Artefaction as Communication: Redesigning Communication Models

The advice found in practical guides like PMBOK regarding designing and managing communication in IT projects, is worryingly superficial and gives little guidance or insights of substance to IS academics and practitioners. Thus, the objective of this paper is to help academics and practitioners better appreciate the complexity involved in IT projects and to foreground many of the attendant issues challenges and potential pitfalls in establishing and managing communications effectively through the projects life cycle. Further, the authors’ aim includes the presentation of relevant and useful models of communication that if internalized, would improve the conceptualization of communication problem situations and thus assist in the planning and implementation of communication strategies in IT projects. The models presented include Galle's model of artefaction, Wittgenstein's language game model and a model developed by the authors which includes aspects of both Galle’s and Wittgenstein’s models. These models, the authors argue, are a considerable advance over the Shannon-Weaver-type conduit/transmission models of communication. The implications of the models are discussed and are illustrated by reference to a short case study.