Knowledge Co-creation in Design Games - Conversation Analysis of an Interorganizational Design Game Session
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Lectio Praecursoria given at Aalto University on May 4th 2020. Full dissertation available at: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/43782
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Knowledge Co-creation in Design Games - Conversation Analysis of an Interorganizational Design Game Session
- 1. Knowledge Co-creation in Design Games – Conversation Analysis of an Interorganizational Design Game Session Otso Hannula, M.Sc.(Tech) Lectio Praecursoria 4.5.2020
- 2. This is a weird dissertation
- 3. Interaction research Game studies Design studies Organization science Knowledge co-creation in design games
- 7. Research problem How can design games support knowledge co-creation?
- 8. Design games A co-design methodology combining game elements with design goals and methods to support knowledge co-creation.
- 9. Knowledge co-creation • Creation of new knowledge in organizations • Collaboration between organizations • Interaction between individual people • Creation of “concepts”
- 10. Two dissertations 1. How does knowledge co- creation take place in interaction between people? 2. How can design games support knowledge co- creation?
- 11. Approach • Qualitative single case study • Interaction as the object of analysis • Abductive reasoning process
- 12. Part 1: How does knowledge get co-created?
- 13. What knowledge? • “Justifiable true beliefs”? • Something visible and audible in interaction? • Knowledge as the thing that makes knowledgeable action possible
- 14. What is created in knowledge co- creation? • New capabilities? • Ideas and concepts • Conceptual artefacts
- 15. Knowledge co-creation The creation and development of conceptual artefacts in interaction between members of several communities-of-practice, such as organizational units of professional specialities.
- 16. How is knowledge co-created? • The creation and development of conceptual artefacts • Distinctions: new verbal claims that imply a conceptual chance • Must be offered and accepted to become true
- 17. Research question 1 How are distinctions offered and accepted (in ATLAS)?
- 18. 1. Player in turn chooses a category 2. The player draws a card and reads it aloud 3. Players determine the answer together 4. Player in turn writes down the answer and places the card on the table
- 19. Player 1 Molemmat. Both. Player 2 Itse asiassa käyttäjiä voi olla opiskelija, Actually the user can be a student, tai miksei- miksei tutkija, jos se on or why- why not a researcher, if they have kursseilla tottunut tähän ympäristöön= on the course gotten used to the environment= Player 1 =joo =yes Player 2 Player 1
- 20. OFFERSPROMPTS Input- seeking question Offer Possible turn-at-talk Required turn-at-talk Outcome for knowledge co- creation
- 21. OFFERSPROMPTS Input- seeking question Offer Distinction is created Change in the epistemic object Agreemen t PRODUCTIVE RESPONSES Possible turn-at-talk Required turn-at-talk Outcome for knowledge co- creation
- 22. OFFERSPROMPTS Input- seeking question Offer Distinction is created Change in the epistemic object Agreemen t PRODUCTIVE RESPONSES Elaboration also offers a new distinction Possible turn-at-talk Required turn-at-talk Outcome for knowledge co- creation Elaboratio n
- 23. OFFERSPROMPTS Input- seeking question Offer Distinction is created Distinction is not created Change in the epistemic object No change in the epistemic object Elaboratio n Agreemen t Rejection PRODUCTIVE RESPONSES UNPRODUCTIVE RESPONSES Elaboration also offers a new distinction Possible turn-at-talk Required turn-at-talk Outcome for knowledge co- creation
- 24. OFFERSPROMPTS Input- seeking question Offer Distinction is created Distinction is not created Change in the epistemic object No change in the epistemic object Elaboratio n Agreemen t Rejection PRODUCTIVE RESPONSES UNPRODUCTIVE RESPONSES Elaboration also offers a new distinction Unaccepted offers can be reoffered later Possible turn-at-talk Required turn-at-talk Outcome for knowledge co- creation Ignoring
- 25. Part 2: So what does the design game have to do with it?
