Navigating the Gap Between Action and a Serving Information System

Creating, or adapting, information systems to support people undertaking purposeful action in organizational settings involves moving from: exploring the problem situation and thinking about what action to take, to thinking about how to support that action. In business settings this support will inevitably entail technology-based information systems. Most information system design approaches neglect the importance of the initial exploration and sense making phase and move directly to specifying the business process to be operationalised through the application of some software. The ideas described here have been developed with the intention of supporting a group of people navigating an inquiry through the shift in focus from: thinking about action, to thinking about support in a manner that promotes Client-led information system design. The ideas have been applied in practice through an Action Research field study in a UK banking organization and here we describe our navigational approach to IS design.