Improving work process information flows: a case study

The lessons learned from a grass roots effort involving information systems developers and engineers in the design and development of a customized work process support system, named Fredrik, are discussed. The information system developed is a dynamic, Web-based work process system to support the end-to-end scheduling, planning, design and documentation activities of an "extreme collaboration" design team. The system is used to help schedule and manage multiple pre-design session meetings, to track and store information gathered and generated before, during and after a real time design session, and to facilitate document and design information retrieval for later re-use. While the close partnering between the users and developers solved some long standing trust issues, and resulted in a system more optimized to the engineering team's needs, the participatory design process inadvertently produced a less stable and sexy system potentially affecting future sources of funding for upgrading the system.