The Planning and Control of Multiple Task Work: a Study of Secretarial Office Administration

1.1 Design-oriented models and understanding-oriented models This paper reports an attempt to construct a design-oriented model of the planning and control of multiple task work (PCMT) based on observations of secretarial office administration (SOA). The model is design-oriented in that it is intended to assist a designer to reason about the behaviours of an interactive human-computer worksystem; in this case, the planning and control behaviours of worksystems which carry out multiple task work. Design-oriented models of engineering contrast with the understandingoriented models of science, which offer an understanding of phenomena in the form of their explanation and prediction.