what-when-how
In Depth Tutorials and Information
8.2.3.3 A Sociotechnical Co-Construction Process
Based on the foundations of ECN diagram and the STF framework, we have taken
the next step to develop a generic engineering collaboration process through which
can be further detailed into a collaborative negotiation process. his process, which
we call the Sociotechnical Co-construction process (STCP), specifies eight steps
with sufficient operational details as shown in Figure 8.2:
I. Define a starting “baseline process” for the chosen application domains, as
the basis to be co-constructed (i.e., changed) later, upon the agreement by all
involved stakeholders.
II. Identify a group of “stakeholders” who have an interest in the outcomes of,
and will directly or indirectly participate in, the co-construction process of a
particular collaborative campaign.
III. Propose an initial “concept structure” for a particular engineering process to
organize the concepts provided by the team.
IV. Establish the initial “perspective model” for all participating stakeholders to
express opinions for each concept in the concept structure.
V. Build the “perspective model state diagram” (PMSD) for each concept in the
concept structure.
VI. Perform the “perspective analysis” on the current PMSD to understand the close-
ness or distance of different stakeholders' perspectives at that particular moment.
VII. Conduct the “conflict management” tasks according to the results perspec-
tive analysis.
VIII. Obtain a “shared reality” as a result of the co-construction process. his inal
product of the STC process is a shared reality, which is a broader concept than
traditional approaches (e.g., a finished design in terms of a product model).
he sociotechnical co-construction process (STCP) provides us with research
context and grounds of building a new negotiation process, as STCP lays out the
basic steps to guide the stakeholders through the process of co-constructing group
decisions. However, stakeholders who work in STCP are required to fully share
their proposals, objectives, and perspectives, yet they have not been guided about
how to organize this information to structure the negotiation arguments during
the process.
8.3 ASociotechnicalCollaborativeNegotiation
ApproachUsingStructuredArguments
Engineering design is a group decision-making process that is often carried by a
team of stakeholders who cross geography, disciplinary, and temporal boundaries.
One of the practical challenges to support the effective collaborative negotiation
