question “what is the object of socio-technical design and who is in charge of designing which aspects?” is generally described as a wicked problem which requires deliberate reflection – in theory as well as practice. Baxter’s and Sommerville’s differentiation between the development and change process and the development and change team provides a good basis for analysis. By reflecting on ...

To authenticate a web server, modern browsers check whether a TLS certificate is valid. This check is socio-technical because, when the technical validation fails, it may request the user to decide, intertwining the usual technical issues with social elements, such as trust and cultural values. Hence the need for a methodology aimed at a socio-technical understanding of TLS certificate validati...

This discussion paper considers the adoption of socio-technical perspectives and their theoretical and practical influence within the discipline of health informatics. The paper highlights the paucity of discussion of the philosophy, theory and concepts of socio-technical perspectives within health informatics. Instead of a solid theoretical base from which to describe, study and understand hum...

0

Information systems are designed, constructed, and used by people. Therefore, a software design process is not purely a technical task, but a complex psycho-socio-technical process embedded within organizational, cultural, and social structures. These structures influence the behavior and products of the programmer’s work such as source code and documentation. This chapter (1) discusses the non...