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Approaches to business Approaches to

business process
process analysis: a review analysis
Stefano Biazzo
University of Padua, Italy 99
Keywords Methodology, Modelling, Process management
Abstract Managing processes with the aim of improving them necessarily requires both analysis
and critical evaluation of organizational practice. This article takes up the theme of business process
analysis with the aim of highlighting and comparing alternative techniques and approaches. Four
approaches have been identified: action analysis, process mapping, co-ordination analysis and social
grammar analysis. An interpretative model of the fundamental differences between these
approaches is proposed. This paper discusses both the limits and the possibilities offered by each
approach and concludes with a reflection on the problem of integrating diverse analytical
perspectives.

1. Introduction
In recent years there has been much discussion around the question of the
importance of focusing managerial attention on ``processes'' that is, on the chain
of activities whose final aim is the production of a specific output for a
particular customer or market (Davenport, 1993, p. 5). Indeed, although from
different perspectives, much of the literature has taken up the problem of
organisational re-engineering, or, to adopt one of the more widely used
acronyms, business process re-engineering (BPR). Many firms have invested
considerable resources in BPR projects, funds have been made available for
research aimed at developing BPR methodologies and, also, for comparative
studies of projects for changing firms' processes (e.g. see Coulson-Thomas,
1994, 1995).
This study intends to offer an examination of the problem of business
process analysis, given its importance for process improvement. It should be
stressed that in-depth understanding of organisational practice is an essential
prerequisite for intelligent interventions for organisational change. Indeed, we
feel that the moment of analysis is vitally important both for radical change
and for incremental change, even though it is often claimed that a sort of
organisational amnesia is required if radical changes are to be carried out: as
always, the real problem is that of finding an equilibrium. The tendency to
focus on the finest details, which often paralyses action, must be balanced with
the more ``visionary'' type of approach which tends to underestimate the
constraining effect that any specific set of organisational variables may have
on change processes: a balance should be sought between the potential positive
effect of being freed from traditions and the potential negative effect of being
deprived of experience. Business Process Management
Section 2 proposes a matrix which classifies the different ways in which Journal, Vol. 6 No. 2, 2000,
pp. 99-112. # MCB University
processes can be analysed. Four alternative approaches have been identified: Press, 1463-7154
BPMJ (1) action analysis;
6,2 (2) process mapping;
(3) co-ordination analysis; and
(4) social grammar analysis.

100 The fundamental elements which characterise these approaches are examined
in sections 3 and 4. Finally, in section 5, we conclude with some critical remarks
about the individual approaches and about the problem of integrating diverse
analytical perspectives.

