Extending the Van der Veer approach to cooperative work: a bridge between groupware task analysis and workflow design

Recent evolution in IT research have brought different design methods for CSCW systems. Efforts to meet the requirements of integral solutions for CSCW systems are shifting: WFMS put the focus on support and automation of design/execution of tasks, database- and document management, status monitoring, etc. Most improvements comply with a bottom-up approach. The Groupware approach starts with a holistic view of work and so is top-down directed. In breaking down work to tasks GTA plays a major role. GTA is a promising approach to improvement of conventional task analysis because it achieves significant progress by including group cooperation. Yet, GTA suffers from neglecting conventional organisational structures and technical information infrastructure already in use. This paper introduces the Extended GTA, a design approach which bridges the gaps between Workflow Analysis and GTA. EGTA uses GTA as base and considers users, work practices, work organisations, information infrastructure, and interdependencies between the domains.