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Chapter 3 - Analyzing Individual Knowledge Work

  1. Knowledge Work Tasks
    • Job-specific Tasks (Produces Outputs)
      1. prepare a budget
      2. analyze a budget in terms of estimated and actual expenses
      3. planning and scheduling a project
      4. researching a business opportunity and preparing a proposal
      5. conducting an employee evalutation
      6. preparing an action plan
      7. preparing a presentation or lecture
      8. persuading others about plans and actions
    • Knowledge Building and Maintenance Tasks (Maintain individual expertise)
      1. scanning professional literature
      2. attending professional meetings
      3. learning about new technology
      4. learning features of new software
      5. building and maintaining a network of contacts
    • Work Management Tasks (Makes work more efficient, effective, and timely)
      1. reference sources and facilities to acquire reference information
      2. manual and computer files that relate to current and anticipated activities
      3. software applications

      A productive work environment requires setup, operation, maintenance, and protection of information infrastructure, files, and applications:
      1. access security
      2. virus detection
      3. backup

  2. Knowledge Work Activities
    • Acquiring Knowledge
      1. Scan - pay attention to various media and sources to identify and obtain information for knowledge work tasks
      2. Monitor - review sources expected to contain relevant information
      3. Search - knowledge worker must decide where to search and how to find the appropriate information
    • Designing
      1. Model - abstraction of a physical object or process
      2. Plan - generate alternatives
      3. Organize - identify and arrange the resources necessary to complete a plan and define responsibilities
      4. Schedule - associate planned activites with available resources
      5. Author - create an output in the form of a document, presentation, procedure, or program
    • Making Decisions
      1. Formulate - define a problem correctly and completely
      2. Analyze - enumerate and evaluate alternatives
      3. Choose - selecting from alternatives according to some criteria
    • Communication
      1. Present - delivering and transferring information
      2. Persuade - changing the beliefs of others
      3. Motivate - energizing others to action

  3. Supplementary Activities
    • Creating Input Data (keyboarding, other)
    • Formatting Documents and Output Data (establishing he layout and format of output data)
    • Filing and Retrieving Documents and Data (may require defining search criteria)
    • Receiving and Distributing Information

  4. Knowledge Work Task Attributes
    • Locus of Responsibility (individual, workgroup, task force)
    • Timing
      1. Interrupt-driven tasks - initiated by some event or a demand (random)
      2. Calendar-driven tasks - initiated by a date (deadline oriented)
      3. Workload-driven tasks - initiated when a certain level of need is established
    • Data Requirements
      1. internal data sources
      2. external data sources

  5. A Systematic Approach to Analyzing Individual Requirements reluirements analysis
    1. Task/activity analysis - summarize the tasks performed, mix of activities for each task, proportion of time required for each task, relative importance of the different knowledge work activities (emphasis on the individual)
    2. Concurrency and collaborative work requirements - work on more than one task at a time; working together (requires task scheduling)
    3. Data and communication requirements

  6. Task/Activity Analysis
    • Defining Tasks
      1. name and briefly describe each job-specific task
      2. identify job-specific, knowledge-building and maintenance, and knowledge work management tasks
      3. document this in a worksheet
    • Developing a Task Effort Profile - estimate how an individual spends time
    • Defining and Rating Activities - rate the importance of the dominant activities
    • Computing Activity Profile Indexes - multiply each activity importance rating by the task effort percentage to give activity importance indexes
    • Interpreting the Activity Profile - use to analyze software needs
      General Activity
      to be Supported      		Generalized Software Package
      Acquire
      Scan Communications, word processor, or text database
      Monitor Communications, note taking, and perhaps text database
      Search Communications
      Design
      Model Mathematical modeling, flowcharting, drawing, or sketching
      Plan Spreadsheets, project management, financial modeling
      Organize Spreadsheet, word processing, PIM
      Schedule Spreadsheets, project management, PIM
      Author word processor
      Decide
      Formulate Mathematical modeling, Spreadsheet, outliner
      Analyze Mathematical modeling, Spreadsheet, statisitical analysis
      Choose Mathematical modeling, Spreadsheet
      Communicate
      Present Presentation, graphics and charting, color, multimedia
      Persuade Presentation, graphics, word processing
      Motivate Presentation, demonstration, PIM
      Supplemental
      Input data word processing, OCR, forms and work flow
      Format word processing, DTP, drawing and sketching
      File and retrieve Database, file and directory management, file and text search
      Receive and distribute mail list management, file and text search, e-mail

  7. Examples of Task/Activity Analyses

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