'Dasein of the Times':
Temporal Features of
Dependability
Karen Clarke, John Hughes, Dave Martin,
Mark Rouncefield (Lancaster)
Alexander Voß, Rob Procter, Roger Slack.
Mark Hartswood (Edinburgh)
Overview
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Sociological research on time
Dasein of the times
Case studies
Conclusions
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Sociological Research on Time
• “..man is nothing; he is, at most, the carcase of
time” (Marx and Engels 1976: 127)
• "The first characteristic of modern machine
civilization is its temporal regularity" (Mumford
1963: 269)
• “Human beings are fundamentally temporal;
they find their meaning in the temporal character
of human existence” (Lash and Urry 1994: 230)
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Sociological Research on Time
• Diverse approaches to time – associating it with
death/order/structure etc
• Giddens’ three temporal scales – duree (daily
time); dasein (life time) & longue duree
(historical time)
• Lash and Urry – criticise Giddens – say we
should consider ‘instantaneous’ & ‘glacial’ time
• ‘The virtual’ – theoretical claims made to
‘timeless time’ (Castells) &‘Instant time’
(Nowotny)
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Sociological Research on Time
• As Adam notes, there is a lot of discussion
around the notion of time and its
importance for human conduct, but not
much agreements
• Mainly theoretical interventions
• We’re sceptical of these (of course!)
• Respecification is needed
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Dasein of the Times
• Dasein – persons engaged in activities – the
environment of involvement – we’re involved in
doing things in the world
• Consequently we should look to the notion of
temporality insofar as it deals with the ways we
encounter things day-to-day : ‘the form of life in
which we necessarily dwell’ as Dreyfus puts it
• Real world – real time activities in their natural
setting: situatedness of activities
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Dasein of the Times
• Heideggerian troublemaker: embodiedly
transparent practices can be recovered
• Look at rhythms and trajectories
• Resource for seeking, providing and
managing information in course of work
• Implications of real time – real world work
for dependability
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Case Study: EngineCo
• Computer systems central to JIT working
• Buildability is profoundly temporal – parts
must be there on time and to hand
• Things go wrong – decisions need made
in real time (HG’s ‘troublemaker’)
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Case Study: EngineCo
• Workarounds produced – take account of
organisational-temporal dimensions
• Offline storage tower – no messages to
control host – parts shortage – control
room workaround
• Done in real time with regard to
organisation/ accountability
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Case Study: Medical Settings
• Glaser & Strauss: Illness trajectory –
relates physiological illness to work
occasioned
• Zerubavel: temporal rhythms – intake,
ward rounds etc
• Reddy & Dourish: temporal rhythms as
resources for seeking/providing
information
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Case Study: Medical Settings
• R&D see large & fine-grained rhythms:
shift patterns & drug regimes
• DSH: rhythms and information reflexively
linked
• Study of bed management: how many
beds and when? Accountable closure –
when is full?
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Case Study: EPR
• EPR – timely & location-independent
access to patient data
• EPR roll-out: managed roll-out – everyday
work of system development
• Potential disjuncture
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Case Study: EPR
• Project planning – phases (Button &
Sharrock) means of managing potentially
‘wild’ contingencies (e.g. delays if
something does not work)
• Schedules and situated actions –
relationship?
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Conclusions
• Sociological approaches to time often too
theoretically driven
• Dasein: attend to real world – real time activities
- remember Heideggerian troublemaker
• Activities in temporal context – organised &
accountable
• Temporality central to dependable system
design – that now, why that now & what to do
about it (especially if/when it fails)?
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