Plans and Situated Action Ten Years On

The title of Lucy Suchman's celebrated Plans and SituatedAction does not state an opposition between plans and situated action. It is not plans versus situated action, though this is perhaps the way in which it is often read-as by Herbert Simon, for example (Vera & Simon, 1993). Simon, at least, misunderstood the book because he did not appreciate that its focus is on the notion of plan as deployed in cognitive science (plans-according-to-cognitive-science) and that, therefore, much of its argumentation does not concern "plans" as we might use them in ordinary affairs. Consequently, although the focus of the book is on the notion of "plan," its purpose is to make a fundamental challenge to the way in which cognitive science attempts to explain actions. In this brief appreciation of Suchman's book we want to emphasize this point. We also want to clarify the relation between plans as they have been used in cognitive science explanations of human conduct and plans as they are used in everyday conduct. The failure of Suchman's detractors to appreciate that in denying the role assigned to plans by cognitive science she was not also denying the role of plans in ordinary conduct is one, however, that Suchman may have contributed to. At a crucial point in her argument she uses, we believe, an unfortunate example that is juxtaposed with a mistaken account of conduct furnished by George Herbert Mead. We intend to reinforce Suchman's subsequent emphasis that she was not denying a