Francesca Alby

‘Afterwards we can understand what went wrong, but now let’s fix it’: How Situated Work Practices Shape Group Decision Making:

The paper proposes an ethnomethodological approach to the study of naturalistic decision making. We present an analysis of design practices in an Internet company, showing that, besides ‘professional design’ of technological systems, designers are continually involved in an activity of maintenance and replanning of these same systems (‘design-in-use’). Through an interaction-based analysis, we describe a serious emergency design-in-use situation. Results show that (1) decision-making activities are not clearly identifiable in ongoing problem-solving action but are embedded in complex work practices; (2) work practices and organizational features shape when, how and which decisions are made, underlying the situated character of the decision-making process; (3) considering the group of designers as unit of analysis allows the complex and distributed nature of decision making in organizations to be described.

Embodiment at the interface: Materialization practices in web design

In this article, we describe some of the results of a research project that studied Web design practices in an Internet company. In this work setting, technology acts as both the instrument of mediation, which supports the shared realization of work practices, and as the product of that work activity. For this reason, of particular importance are the social practices by which the designers (a) incrementally and jointly imagine the portal that they have to develop and (b) make visible hidden parts of technologically mediated activities supporting processes of interpretation of user-interface interactions. The results show that these design practices are essentially realized through sociomaterial arrangements of designers and technologies (talk, body, computer, whiteboard, space, etc.). Designers use these arrangements to make phenomena collectively visible and tangible in relation to the aims of the design activity. These results show that design is a complex, situated, and distributed phenomenon to be studied as a rational and individual task whose features emerge only through detailed analysis of the groups work practices.

Diagnostic Decision Making in Oncology: Creating Shared Knowledge and Managing Complexity

Drawing upon the concept of practice, the article explores diagnostic decision making in oncology through the analysis of informal conversations between doctors in an Italian hospital. The analysis shows that doctors rely on three collaborative practices: (a) joint interpretation, (b) intersubjective generation and validation of hypotheses, and (c) postponing the diagnostic decision. Through such practices, doctors jointly handle tough issues such as managing complexity, dealing with cognitive difficulties and limits of knowledge, and avoiding diagnostic errors. The article addresses some lacunae in the literature by providing empirical access to how decision making is done in an understudied and specialized branch of medicine.

Time, Narratives and Participation Frameworks in Software Troubleshooting

The paper problematizes diagnostic work as a solely technical and rational activity by presenting an analysis focused on the social and organizational practices in which diagnosis is embedded. The analysis of a troubleshooting episode in an Italian internet company shows how diagnostic work is realized: 1) through collaboration sustained by specific knowledge distribution among designers (different but overlapping competences); 2) intersubjectively and discursively as an activity characterized by specific and diverse forms of participation and interwined with material intervention in the system; 3) following a situated rationality which proceeds by gradual approximations to achieve partial or provisional solutions while also taking account of organizational goals and needs. In particular the paper discusses how diagnosis is shaped by time pressure, flexible roles and distributed responsibilities, absent participants, narratives as specialized discourses.

Planning and assessing performance through narratives in soccer team meetings

Soccer teams, as many other sport teams, need, among other activities, to plan their behaviours for future matches and to reflect upon their past performances on the pitch. Within a discursive perspective, we aim to analyse how narratives contribute to shape these team activities during technical meetings. The analyses are based on naturally occurring interactions of an Italian soccer team, recorded during three technical meetings (after a victory, after a defeat and before a match). In particular, our goal is to analyse the relation between type of activity and narrative forms, focusing in particular on the role of the coach. We found that he used different forms of narratives to lead different team activities. In particular, the pre-match ‘fictional’ narratives evoke characters and actions in possible scenarios in order to plan and coordinate future team actions during the match. The after-match narratives are instead ‘rewindings’, reconstructions of past events through which the coach leads the team through a shared interpretation of the team’s behaviours on the pitch. More in general, the research suggests a way to empirically observe and understand how coaches build and lead a team ‘in practice’, that might integrate more widespread questionnaire-based methods of measurement of individual abilities.

Theorizing about Practice: Story Telling and Practical Knowledge in Cancer Diagnoses.