2. Approaches to business process analysis

Process analysis cannot, obviously, be separated from the complex set of
theoretical and practical problems which permeate any investigation of social
systems and, more specifically, of formal organisations. As Burrell and Morgan
(1979) demonstrated so clearly, organisational analyses do not take place in an
intellectual vacuum, where there are no philosophical or value elements; rather
they are closely connected to important epistemological and ontological
choices, which indissolubly link the researcher to specific research paradigms.
The work done by Burrell and Morgan both stimulated and opened up the
way for intense critical reflection, on the part of those who study organisations,
on their own activities as producers of knowledge. What has emerged from the
various attempts to systematically classify organisational analysis, is that
there is always a fundamental dichotomy in the conceptualisation of the
relationship between the researcher and observed social reality. This
dichotomy was well described by Evered and Louis (1981): the search for
organisational knowledge may be conducted from the outside, through study of
data generated by the organisation or, from the inside, by becoming part of the
organisation itself (inquiry from the outside versus inquiry from the inside).
Analysis from the outside is always characterised by a degree of detachment,
on the part of the researcher, from the environment he/she is studying: a
detachment which derives from belief in an external reality made up of
objective facts. Conversely, analysis from the inside, is characterised by the
assumption that organisational phenomena must be understood through
immersion within the flow of events: only through ``thick'' descriptions of
situations and contexts is it possible to even attempt to ascribe some meaning
to the ``facts'' that are observed.
This external-internal contrast can be usefully used in order to distinguish
two, alternative, strategies for analysing business processes:
(1) rational reconstruction strategy; and
(2) pragmatic reconstruction strategy.
With rational reconstruction strategy, processes are reconstructed on the basis
of a series of retrospective considerations made by the actors who rationalise
their flow of experience. The fact that the understanding of the processes which
the analyst develops is, effectively, a representation of ``abstractions'' is entirely Approaches to
irrelevant within this strategy: reality is an objective entity that can be business process
captured without problems. Rational reconstruction strategy is anchored to an analysis
``external'' logic of understanding of organisational phenomena.
The reconstruction strategy that, to contrast it with the ``rational'', we have
defined as being ``pragmatic'', is based on two fundamental theoretical pre-
suppositions: 101
(1) the conception of processes as a sequence of actions that are embedded
in structures which are, simultaneously, both enabling and constraining
(Abbott, 1992);
(2) the recognition of the situated nature of the action (Suchman, 1983).
The idea of processes as a series of actions embedded in ``structures'' is based
on the vision of social reality developed by Giddens (1976 and 1984). In
Giddens' view, a ``structure'' is a set of rules and resources which can both
constrain and enable social action; these rules and resources mediate human
action and, at the same time, are both re-affirmed and constituted at the
moment in which they are used by the actors. This conception seeks, however,
to go beyond the traditional idea of structure as a set of formal and abstract
relations which restrict action, that is, beyond the objective vision of structure
which makes structure appear as being independent of human actions and
interpretations; and, conversely, it seeks to overcome the idea of structure as a
property that arises out of action, which latter is typical of radically subjectivist
theoretical positions.
This concept of the relationship between action and structure highlights
how the actions of the members of an organisation are always, to some extent,
modelled by the situation in which these latter find themselves, that is, it leads
to the recognition of the situated nature of the action. The concept of ``situated
action'' has been developed and elaborated mainly by Suchman (1983, 1987) in
the context of the problem of the relationship between the procedural
specifications of action and the action effectively carried out by an
organisational actor.
The central assertion here is that the ``plans'' (a term used by Suchman to
refer to standard operating procedures, checklists, flowcharts, etc.) are not
sufficient if one is really to be able to understand the action; the reality of the
action can only be perceived through consideration of the physical and social
circumstances within which it takes place, that is, by focusing on the local and
contingent interactions between the actor and the context. Hence, the action is
``situated'' because it is inseparable from the place in which it unfolds. Thus,
from this point of view, process models or standard operating procedures are:
(1) ex-ante a resource (more or less restraining, more or less enabling); and
(2) ex-post a rational idealisation of the real course of events.
Recognising the situated nature of action makes in-depth exploration of the
relationship between ``plans'' and ``actions'' necessary if one is to pass from the
BPMJ idealisation of rational reconstruction of processes, to the construction of highly
6,2 detailed ``maps of the territory'' (generated through a physical immersion of the
researcher within the organisational setting under study; that is by inquiry
from the inside) which make it possible to understand what it is that allows the
organisational actor to ``keep things running'', i.e. understand what his/her
knowledge is in practice. This is why the adjective pragmatic has been used to
102 describe this strategy for analysing processes.
The second dimension of differentiation between the diverse analytical
approaches that we introduce is the focus of analysis, which seeks to elicit the
different emphases attributed either to the ``system'' ± the various types of
structures that guide and regulate action ± or to the organisaational actor.
The matrix in Figure 1 is obtained by cross-referencing the two dimensions
proposed ± strategy and focus of analysis. Figure 1 illustrates the variety of
different approaches which will be discussed below.

3. The rational reconstruction of business processes

The analytical approach shown in the top right box of the matrix in Figure 1 is
that which could be defined as process mapping: trying to understand a
process by building up a map means highlighting, graphically, in a model, the
relationships between activities, personnel, information and objects involved.
One reason why process mapping methods are so widespread today is that it
has been widely recognised that such models can offer useful, and relatively
inexpensive, descriptions which can help towards improving and
re-designing business processes: ``one aspect of the successful management of
change for re-engineering manufacturing enterprises is to employ practical,
accessible, proven approaches to modelling that systems engineers can use
routinely for the analysis and design of complex established human/machine/
object systems'' (Colquhoun et al., 1996). A recent study of the BPR
strategy

