While process management strategies mainly focus on incremental improvement and workflow management support, the design perspective includes possibilities of fundamental change and all kinds of IT- based support for collaborative processes. We focus on building the bridge between technology development and usage with a method of systematic communication facilitation – the socio-technical walkthrough (STWT). It is run in participatory workshops where software-engineers and other stakeholders are brought together. The STWT employs a semi-structured modelling method to continuously visualize the proposed solutions with diagrams as well as their evolution. In a controlled experiment with 24 students, the combination of systematic facilitation and diagrams has proved as more successful than classical methods (text on cards, pin boards, or flipcharts). Our observations in several practical cases reveal limits and potentials with respect to the enhancement of creativity. A variety of factors such as different cognitive abilities, motivation, rhythms, communication behaviour, dealing with incompleteness, varying granularity of details etc. are relevant to understand the effects on the divergence and convergence of ideas in a design workshop. It is discussed how we can support the emergence of new choices (instead of only making choices) for socio-technical solutions of collaborative work processes.

Thomas Herrmann (http://www.imtm-iaw.rub.de/personenund/personen/th/ index.html) is a professor of Information and Technology Management at the Institute of Applied Work Science (IAW), University of Bochum, Germany since 2004, and a fellow of the Electrical Engineering Department. Current research interests include design methods for socio-technical systems in the areas of knowledge management, (work-) process management, computer supported collaborative learning, and concepts of social software for innovation support.