Co-Orienting the Object : An Activity Theoretical Analysis of a Public Report on the UK’s National Program for it

This paper contributes to organizational analyses of ‘success' and ‘failure' in the development and implementation of major information and communication technology (ICT) projects (Brown and Jones 1998; Fincham 2002; Sauer 1999; Wilson and Howcroft 2002). A key theme emerging from this literature is that, given the scale of such projects and the stakeholders involved, almost any project is potentially vulnerable to the attribution of failure. Yet despite their flaws (e.g. over- run timescales, over-budget spending, poor consideration of user needs etc) many ICT projects are still deemed a success (Wilson and Howcroft 2002).To overcome this paradox we argue that rather than focusing on critical success factors and causes of failure it is more helpful to focus on learning processes associated with the development of new ICT projects and the way they challenge and extend familiar organisational limits (Farjoun and Starbuck 2005, 2007). In exploring these dynamics we use the notion of “co-orientation” (Taylor and Robichaud 2004). Co-orientation points to the ways by which, through discursive activity, different groups and individuals work towards new understandings of their shared object of activity and of each other's roles and contributions. Such analysis needs, we suggest, to be located in a broader study of the cultural-historical and material mediations (Engeström 1987, 2004).We develop this argument by drawing on a recent Committee of Public Accounts (CPA) report on the UK's National Program for IT (NPfIT). The focus is on the ways in which the CPA interrogated project leaders, and the responses of the project leaders to the committee's cross-examination. Our preliminary analysis suggests some initial implications for our understanding of ICT and changes in service organizations which point to further research priorities. Key issues include the ways in which new objects of activity can emerge from the meeting of contrasting forms of discursive activity and ways in which new policy insights can be translated into new organisational practices