pragmatic reconstruction rational reconstruction

social grammar
system process mapping
analysis
focus

Figure 1.
actor action analysis coordination analysis
Alternative approaches
to business process
analysis
methodologies adopted by 25 important international consultancy firms, Approaches to
revealed that during the diagnostic phase there was widespread use of process business process
capture and modelling techniques (Kettinger et al., 1997). analysis
Naturally it is possible to create different maps depending on the techniques
of representation that are used to construct process models. Techniques of
representation define the language used in modelling both in terms of syntax
(the set of symbols that can be used to build the model and the rules concerning 103
their use and combination) and in terms of semantics (the meaning that must be
attributed to each symbol). For example, in integrated computer-aided
manufacturing DEFinition method (IDEF0 technique), a process is conceived of
as a system of transforming input into output, one which uses resources and
which is subject to controls. Activities are represented by rectangles, while
arrows symbolise the entities used or produced (input, control or resource if the
arrow is shown going in, respectively, on the left, above or below the rectangle,
output if the arrow is coming out of the right hand side). An IDEF0 model
consists of:
. a hierarchical set of activities, in which each lower level activity
represents a function that must be carried out in order to accomplish the
higher level activity; and
. a set of entities (input, output, control and resources) that represent the
flows of communication between the parts (the activities) that the
process has been broken down into (see Figure 2).
The IDEF0-3 method offers another interesting mapping technique. This is
based on integrating IDEF0 and PFN-IDEF3 techniques (PFN-IDEF3 ± process
flow network ± is logically equivalent to a standard flowchart). The idea is: first
use the IDEF0 model in order to construct the hierarchical-logical structure of
the process; then, consider the various activities identified within the IDEF0
model as the context (or scenario) for breaking down such activities with PFN-
IDEF3 diagrams (Colquhoun et al., 1996).
Whatever the technique adopted, process mapping usually proceeds
according to the phases listed below (see, for example, Marca and McGowan,
1988; Coulson-Thomas, 1995; Kettinger et al., 1995; Hunt, 1996):
. definition of the boundaries and of the customers of the process, of the
main inputs and outputs and of the actors involved in the workflow;
. interviews with those responsible for the various activities within the
process and study of available documentation;
. creation of the model on the basis of the information acquired and step
by step revision of the model following the logic of the ``author-reader''
cycle (where the ``readers'' can be either those who participate in the
process or potential users of the model).
The process mapping approach is based both on a precise strategy for
reconstructing organisational actions and on a specific focus for the
BPMJ
6,2

104

Figure 2.
IDEF0 representation
technique

analysis: however, processes are reconstructed, through interviews and the

``author-reader'' cycle, on the basis of a series of retrospective reflections
reported by the actors directly involved in the process, actors who
rationalise their activities; conversely, the analysis is focused on the
structure of the set of activities being studied. What must be sought,
identified and included is the system within which the actors operate;
therefore the map must show clearly the relations between the activities,
personnel, information and the objects involved in a given workflow.
Another approach to process analysis, based on rational reconstruction strategy
but focused on the organisational actor, is that inspired by
so-called co-ordination theory (Malone and Crowston, 1994), which we could call
co-ordination analysis. Co-ordination theory is based on the idea of the conceptual
separation of two types of activities that are present within a process: the activities
that are directly linked to achieving the aims of the process (the tasks), and the
additional activities, of co-ordination, which must be carried out in order to the
manage any interdependencies between the various tasks.
Table I offers some examples of generic co-ordination activities in relation to
the type of interdependencies that the actors must manage; it is interesting to
highlight that co-ordination activities are primarily information-processing
Interdependence
Task-task interdependence
Create-create (conflictual creation of
resources)
Create-use (producer-consumer link)
Use-use (conflictual use of resources)
Task-resource interdependence
Resource-resource interdependence
Source: Crowston (1997)
Co-ordination activity Approaches to
business process
analysis
In the case of:
Same resource, eliminate a task
Different aspects of the same resource:
negotiate the final configuration of the
resource
105
In the case of:
Precedence and compatibility, constraints:
notification (of the conclusion of the
preceding task), standardisation, negotiation
Transfer of resources: creation of buffers
Simultaneity constraints: synchronisation,
scheduling
In the case of:
Resource that can be shared: no co-ordination
activities required
Re-usable resource that can be shared: make
the conflict visible, programme resource use
Non-reusable resource: select a task
Task uses one resource: assign the resource
(identify requirements, identify available
resources, choose the resource, use the
resource)
Recognise interdependence
Once the interdependence between two
resources has been recognised, use the Table I.
activities listed above in order to Interdependence and
manage it generic co-ordination
activities

