Ron van Hoof

Brahms: simulating practice for work systems design

Abstract A continuing problem in business today is the design of human–computer systems that respect how work actually gets done. The overarching context of work consists ofactivities, which people conceive as ways of organizing their daily life and especially their interactions with each other. Activities include reading mail, going to workshops, meeting with colleagues over lunch, answering phone calls, and so on. Brahms is a multiagent simulation tool for modeling the activities of groups in different locations and the physical environment consisting of objects and documents, including especially computer systems. A Brahms model of work practice revealscircumstantial, interactional influenceson how work actually gets done, especially how people involve each other in their work. In particular, a model of practice reveals how people accomplish a collaboration through multiple and alternative means of communication, such as meetings, computer tools, and written documents. Choices of what and how to communicate are dependent uponsocial beliefs and behaviors—what people know about each other’s activities, intentions, and capabilities and their understanding of the norms of the group. As a result, Brahms models can help human–computer system designers to understandhow tasks and information actually flowbetween people and machines, what work is required to synchronize individual contributions, and how tools hinder or help this process. In particular, workflow diagrams generated by Brahms arethe emergent product of local interactions between agents and representational artifacts, not pre-ordained, end-to-end paths built in by a modeler. We developed Brahms as a tool to support the design of work by illuminating how formal flow descriptions relate to the social systems of work; we accomplish this by incorporating multiple views—relating people, information, systems, and geography—in one tool. Applications of Brahms could also include system requirements analysis, instruction, implementing software agents, and a workbench for relating cognitive and social theories of human behavior.

Adjustable Autonomy and Human-Agent Teamwork in Practice: An Interim Report on Space Applications

We give a preliminary perspective on the basic principles and pitfalls of adjustable autonomy and human-centered teamwork. We then summarize the interim results of our study on the problem of work practice modeling and human-agent collaboration in space applications, the development of a broad model of human-agent teamwork grounded in practice, and the integration of the Brahms, KAoS, and NOMADS agent frameworks We hope our work will benefit those who plan and participate in work activities in a wide variety of space applications, as well as those who are interested in design and execution tools for teams of robots that can function as effective assistants to humans.

Brahms An Agent-Oriented Language for Work Practice Simulation and Multi-Agent Systems Development

Brahms is a multi-agent modeling language for simulating human work practice that emerges from work processes in organizations. The same Brahms language can be used to implement and execute distributed multi-agent systems, based on models of work practice that were first simulated. Brahms demonstrates how a multi-agent belief-desire-intention language, symbolic cognitive modeling, traditional business process modeling, activity-and situated cognition theories are brought together in a coherent approach for analysis and design of organizations and human-centered systems.