Focused Conceptualisation: Framing Questioning and Answering in Model-Oriented Dialogue Games

This paper reports on a next step in a line of research taking the perspective that modelling as an activity is a ‘constrained conversation’. We focus on concrete communication situations in context of (enterprise) modelling sessions, with special attention to the involvement of ‘novice modellers’. We present some theoretical notions that are helpful in understanding why modelling performed by/with novice modellers can usually be best broken down in sub-tasks, and how such decomposed tasks can be analysed and structured to match the limited skills of (novice) modellers. The generic aspects presented are then linked to generic types of questions and answers that are both drivers and constraints for the ‘dialogue games’ played in conversations-for-modelling. We also present and illustrate an instrument for analysis, the ‘Focused Conceptualisation’ (FoCon), which can help identify, evaluate and create dialogue games for model-oriented communication situations; we discuss three working examples of the use of FoCons.

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