activities. This classification of interdependencies is based on tasks and

resources. As mentioned above, tasks are activities that are directly functional
for achieving the aims of the process and resources includes everyting that is
either used, or modified by, the tasks.
It is useful to emphasise that the co-ordination activities described above
do belong to different ``levels'' of co-ordination. More specifically, they
belong to three levels that represent successive logical (and chronological)
moments: first level co-ordination activities appear before those of the
second level, and those of the second level appear before those of the third.
This makes it possible to describe, more clearly, the image of the business
process on which co-ordination analysis is founded.
First level co-ordination activities are those ``primitive'' operations which
concern the division of work between a multiplicity of actors: given a ``macro-
task'' that cannot be dealt with by a single actor, it must be decomposed into
BPMJ tasks that can be dealt with; this type of co-ordination activity has been
6,2 somewhat ignored in the typologies described above, as it has been assumed
that breakdown into tasks has already been carried out. Indubitably, this is
true in the case of repetitive processes where the single phases are
standardised, but, obviously, does not apply to all processes. The second level
of co-ordination refers to the situation where decisions must be taken about
106 assigning resources to a task (task-resource interdependence). The third level
refers to the situation where the co-ordination activities of the preceding levels
have already been completed and the problem now concerns relationships
between the tasks assigned to the actors: hence, co-ordination activities at this
level concern task-task and resource-resource interdependencies.
Thus, in the analytical approach based on co-ordination theory a business
process is conceived of as the continuous realisation of an articulated set of
activities for breaking down tasks, assigning resources and managing
interdependencies. Emphasis is laid not on the ``structure'' of the process but,
rather, on what the individual actors do in order to co-ordinate their activities.
Process analysis consists of identifying the actors involved, interviewing the
individuals and examining documents that describe standard operating
procedures in order to discover:
(1) what kind of information the actors received;
(2) from whom they received it;
(3) how they received it;
(4) how they processed the different kinds of information; and
(5) to whom they sent messages as a result (Crowston, 1997).
This view of processes has important implications for re-design (see, Crowston,
1997; Malone et al., 1999). The basic idea is that the variety of ``forms'' which
functionally similar processes take on within different organisations is, to a
large extent, determined by the fact that different co-ordination activities are
adopted: in this case, significant changes can be made in processes simply by
substituting one coordination method with another.

