Distributed Group Model Building A Dialogue Games approach using Slack

98 Pages·2017·2.38 MB·English

Radboud University
Master Thesis
Distributed Group Model Building
A Dialogue Games approach using Slack
Supervisor:
dr S.J.B.A. (Stijn)
Hoppenbrouwers
Author:
M.J. (Mats) Ouborg
Second examiner:
prof.dr. E.A.J.A. (Eti¨enne)
Rouwette
A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of Science in the Information Sciences
at the
Institute for Computing and Information Sciences
October 2017
“Wie de vorm beheerst, is de inhoud meester.”
— Frederik (Frits) Bolkestein
RADBOUD UNIVERSITY
Abstract
Faculty of Science
Institute for Computing and Information Sciences
Master of Science in the Information Sciences
Distributed Group Model Building
A Dialogue Games approach using Slack
by M.J. (Mats) Ouborg
Globally operating organizations sometimes encounter Messy Problems (Ackoff, 1974,
1979), which are problems that consist of complex interacting systems that are not
easy to explain. Therefore finding a solution for these Messy Problems can be difficult.
Group Model Building (Richardson and Andersen, 1995) (Vennix, 1996) is a method to
tackle these Messy Problems. Group Model Building invites relevant stakeholders in the
same room together and helps them to collaboratively create a causal loop diagram, a
stock&flow diagram, simulations, or all three, which creates an overview and therefore
an understanding of the Messy Problem they encounter. Group Model Building uses
different methodologies to prevent bias and politics from influencing this result, as that
might create a distorted overview of the Messy Problem. The necessity for all the
relevant stakeholders to be in the same room together can be seen as a disadvantage for
globally operating organizations, because stakeholders initially might be far away from
each other. To save traveling time and therefore improve reaction time when solving
Messy Problems, this thesis explains the creation of a distributed approach of Group
Model Building. This Distributed Group Model Building approach is build on the Slack
platform which enables participants to use Group Model Building without the necessity
of being in the same room together. Additionally, the distributed approach can also be
used as an administrative aid for regular Group Model Building sessions, which makes
it more easy to register choices that have been made. It also creates a digital overview
of the information that has been created.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank a couple of people for their helpfulness during the creation of this
thesis:
• Stijn Hoppenbrouwers & Eti¨enne Rouwette for their support, advice, and super-
vision.
• Bart Gruppen, Willem Boumans, Luuk Scholten, Ruud Seegers, Robert Hissink
Muller, Monic Lansu, Pleun van Arensbergen, and Linda Nijland for their testing
efforts of the tool created in this thesis.
• Gerdriaan Mulder, Thom Wiggers, Luuk Scholten, and Wietse Kuipers for their
technical support during the development on the Slack-platform.
• Thom Wiggers for his linguistic support during the writing of this thesis.
And all others who helped me during the ups and downs encountered during the devel-
opment of this research. Without all of you, this project would never have been finished
with the success it has now.
Thank you!
iv
Contents
Abstract iii
Acknowledgements iv
Contents v
List of Figures vii
List of Tables ix
1 Introduction 1
1.1 About this thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Research question. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Content of this thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 Literature 7
2.1 Solving Messy problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 Messy Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.2 Group Model Building Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 Group Model Building as a formalized process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.1 The process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.2 Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.3 Basic requirements for Group Model Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.4 The Dialogue Games approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.5 The combined approach for Distributed Group Model Building . . . . . . 30
2.5.1 Scaffolding & ThinkLets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.5.2 Combined approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3 Using Slack 35
3.1 About Slack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.1.1 Basic functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.1.2 A Slack Bot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.2 Translating the literature into a Slack App . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.2.1 Slack Bot role within Group Model Building . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.2.2 Facilitators role within Slack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4 The Sequential Group Model Building Bot 41
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Contents vi
4.1 Technical choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.2 The sequential Distributed Group Model Building tool . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.2.1 Open and define rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.2.2 State the observed problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.2.3 Generate a detailed view of the problem variable . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.2.4 Create causal relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.2.5 Calculate and define end result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5 First impression in practice 47
5.1 Testing the sequential implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.2 General reception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
6 The final implementation 51
6.1 Implementing the combined approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
6.1.1 Open and define rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
6.1.2 State the observed problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
6.1.3 Generate a detailed view of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
6.1.4 Create causal relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.1.5 Calculate and define end result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
6.2 Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
7 Testing the final implementation 69
7.1 Designing the last tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
7.2 Results after testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
8 Results and discussion 75
