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Interpretive Flexibility and the Price of Documentation

Design and construction are rooted in layers of historical work practices that enable temporary teams of experts to quickly establish collaborative routines. However, work practices, drawing sets and written specifications that functioned well in the 2D environment may constrain teams working in 3D, and shape the ways they generate and discuss alternative solutions to problem. In this paper we present a model that allows for the analysis of the dimensions of interpretive flexibility, malleability, and documentation across the project process. We use qualitative ethnographic observations of three different building projects using BIM over a five-year period and 70 interviews of architects, engineers and builders across the USA. For the experts on these teams, documents with “interpretive flexibility,” the degree to which documents can be read in multiple settings, can be generative, helping people “see” creative solutions to design problems within such documents. However, interpretive flexibility is also a liability at other points in the construction process, because of the possibility for multiple interpretations to cause confusion and costly rework. Three-dimensional models and data support collaborative conversations that are good for the discovery of problems, but the technology is no replacement for dialog amongst team members. We find that interpretive flexibility is reduced by 3D, and this reduces the ability for teams to generate solutions to discovered problems. As a basis for issue and conflict discovery, BIM acts as a site for conversation, but stops short of supporting exchanges around solution generation. Once design and construction teams develop solutions and alternatives, BIM then serves another useful role in helping to test and explore these solutions. In this way, BIM-based information exchange does not replace the need for expert interaction on design and construction projects, but enhances these interactions.

Dossick, Carrie Sturts and Gina Neff. “Interpretive Flexibility and the Price of Documentation,” Proceedings of the Engineering Project Organizations Conference, Winter Park, CO, July, 10pp.

Winner, Engineering Project Organization Society 2014 Best Paper Award

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Materiality: Challenges to Communication Theory

Increasingly, communication researchers are issuing calls for attention to the role materiality plays in communication processes (e.g., Boczkowski, 2004; Boczkowski & Lievrouw, 2008; Leonardi & Barley, 2008; Leonardi, Nardi, & Kallinikos, 2013; Lievrouw, 2013). Resulting in part from the challenges of studying new communication and information technologies, this new focus on materiality offers opportunities for communication researchers to theorize beyond communication through, with, and, in some cases, without a medium to think about the material structures of mediation itself. In this chapter we propose a model for thinking through the communicative roles and functions of the materiality of everyday objects, by using one type of objects, documents, as an extended theoretical example of the importance of materiality for communication.

 

Neff, Gina, Brittany Fiore-Silfvast and Carrie Sturts Dossick. “Materiality: Challenges to Communication Theory,” International Communication Association Theme Book 2013: Challenging Communication Research. New York: Peter Lang, 2014. Pp 209-224.

Messy talk and clean technology: communication, problem-solving and collaboration using Building Information Modelling

We studied the organizational practices around Building Information Modeling, or BIM, in inter-organizational collaborations among architects, engineers and construction professionals in order to theorize how communication supports technology adoption. Using ethnographic observation and one-on-one interviews with project participants, we observed five teams on three different commercial and institutional building projects that each collaborated over periods of 8–10 months. In this paper, we argue that the dynamic complexity of design and construction processes requires what we call ‘messy talk’—conversations neither about topics on meeting agendas, nor on specified problems or specific queries for expertise. In messy talk interactions, AEC professionals contributed to innovation and project cohesion by raising and addressing issues not known by others. The communicative ‘affordances and constraints’ of BIM structured meeting conversations away from less structured, open-ending problem-solving and towards agenda-driven problem-solving around already identified problems. In other words, using BIM to make information exchange more efficient and effective worked only for certain tasks. We found BIM supports the exchange of explicit knowledge, but not necessarily informal, active and flexible conversations and exchange of tacit knowledge through messy talk. Although messy talk is perceived as more inefficient, it ultimately makes inter-organizational teams more effective.

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