4. The pragmatic reconstruction of business processes

In the context of pragmatic reconstruction, Figure 1 showed two approaches to
business processes analysis which we defined as ``action analysis'' and ``social
grammar analysis''. These two approaches differ in the emphasis they lay on
the actor or on the system. Here, we will examine the analysis of action first
because, as will be seen, this analysis is a necessary precursor to a further
investigation of the sequence of actions, i.e. of social grammars.
The foundation of action analysis lies in the concept of ``move'' as defined by
Pentland (1992): a move is a socially relevant activity of an organisational actor
and, accordingly to the theoretical presuppositions of pragmatic
reconstruction, is embedded in the context. Pentland highlighted three
structural dimensions that both condition and enable moves:
 (1) the physical structure; Approaches to
(2) the ritual structure; and business process
(3) the competence structure. analysis
Physical structure refers to the clearly physical and objective aspects that
condition action (such as having, or not having, an e-mail system available in
order to discuss a specific problem); ritual structure concerns the cultural 107
aspects of interaction; competence structure refers to the asymmetrical
distribution of knowledge.
This distinction was developed in relation to a specific case; constraints and
resources of action can, generally, refer to the structural dimensions below:
. the technological dimension, which refers to the material artefacts
(various hardware and software configurations) used by the actors in
their work;
. the organisational rules dimension, that is, those specific formal norms
that are developed within a given organisation which condition the
individual's behaviour;
. the ritual or cultural dimension;
. the power dimension (which is related to the asymmetric distribution of
those resources that can be activated in order to influence behaviour).
Thus, action analysis means the identification of the moves within a given
process and an in-depth exploration of the structural conditions within which
the individual moves take place.
As an example, it would be interesting to take a closer look at the above cited
study of Pentland (1992). He studied the activities of support specialists
working in assistance units of software producers; their activities are part of a
process that starts with a customer's phone call, which poses the problem, and
ends with the resolution of the problem, a resolution which may even include
modifications to part of the product. Pentland identified some fundamental
moves of the support specialists, e.g. quick question, take a look, and transfer.
The move called quick question relates to the action a support specialist
takes when a previously unencountered, but adjudged simple, problem is
posed. It is an important move in that the skills distributed throughout the
organisation are enacted through it. What are the structural constraints of such
an action? Certainly there has to be a physical channel of communication
(telephone, face to face conversation, e-mail) which puts constraints on the use
of such a move. The ritual structure concerns the fact that the interaction must
be fast; the question must be precise and clear so that it is not perceived as an
incorrect question. The specialist must be able to ask the correct questions
correctly, because not respecting the ritual structure of the quick question,
reduces the likelihood of receiving an answer and, consequently, reduces the
actor's ability to draw on the skills distributed throughout the organisation.
Obviously, the competence structure lies at the basis of this move: help is asked
BPMJ for because the actor imagines, or presumes, that someone else may know
6,2 the answer; contemporaneously such an action redefines, over time, the
competence structure itself in that it functions as a sort of mechanism for the
distribution of information and knowledge.
The take a look move is, on the contrary, a request for help that requires
greater commitment on the part of the respondent: it is a more open, more
108 difficult request. The physical constraint is given by the fact that the problem
poser and the problem solver must be present together and work together on
the solution. Here ritual structure imposes heavier constraints than in the
previous case: another person's time should not be asked for lightly, the
question must be well thought out and should be posed by a person who is
considered to be competent. It is interesting, here, to draw attention to a sort of
``virtuous circle'' that exists: the more the person (because of socially wrong
moves made in the past) is considered to be less than competent, the less are
they able to ask someone to ``take a look'' at their problem which renders their
search for a solution even more difficult. This means that the individual
specialist must continually demonstrate his/her abilities and competence so as
not to be socially emarginated within the organisation, as only through such a
demonstration can he/she continue to ask for help and, consequently, further
increase his/her stock of experience.
If the support specialist does not feel able to resolve the problem he/she has
been assigned (perhaps after having tried some of the moves listed above) then
he/she must find someone to pass the problem on to. If he/she did not do this
then the organisation would not be able to offer any solutions to customers. But
how, in practice, does one actor pass the case to another? He/she can transfer
the call on to another specialist. In order to adopt this move very precise ritual
constraints must be respected: in the first place the specialist must explain why
he/she wants to pass the call on and demonstrate that it is not a problem that is
suited to his/her particular skills. Second, he/she must show that it is probably
a problem that the specialist contacted will be able to deal with. Finally, the
specialist contacted must either agree to accept the new responsibility or must
offer an explanation as to why he/she is not prepared to take it on. If these rules
are respected then the transfer of responsibility will probably succeed. It is
clear how important the support specialist's use of such a move for the overall
performance of the process is: indeed it is only through the transfer move that
the organisational knowledge can be enacted.
As we have seen, action analysis focuses on the single moves carried out by
each individual: processes are studied through explorations of the ``elementary
cells''. The image of the support specialist's work revealed by the study
described above is not one of a well defined, static sequence of steps or phases,
rather, it is of a set of moves which the actors must be able to activate in
assemblies which will be different for each specific case that is dealt with. This
offers the idea of a conception of processes as a network of actions (in Figure 3
A1, A2, etc. indicate the different actions which make up the process).
 A1 Approaches to
business process
analysis

A2 A3 A4
109

A5
A8

A6
Figure 3.
Business process as a
A7 A9 network of actions

The metaphor of a network serves to help view a process as a finite set of

moves (the nodes in the net) and as a set of possible relations between them. In
the example shown in Figure 3, the process is composed of nine moves which
can be assembled in 20 different ways.
Representing a process as a network of actions serves to highlight an
important problem: why do some sequences appear and not others? Which
structural dimensions shape the set of possible sequences, and what effects do
they have? The assembly of actions that make up a process is never completely
fixed nor is it predetermined on any type of automatism: the structures
(according to Giddens' definition) in which the processes are embedded do not
determine the action but, as stated above, merely represent a field of
possibilities (constraints and resources) for the action.
Thus the analysis of the sequence of actions can be carried out as follows:
(1) identification of the lexicon that is of the set of ``moves'' ± of the process
being studied;
(2) observation of a large enough number of ``instances'';
(3) exploration of the basic rules that underlie the existence of the varieties
of assemblies found in practice.
These rules of action assemblies go to make up what could be called the
``grammar'' of the process (see Pentland and Rueter, 1994).
The idea of using the metaphor of grammar is particularly interesting in that
the grammar of a language describes a set of (potentially infinite) sentences on
the basis of a finite lexicon and of an finite set of rules. Thus, constructing the
grammar of a process means describing the set of rules that can explain the
differences (in terms of the sequence of moves) between the instances of the
BPMJ process being studied. These rules for combining the constituent elements of
6,2 the lexicon of the process are the expression of structural constraints (and
opportunities): as every single action is fitted into structures which are,
contemporaneously, constraining and enabling, thus the assemblies of actions
are conditioned by the context in which they exist. Hence, formulating such
rules of assembly means delineating the relationship between processes and
110 structures.
Within the field of pragmatic reconstruction strategy, grammatical analysis
shifts the emphasis of study from the actor to the system, that is, to the set of
structural factors that regulate the assemblies of moves carried out by the
individual actors. But in this way the system emerges from within the context
and is not a rationalisation that is imposed from the outside as in the analytical
approaches discussed in the previous section.

