Our project draws theoretical inspiration from diverse areas of scholarly inquiry. The initial inspiration for a situated approach to information systems analysis and design came from Heidegger’s existential phenomenology of being-in-the-world (Heidegger, 1961). Winograd and Flores (1986) explicitly drew on Heidegger to outline a new approach to design, as did Dreyfus (1999) in his critique of GOFAI (Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence). Both of these seminal works assisted in the conceptualising of an alternative kind of information system that did not require recourse to a representation of the world.

Although not necessarily using the term ‘deliberative theory of action’, the idea of situated action underpins work undertaken in artificial intelligence (Agre, 1997), robotics, (Brooks, 1991), distributed and situated cognition (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Hutchins, 1995; Clancey, 1997), animal behaviour (Hendriks-Jansen, 1996), and situated action itself (Suchman, 1987). All of this work is based around the idea that, in routine action, actors respond directly to structures in the environment to achieve their purpose. Within ecological psychology, the concept of affordance (Gibson, 1979; Heft, 2001) has provided a fuller account of the role of the environment in action, and more precisely, the role of environmental structures.

Studies of manual systems have also inspired the thinking behind the design of situated systems. For example, Mackay et al. (1998) describe how air traffic controllers use paper flight strips for landing planes. In this case the air traffic controllers use the flight strips to represent the possibility for action. Kanban is another type of manual system widely used in the automotive industry for the activity of replenishing parts for production (Schonberger 1987; Womack et al., 1990). In this case, Kanbans act as signals, with the meaning of the Kanban depending on its physical location. See Lederman and Johnston (2007) for other examples of manual systems that use signals and manipulation of the action possibility space to support routine action.

Like situated analysis and design, business process reengineering (Hammer, 1990) pays attention to performance measures other than direct cost saving. In some ways, the situated analysis and design approach subsumes the approach of business process reengineering in providing a more general conceptual framework to identify opportunities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of action.

However, business processes are not the same as actions. Data flows and processes do not refer directly to actions but rather the information consequences of actions. The concepts ‘data flow’ and ‘process’ are used in IS to refer to a whole cluster of ideas in the conventional approach, as articulated by (Weber, 1997), which are paradigmatically different to the situated approach. These ideas differ from the situated approach in two ways; the underlying theory of action and the underlying ontology.

The action-centred approach assumes that routine actions are a more or less direct response to the situations in which they occur. As argued previously, conventional approaches to ISAD are informed by a different theory of action that assumes that humans act after deliberation upon a mental model of the world (Johnston and Milton, 2001). In that tradition, processes are conceived in informational terms and what are essentially movements of data are taken to stand for the actions that create them. This is how processes are depicted in data flow diagrams (DFDs), for example. Situated analysis and design attempts to represent action directly whereas conventional descriptions of dataflow and processes are at one remove from the actual action.

Conventional tools such as DFDs are organised on the assumption that for every activity or action there is some sort of data flow. In other words, only activities that involve data flows really need to be modelled. However, in the situated approach, actions that do not involve data flows may still be important in describing what happens. For example, it was described in Case Study example 2 how nurses wasted a lot of time and effort checking whether blood results and the chemotherapy treatment had arrived. It was critical to the situated analysis and redesign to take account of these actions of checking, even though no data flows were involved. A conventional tool such as a DFD or process view would most likely model the presence or absence of the data (the data being the information consequence of blood results or chemotherapy treatment arriving). However, conventional tools may not capture the need to eliminate the effort of checking that the data had arrived.

With regard to the underlying ontology, according to the conventional view processes are manifest in data flows that convert inputs to outputs (Melao and Pidd, 2000). These data flows enable transition from one state of the world to another, with the aim being attainment of a particular goal state. According to the situated (and action-centred) view presented here, goals are the purpose of actions, and different actions can be grouped (and arranged in an action abstraction hierarchy) if they have a common purpose.

Checkland and Holwell (1998) have described soft systems methodology (SSM) as ‘a set of principles of method rather than a precise method’. Situated analysis and design also fits this description and shares, with SSM, a broad concern with providing information in support of action. However, whereas situated analysis and design is concerned with routine action, SSM is concerned with ill-defined problem situations. Although the terms appear similar, the ‘activity systems’ of SSM are quite different from the ‘action systems’ of Situated Analysis and Design. The activity systems of SSM are conceptual and may bear little relation to actions in the real world (Checkland and Holwell, 1998). In contrast, the action systems of situated analysis and design are descriptive of the actions actually undertaken in the organisation.

The ETHICS methodology of Mumford (1983) entails a participatory design approach to systems analysis and design, with particular attention paid to job satisfaction. Situated analysis and design shares, with ETHICS, an appreciation of the importance of implementation issues as well as the view that technology must be appropriate to the organisation. The two approaches are not incompatible and it is conceivable that situated analysis and design could be conducted within an ETHICS framework. While ETHICS focuses on the organisational processes involved in systems analysis and design, situated analysis and design focuses on the analytic processes. In order to conduct situated analysis and design using an ETHICS framework the former would be conducted using the organisational process of participatory design. Job satisfaction would be negotiated as a ‘hard’ constraint.

Like situated analysis and design, Multiview (Avison and Fitzgerald, 2002) also explicitly includes attention to implementation issues and the relationship between the social and the technical. However, Multiview presupposes a computerised solution. Moreover, the analysis techniques used in Multiview (i.e. both Multiview 1 and Multiview 2) are quite different from the situated analysis and design focus on situated action. Multiview 1 analyses information needs using conventional data flow and entity models while Multiview 2 uses Object-Oriented analysis.

Finally, in some respects the abstraction action hierarchy used in situated analysis and design is similar to that advocated in cognitive work analysis (Rasmussen and Pejtersen, 1995; Vicente, 1999). Both involve abstraction away from the details of existing work practices to goals in order to facilitate redesign. However, situated analysis and design is more explicitly centred around action and the intention of situated analysis and design is to support routine operational activity whereas cognitive, decision-making activity is typically the focus of cognitive work analysis. Cognitive work analysis involves reengineering the physical surroundings; no consideration is given to altering the organisational or temporal environment.