Collaborative Design - Collaborative Technologies and Applications for Interactive Information Design - page 204

and what they think about, as they readied them-
selves for new roles in the academic enterprise.
Concurrently, librarians in this comprehen-
sive polytechnic teaching university observed a
consistent pattern of declining gate counts and
diminishing transactions, despite student enroll-
ment increases. These data suggested that even
the traditional “library as place” role was eroding
at this institution, which offers a wide range of
bachelor's and master's degree programs. Librar-
ians were not alone in recognizing that the library
was increasingly marginalized on campus: when
campus administrators announced permanent
budget cuts, the library's share was consistently
greater than other academic support units.
So when a new group leader was hired in
September 2003, public services librarians agreed
to examine the underlying assumptions that his-
torically guided organizational decision making.
Systems thinking was used to reconsider the
academic library's purpose(s), including project
participants' roles and relationships, within the
context of the university mission. This exploration
also benefited from learning-centered consultation
with user communities, which served to refine
the alignment between organizational intentions,
actions, and outcomes.
Within the systems thinking community, 'soft'
systems thinking is widely recognized for its
contributions to organizational learning through
revisiting workplace assumptions (e.g., Ackoff,
1998; 1999; Ackoff et al. , 2006; Checkland, 1981;
2000; Flood & Jackson, 1991; Flood & Romm,
19 9 6 ; J a c k s o n , 2 0 0 0 ; 2 0 0 3; M i d g l e y, 2 0 0 0 ; C h e c k-
land & Winter, 2006). For this project, Soft Sys-
tems Methodology (SSM) was selected because
of its proven usefulness in building larger frames
of reference (Checkland, 1981; 2000; Checkland
& Holwell, 1998a; Checkland & Poulter, 2006;
Checkland & Scholes, 1990; Checkland & Winter,
2006), which librarians recognized as necessary
to bridge boundaries within the library and across
the campus.
During a three year project conducted between

2003 and 2006, nineteen university librarians and
thirteen support staff were led by the group leader
(Somerville) through an organizational learning
initiative facilitated by an external trainer and
project evaluator (Mirijamdotter), who introduced
both Soft Systems Methodology and also Scan-
dinavian 'participatory design' (Bansler, 1989;
Bratteteig, 2004; Iivari & Lyytinen, 1998; Jansson,
2007; Langefors, 1995; Löwgren & Stolterman,
1998; 2004). Library leaders asked the external
trainer and evaluator to deliver systems thinking
workshops and conduct regular outcomes evalua-
tions over the course of the project. Mirijamdotter
was selected because her participatory design and
user involvement orientation were compatible
with the strong collective bargaining (labor union)
orientation of the library workplace.
In this instance, Somerville and Mirijamdotter
aimed to depart from typical SSM interventions
in which a consultant enters the workplace for the
life of the project and then, upon her departure,
SSM usage ceases. Therefore, in addition to ad-
vancing SSM-guided projects, the leader and the
consultant articulated a transferable leadership
model for readying a workplace environment for
rethinking, repurposing, and relearning. Thus,
the purpose of this paper is to offer an account of
using soft systems ideas to generate user-centric
collaborative design ideas. The paper also illus-
trates the benefits of reflective practice focused
on organizational learning. Finally, the efficacy
of this interaction approach—which transformed
organizational outcomes—inspired creation of a
transferable leadership model.
In the following section, we introduce the un-
derlying assumptions of our participatory action
research approach followed by the guiding SSM
framework. Next, we present student-generated
studies that provided initial 'finding out' data
and dialogue-based modeling practice, using
Rich Pictures to represent various perspectives.
Results fortified library staff resolve to engage in
the change initiative, fueling their continuation of
this user-generated approach, as illustrated by the