5. Conclusion
Four alternative approaches to business process analysis, distinguished on the
basis of differences in strategy and focus, have been identified. These
approaches produce different kind of representations: more specifically, there is
a sort of quantum leap in modelling between the analytical approach based on
pragmatic reconstruction strategy and that based on rational reconstruction
strategy.
Earlier we showed how the real complexity of work can be rendered visible
through the analysis of action and social grammars. Observing action means
trying to identify the set of specific moves that an actor, immersed in a socially
organised environment, must carry out in order ``to do what must be done'',
interacting with the rules and the resources that make up the structures in
which the action is embedded. Focusing on the relation between subjects'
actions and structures makes exploration of important problems possible: the
practical use of procedures, plans and, in general, of organisational rules; the
real ways in which the available tools are being used; the strategy adopted in
order to use the political-social constraints which regulate action; the different
ways in which the individual moves are assembled, and the study of the
influence of institutional, technological and cultural structures on how such
sequential variety is generated. Furthermore, pragmatic recostruction strategy
does make it possible to analyse the relations between changes in structural
conditions and the effects of such changes on processes (see Pentland et al.,
1994; Pentland, 1995).
The co-ordination theory approach represents an attempt to enter the ``black
box'' of the mechanisms of co-ordination and to enrich the classic frameworks
which are concerned with the choice of co-ordination strategies (see McCann
and Galbraith, 1981). Indeed, such frameworks do not offer explanations about
how, in practice, organisational actors resolve the interdependencies that bind
them one to another; rather, attention is focused on the single decision to define
the mechanism that can best guarantee certain types of relationships between
the different parts of the system and not on the recurrent decisions that the
different actors have to make, every day, in order to co-ordinate their tasks. As Approaches to
we have underlined in the preceding section, co-ordination theory suggests an business process
innovative approach to redesign, as the ``design of a process depends on the co- analysis
ordination mechanisms chosen to manage dependencies among tasks and
resources involved in the process'' (Crowston, 1997); so new process
configurations can be generated by replacing some co-ordination activities with
alternatives. 111
As far as process mapping is concerned, it is widely acknowledged that it
can play an important role in helping to understand the structural dimensions
of work flows so that evaluations of both efficiency and effectiveness can be
carried out and direction given to redesign activities.
When choosing between these approaches one key condition must be taken
into account: the analysis must concentrate on factors that can be modified over
a reasonable time period and must use simple research methods, since change
projects are obviously characterised by tight constraints both on time and
financial resources. Thus it is clear that, in the context of a change initiative,
pragmatic reconstruction cannot be an alternative to rational reconstruction;
(re)engineers need first to know and understand all the ``hard'' elements of the
process (work flows and information flows) before they can decide which
activities to eliminate, which to combine and which to overlap.
What, however, can be evaluated is the opportunity of utilising pragmatic
reconstruction strategy in a focused manner as it is able to offer an important
source of information that can be used in order to support the definition and
evaluation of possible changes.
Indeed, in many cases, one of the reasons why business process change is
not successful lies in the fact that process designs pay insufficient attention to
the social context of work; if, however, pragmatic reconstruction strategy is
used in a specific segment of the process, one that is judged to be particularly
critical or problematic, this strategy is able to give an informed interpretation
of the social character of work which can be useful to designers.
Critical evaluation of organisational practice is closely linked to the ability to
represent and understand actions and sequences of actions. We feel that this
ability is not only linked to the construction of ever-more detailed maps, which
use increasingly sophisticated representational techniques, but also, and
perhaps above all, it is helped by a willingness to combine, eclectically,
seemingly irreconcilable strategies for analysis.

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