Design Decisions and Interactions: A Sociotechnical Network Perspective

Abstract

Effective interaction between project participants is essential in achieving a high-quality design. Through interaction, information is disseminated in project teams and the required knowledge becomes accessible during decision-making episodes. Consequently, effective interaction contributes to improved design outcomes and enhanced project efficiency leading to a higher chance of project success. Although interactions have been studied in the past, such studies predominantly focused on interaction patterns only, thus ignoring the decision-making context, participants’ involvement, and the interdependencies between decisions. This paper makes a methodological contribution to the body of knowledge by proposing a sociotechnical framework. The framework enables the simultaneous investigation of decision interdependencies, the patterns of social interactions that address design knowledge requirements, and participants’ involvement in and influence on making decisions. To demonstrate its efficacy, the framework was applied in a case study. The evidence suggests that design decisions with positive constructability outcomes could be achieved through an alignment between the information interdependencies of design decisions and the interaction patterns that underpin them. Involvement of participants with relevant knowledge and expertise and collaborative information exchanges between participants facilitated this alignment. The framework can be used in different project settings to analyze the theoretical mechanisms that characterize effective interaction in the context of design decision-making.