Clippings, Words and Zettelkasten (150)

Engeström, Engeström and Vähäaho (1999) distinguish Activity Systems operating
in teams, and Activity Systems emerging in work communities. Teams are typically
understood as relatively stable structures, sharing the same objectives and mediation
tools over longer periods of time, in which the workflows dynamically develop and
become stabilised to certain extent. Networking emerges in more loosely connected
systems like work communities. Their workflows consist of combinations of people,
tasks, and tools that are often orchestrated only for relatively short periods of time
(eg. like in hospitals where each emergency patient would activate a different chain
of temporary but coordinated workflow). Engeström et al. (1999) describe these
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temporal trajectories of successive task-oriented combinations of people and
artefacts that emerge within or between activity systems as knot-working
situations. The notion of knot refers to a short time, distributed and partially
improvised orchestration of collaborative performance between otherwise loosely
connected actors and activity systems. Knot-working situations rely on the fast
accomplishment of inter-subjective understanding, distributed control and
coordinated action between actors. Engeström et al. (1999) assume that in knotworking
the tying and dissolution of a knot of collaborative work is not reducible to
any specific individual or fixed organisational entity as the centre of control. The locus
of initiative changes from moment to moment - the centre does not hold. The learning
situation in collaborating presumes the formation of teams who share common
objectives, rather than networking of self-directed actors with different personal
objectives. However, in collaborative teams the learners may define someone as
their leader or try to work with shifted locus of initiative like in networking situations.

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