Five workers on a project team in a consultancy located at various areas on one site. The focus is on the activity of 'doing a walkabout'. This involves walking around the site to see what other workers are doing, talk to them about their current work, the project and so on. It allows for ad hoc collaboration and sharing of knowledge related to what people are doing at the time.
Neither the activity 'doing a walkabout' nor the collaboration of various types that it provokes have any specific representation or recording although this is an integral part of work. The activity it produces may well be represented in some manner after a degree of translation. For example, a talk about the design of a product may lead to amendments of plans, a chat may lead to a meeting being scheduled and so forth. The lack of direct representation is not seen to be problematic but it is important to acknowledge the activity as being important.
Plan view; workers represented by circles, desks by rectangles. One worker (left hand side) approaches (dashed arrow) a group of other workers at their desks in doing a walkabout. This allows them to see what others are currently doing (plain arrows) and negotiate interaction with them if desired.
The activity itself facilitates coordination in various ways. It is described as being fairly undirected, therefore a lot of the interaction it leads to is opportunistic in nature. For example, being based on bumping into people, seeing what they are doing and so on. Therefore the basis for coordination can be just seeing someone, what their current activity is and so on. Doing the walkabout allows the individual to negotiate interaction, for example by seeing who is busy, who is available for interaction and whether they are involved in something relevant. Of course, the walkabout may be a more directed activity - to find a particular person for a particular reason.
Intra-organisational group of workers within a consultancy firm, the activity of 'a walkabout' and the interaction it facilitates.