Designing Intra-Organisational Distributed Coordination at the Amsterdam Police Force: The Application of Gaming as a Tool to Facilitate Technology-Use Mediation

Abstract Information- and communication technologies (ICT) raise opportunities for computer-supported communication and dispersed coordination and collaboration. These opportunities can make intra-organisational distributed coordination of coordination-intense organisational structures more effective and less expensive. However, these opportunities may be difficult to utilise. Our explorative case study at the Amsterdam Police Force confirms insights from prior research that deeply rooted organisational practices can ’make or break’ distributed coordination and ICT utilisation. Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST) provided a framework for these observations and shows that intra-organisational distributed coordination is a complex matter in which human factors have a major impact on ultimate results. Guided by insights from CSCW literature new coordination mechanisms were designed together with policemen in a participatory manner. This resulted in a set of interventions that were believed to improve intra-organisational distributed coordination. However, neither Adaptive Structuration Theory, nor Orlikowski et al.’s insights in CSCW mediation, could answer if and how the interplay of current practices and these inter- ventions would influence distributed coordination. For this purpose, we developed a simulation game to create a richer picture of future systemic interactions in computer supported distributed coordination in this particular organisation. This game enables us to investigate potential implementation problems of new ICT and to create organisational awareness for opportunities and pitfalls in distributed coordination. We argue that such a simulation game is a necessary step in a business-engineering project covering this wide variety of influencing factors on a social, organisational and technological level.