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the organization of storytelling and its role in creating and sharing practical knowledge for cancer diagnosis in a medical community in Italy. Design/methodology/approach The qualitative analysis draws upon different interactional data sets: naturally occurring diagnostic conversations among physicians in the ward, research interviews, video-based sessions in which physicians watch and discuss their diagnostic work. Findings The results highlight: the specific organization of storytelling practices in medical diagnostic work; three main functions that such storytelling practices play in supporting collaborative diagnostic work in the community of our study; and how storytelling practices are resources on which participants rely across settings, including ad hoc reflexive meetings. Originality/value This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the role that storytelling plays in the diagnostic work in an understudied and yet life-saving site such as oncology.

What counts as illness? Anamnesis as a collaborative activity

Drawing on a corpus of 35 videorecordings of cancer consultations collected in a medium-size public hospital in Italy, our analyses show how anamnesis, rather than being an automatic sequence of brief and polar (yes/no) questions addressed by the doctor to the patient, results as a challenging interpretative joint activity; in this activity, the doctor and the patient need to collaborate in order to build a shared sense of salience of what compels attention in the actual clinical situation. Results show the interplay of doctor’s and patient’s different knowledge systems and classification practices, involved in defining what an illness is. Anamnesis proves to be a suitable site for patient’s socialization in medical encounters, and a highly collaborative activity due to the amount of interaction and negotiation between the doctor and the patient (higher than those in other stages of the visit).

Rappresentazioni discorsive dell’impegno domestico e familiare in madri e padri che lavorano

Negli ultimi decenni abbiamo assistito ad un massiccio ingresso delle donne nel mondo del lavoro. Questo fenomeno ha comportato sostanziali riorganizzazioni nella vita familiare e nei modi con cui le persone impiegano il loro tempo suddividendolo fra lavoro pagato, tempo libero e attivita familiari. La pressione temporale causata dal coordinare tali diverse attivita e particolarmente pesante nel caso delle famiglie con figli in cui entrambi i genitori lavorano. L’articolo si inserisce in una linea di ricerca che esplora la divisione del lavoro domestico e familiare nella coppia e nel filone degli studi etnografici della vita quotidiana delle famiglie. I risultati, basati su analisi di diari, interviste e di interazioni videoregistrate in famiglia, si focalizzano su: 1) le rappresentazioni da parte di madri e padri delle loro pratiche di gestione e coordinamento delle attivita familiari 2) la natura cognitiva del lavoro che tale attivita di gestione e coordinamento implica, 3) le rappresentazioni identitarie delle madri e dei padri.

Endangered Literacies? Affordances of Paper- Based Literacy in Medical Practice and Its Persistence in the Transition to Digital Technology

Under the rapid advances of digital technology, traditional paper-based forms of reading and writing are steadily giving way to digital-based literacies, in theory as well as in application. Drawing on a study of literacy in a medical workplace context, this article examines critically the shift toward computer-mediated textual practices. While a considerable body of research has investigated benefits and issues associated with digital literacy tools in medicine, we consider the affordances of paper-based practices. Our analysis of verbal interaction and textual artifacts drawn from a qualitative study of oncology visits indicates that the uses of pen and paper are advantageous for both doctor and patient. Specifically, they allow doctors to process and package information in ways that are favorable to their personal modus operandi, and they enable patients to participate in the medical visit and take an active role in managing their medical treatment. Understanding the affordances of paper-based literacy provides insights for refining digital tools as well as for motivating the design of possible hybrid forms and digital-analog intersections that can best support medical practices.

Social Interactions and Cultural Repertoires as Resources for Coping With Breast Cancer

The article aims to better understand the role of cultural and social resources for coping with cancer as a disruptive experience. Fourteen women who had recently received a diagnosis of breast cancer and started a treatment in an Italian hospital have been interviewed individually to elicit narratives regarding the interactions with the other patients. The analysis focused on the role played by social interactions and cultural repertoires as devices for making sense of and facing the illness. Results show that patients use both interactive as well as noninteractive strategies. In both cases, however, the other patients are an important reference in the interviewees’ accounts. Even for noninteracting patients, the others and specific groups are taken into account and displayed in their narratives either directly or indirectly (i.e., typified or imagined), contributing to interpret and address what they experienced as cancer patients. Moreover, results provide empirical evidence of the various cultural repertoires (including examples retraceable to popular culture) on which people rely to address and cope with the illness. These results widen the individualistic framework commonly used in the understanding of coping strategies by including psychosocial phenomena that are created outside the individual in the complex interactions with the social and cultural world.