- 26. Facilitator
- 27. Possible turn-at-talk Required turn-at-talk Outcome for knowledge co-creation OFFERSPROMPTSFACILITATION Offer Clarifying question Game task Input-seeking question Elaboration accepts the offer and offers a new distinction Distinction is created Distinction is not created Change in the epistemic object No change in the epistemic object Elaboration Agreement Rejection Ignoring PRODUCTIVE RESPONSES UNPRODUCTIVE RESPONSES
- 29. Boundary objects
- 30. Possible turn-at-talk Required turn-at-talk Outcome for knowledge co-creation OFFERSPROMPTSFACILITATIONBOUNDAR Y OBJECTS Offer Clarifying question Game task Offer with boundary object Self-prompting with boundary object Input-seeking question Elaboration accepts the offer and offers a new distinction Recall accepted and unaccepted distinctions with boundary objects Distinction is created Distinction is not created Change in the epistemic object No change in the epistemic object Elaboration Agreement Rejection Ignoring PRODUCTIVE RESPONSES UNPRODUCTIVE RESPONSES
- 31. Boundary objects Project plan World 2 Social support World 1 Physical support Participant Participant Facilitator Using the boundary objects Representation/instantiation Using the boundary objects
- 32. Epistemic object
- 33. Project plan Boundary objects Epistemic object World 3 Conceptual support World 2 Social support World 1 Physical support Participant Participant Facilitator
- 34. Institutional frame “We are playing a game”
- 35. Boundary objects Participant Participant Boundary objects → Game material Epistemic object World 3 Conceptual support World 2 Social support World 1 Physical support Participant → Player Participant → Player Facilitat or Participant → Game facilitator
- 36. 1. Player in turn chooses a category 2. The player draws a card and reads it aloud 3. Players determine the answer together 4. Player in turn writes down the answer and places the card on the table
- 37. Game turn 2. Develop the epistemic object by creating distinctions 1. Problematize a part of the epistemic object 3. Resolve the problem and consolidate the understanding of the epistemic object Opening the design game activity Closing the design game activity Few distinctions Many distinctions No distinctions
- 38. Boundary objects Participant Participant Boundary objects → Game material Epistemic object World 3 Conceptual support World 2 Social support World 1 Physical support Institutional frame Structural support Participant → Player Participant → Player Facilitat or Participant → Game facilitator
- 40. Four types of support for knowledge co- creation 1. Physical support: game material is used to represent and recall distinctions 2. Social support: a facilitator prompts the players to create distinctions 3. Conceptual support: the epistemic object aligns the participants as the game goal and the purpose of playing the design game 4. Structural support: the institutional frame resignifies elements as parts of the game and structures the interaction
- 41. Process view System view
- 42. Contribution • Showing how knowledge is co-created in the form of distinctions in interaction between individuals at the level of turns-at-talk. • Showing how boundary objects, facilitation, and epistemic objects are used to support knowledge co-creation at the level of turns-at-talk. • Showing how playing a design game takes place as interaction. • Providing vocabulary and examples to help organization, design, games and interaction researchers talk to each other.
- 44. A well-made design game 1. Sets aligned goals for both the design game session, and for the design game itself 2. Provides a shared problem that unites and motivates the players behind a single objective 3. Uses the game rules to define a process that helps the players, not as hoops to jump through 4. Consists of material that is meaningful for all the players – either by being familiar and context-specific, or generic in a way that allows them to be interpreted in multiple ways
- 45. Facilitating a design game 1. Begin the design game session by describing the current understanding of the shared object or problem 2. Don’t worry if the object is poorly defined or abstract – players will collaborate to make it clearer 3. Help players make claims by asking interesting questions 4. Ask other participants with different background knowledge to agree, disagree or develop the ideas of others 5. Guide the players to use the game rules and game material
- 46. Thank you and game on! otsohannula.com @otsohannula otso.hannula@iki.fi
Editor's Notes
- Honoured Custos, honoured opponents, friends and colleagues.
- I want to fair up front: this is a weird dissertation This dissertation is obsessed with novelty: it is more built on what has not been said in the prior literature than what has. This dissertation is a passion project to understand one specific design game better, but ends up addressing foundational questions like how do humans come up with new things
- This dissertation sits in the uncomfortable cross-section between organizations, design, games and interaction – fields that overlap but don’t think highly of each other – while trying to adhere to the academic virtues of organization science where I am to graduate I have studied design games for seven years, but the only way I have found to talk about it is through my personal obsession: the game called ATLAS
- My journey with design games started when I got hired as a master’s thesis worker by Aalto University’s Department of Industrial Engienerign and management to work in the ATLAS project. I remember coming to this exact view and just thinking to myself: “What are these people doing? They are researchers, medical and financial experts, all doing the very serious work of planning service design projects – but they’re also playing a game!” And there was something very particular in the way they interacted with each other to reach a shared goal that I wanted to understand.
- So, what was the game they were playing? ATLAS is a design game, meaning roughly a game that is used in designing something, originally developed at Aalto University in 2013 as a board game with maps and Playmobil figures. You can see the version that I have studied here, the one with the hexagonal shapes In ATLAS, the goal of the game is to create a plan for a service co-design project, meaning a project in which a service is designed together with stakeholders such as users, citizen, city officials and such. The game is played with 2 to 7 players and a facilitator, and takes from 1 to 2 hours.