8.1 Completing the design cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
8.2 Is the tool future proof? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
8.3 Evaluation conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
9 Further research 79
9.1 What has been produced? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
9.2 Integrating model generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
9.3 Central flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
9.4 An AI facilitator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
10 Conclusion 83
Bibliography 85
List of Figures
1.1 Design Science Research Cycles (Hevner, 2007) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 The regulative cycle of Design Science (Wieringa, 2009) . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1 ThebasicprocessoftheNominalGroupTechnique(Delbecq,VandeVen,
and Gustafson, 1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Example causal loop diagram (system dynamics) on early release policy
(Rouwette, Vennix, Hooff, and Jongebreur, 2007) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3 Overview of the basic Group Model Building process (Ouborg, 2015) . . . 16
2.4 Overview of the Generate a detailed view of the problem variable process
(Ouborg, 2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.5 Overview of the Create causal relationships process (Ouborg, 2015) . . . . 17
2.6 Overview of the Calculate and define end result process (Ouborg, 2015) . 18
2.7 Openers for the InterLoc implementation of Group Model Building (Hop-
penbrouwers and Rouwette, 2012). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.8 The main process of the combined approach of Group Model Building . . 32
3.1 Basic principle of a Slack Bot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.1 The basic architecture of the bot and Slack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
6.1 The initial state of the Slack application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
6.2 Starting of the Group Model Building bot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
6.3 Group Model Building welcome message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
6.4 Group Model Building session has started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
6.5 New message from the Group Model Building bot . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
6.6 First bilateral message from the Group Model Building bot . . . . . . . . 54
6.7 Suggesting profit as the main variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
6.8 Main variable received and change instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
6.9 Main variable message in main channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
6.10 Remark of participant in bilateral conversation with the bot . . . . . . . . 55
6.11 A reply to the original message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
6.12 A thread has been opened by Slack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
6.13 Leading user reacts to remark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
6.14 Leading user lets bot know it can continue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
6.15 The bot wants to start a Nominal Group Technique session . . . . . . . . 58
6.16 Nominal Group Technique started in separate threads . . . . . . . . . . . 58
6.17 Bilateral conversation for creating detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
6.18 Created detail in the bilateral conversation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
6.19 Letting the bot know a participant is ready . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
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List of Figures viii
6.20 Making sure the participant is ready . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
6.21 Waiting for other participants to finish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
6.22 Nominal Group Technique session is finished . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
6.23 Results of the Nominal Group Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
6.24 Participant agrees with variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
6.25 Deleting a suggested variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
6.26 A variable has been deleted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.27 Nominal Group Technique phase has ended . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.28 Start of the causal relations phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
6.29 Control panel for the causal relations phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
6.30 Variable of interest is chosen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
6.31 Thread for cause suggestion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
6.32 Overview after a discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
6.33 Overview after a the session has finished . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
8.1 The regulative cycle of Design Science (Wieringa, 2009) . . . . . . . . . . 75
9.1 Example causal loop diagram (system dynamics) on early release policy
(Rouwette et al., 2007) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
List of Tables
2.1 Requirement 0: Basic Group Model Building steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2 Requirement 1: Basic Open and define rules actions. . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3 Requirement 2: Basic State the observed problem actions. . . . . . . . . . 22
2.4 Requirement 3: Basic Generate a detailed view of the problem variable
steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.5 Requirement 4: Basic Create causal relationships steps. . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.6 Requirement 5: Basic Calculate and define end result steps. . . . . . . . . 23
2.7 Requirement 3a: Preparation of Generate a detailed view of the problem
variable steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.8 Requirement 3b: Underpinning of shared variables of Generate a detailed
view of the problem variable steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.9 Requirement 4a: Use the detail to find causes and effects of the problem
variable of the Create causal relationships steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.10 Requirement 4b: Check for feedback loops of the Create causal relation-
ships steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.11 Requirement 6: Facilitation requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.12 Requirement 6a: Facilitation requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
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