- A game of ATLAS consists of individual game turns where one player chooses one of the categories: project definition, participants, methods & tools, or challenges, and draws a card from that category. The card will have a question related to the future project, such as “what are you aiming to create or improve” or “choose one service co-design method that best fits your project” The heart of the game is the conversation that then happens: all the participants discuss on what the answer is, and then the player whose turn it is acts as a scribe to write down the answer and place it in this honeycomb pattern next to the cards from previous turns
- The data for my dissertation is the video recording of one ALTAS game session recorded in the Fall of 2014. In the session, a service design researcher facilitated an ATLAS session for the representatives two organizations as a part of a public academia/industry event There were 7 participants in total: 1 facilitator, 1 representative from a higher education institute, 3 from the supplier organization, and 2 other service design professionals The goal of that session was to plan a project in which a new data analysis system would be developed in collaboration between the supplier and the institute
- Design games exist in this contradictory place between play and utility The sibling concepts of design games include serious games, simulation games, gamification and others, but I have chosen to view ATLAS as a design game to better represent its roots in the design field. Design games are a method in participatory design, a.k.a. co-design, where physical games are used to make design activities accessible to people who are not professional designers by turning them into board games, role play or other game-like activities. However for this discussion, the most important aspect is the combination of game elements - such as game roles, rules and material - with the methods and goals of design
- I wanted to understand how design games can support knowledge co-creation Knowledge creation in general looks at how all new things come to exist in organizations KCC is a lens that looks at collaboration between organisations at the level of interpersonal interaction, i.e. people talking to each other to get stuff done, opposed to e.g. looking at strategic partnerships between abstract organizations However, the knowledge creation literature is scant in actually describing that happens in interaction between people People in organizations meet, dialogue “takes place”, and concepts emerge So the question remains: how does talking lead to the creation of new knowledge, and what is the knowledge being created in interaction? If there would have been a theoretical framework, I would have used it
- So in essence, I had to write two dissertations The first on how knowledge co-creation takes place in interaction between people? And more specifically in ATLAS, so I can observe it there The second on what I actually wanted to research – how does the design game affect knowledge co-creation?
- The scientific method is about cutting yourself the thinnest possible slice of pie so you can chew it properly As with all qualitative analysis – and especially a single case study like this – the observations made here are only generalizable to theory. I’m not saying this is how all design games go, I’m saying stuff like this goes down in design games. The object of analysis was interaction, so only the things other people can sense and respond to – intention and mental states are purposefully left out The reasoning process was abductive, meaning that observations from the data were matched with available literature and vice versa whenever possible New concepts were only created when existing literature could not adequately explain the observations
- Knowledge is sometimes formally defined as “justifiable true beliefs” However, my approach doesn’t really fit with studying how beliefs come about Existing literature in KC emphasizes dialogue, not personal invention, so what ever takes place in KCC must take place “out in the open” where multiple people do something together Also, organizations usually have much more pragmatic goals than the accumulation of beliefs – knowledge has to enable action So knowledge in this thesis, grounded in what is called pragmatist philosophical tradition, is defined as that which makes deliberate action possible. If you can describe a project plan, you must have knowledge that makes that possible, but likewise if you can sculpt pottery expertly, you must have knowledge that makes that possible as well.
- However, a game of ATLAS doesn’t seem to result in new capabilities on the part of the participants – at least not immediately and not in a way we can observe. Instead, a game of ALTAS, like other KCC sessions, seems to be about the creation and development of a conceptual artefact. In ATLAS, it’s a project plan, but it could just as well the ways of working of a factory, a budget proposal or even a recipe – something that is immaterial but still a) knowledge by nature, and b) the very concrete result of human effort (Bereiter 2002) New knowledge is created in interaction when new and relevant verbal claims are made about a concept, and when that claim is accepted by the other participants. (Tsoukas 2009)
- So now we have a working definition of what we are looking at, but how does that come about, exactly?
- Let’s take a single turn of ATLAS and see how it breaks down
- example turn Player chooses category, e.g. participants Who are the most important stakeholders to involve? Come to the conclusion that service will be used by students, researchers and teachers Write down the answer onto the game card Well how is knowledge co-created: let’s go deeper into step 3
- All the way down
- An example of the smallest possible increment of knowledge co-creation
- SUMMARY
- We’re going to look at four ways design games support knowledge co-creation that exist scattered across the literature
- What are we doing here two important effects: resignifying and structuring
- SUMMARY
- If we look at just the bare answer to my research problem
- But the profound thing I would like future researchers to take away is that we keep drawing two-dimensional pictures of a three-dimensional phenomenon Interaction is sequential and needs to be understood as such: past actions enable and limit future actions
- I ask you, honoured professors Jacob Buur and Kristiina Kumpulainen appointed as opponents by Aalto University School of Science, to present the observations that you consider appropriate for this dissertation.