MATURE Deliverable 1. - Knowledge Maturing

participating people from the studied organizations were used to bridge the time in between. The
idealized study design can be seen below.
1st week: At least two researchers per site immerse in organisations for ethnographic fieldwork to do
ethnographic work and to create awareness for knowledge maturing.
2nd-3rd week: Ethnographers are in contact, e.g., via e-Mail, instant messaging or telephone, with the
participating knowledge workers. Self-reporting is used for gaining data about specific and well-defined
topics over these two weeks.
4th week: The same researchers return to the organization for further ethnographic fieldwork. They
discuss the topics of self-reporting, get a richer picture of the happenings and interview selected people in
order to get input for designing PLME and OLME.
Guidelines used in the ethnographic study can be found in appendix 0.
3.3.2 Phase 2: Realisation
From July 2008 to October 2008, individual studies (study instances) were performed in the MATURE
partner organizations and associate partners. Detailed information about the study instances can be found
in the fact sheets presented in appendix 8.1.
The same study design as described above was applied for all study instances involving MATURE
associate partner organisations.
• UPB performed a study with 2 researchers at SYNAXON AG in August.
• FZI performed a study with 3 researchers at Städtisches Klinikum Karlsruhe in August and
September.
• FHNW performed a study with 2 researchers at Swisscom in September and October.
One researcher from UIBK attended at least the first day of each study instances in order to coach the
participating researchers, to ensure comparability between the procedures and methods employed and to
get impressions of the case. Moreover, background knowledge and personal impressions gained during
the participation were very useful for data analysis.
An extended procedure was applied for STRUC by CIMNE as MATURE application partner and for
Careers Scotland and Connexions Kent & Medway by UWAR and PONT as MATURE associate partner
organisations, both of them already committed to the role of target end users of the MATURE
developments according to the project plan. In addition to the study procedure applied at MATURE
associate partner organizations, further design-related activities were conducted. Design studies were also
developed in order to inform the design activities in WP 2 - 4. Therefore, directed interviews were also
performed in addition to ethnographic study.
• UWAR and PONT performed a study at Connexions Kent & Medway between April and July.
• UWAR and PONT performed a study at Careers Scotland between June and October.
• CIMNE performed a study with one researcher at Structuralia in September.
A sum-up workshop for all researchers participating in the ethnographic study took place at Frankfurt
(Main) airport on September 26. At that time, most study instances were finished (FHNW and CIMNE
studies were still running) and the experiences were shared between the teams of ethnographers. UIBK
presented first prepared results, which were also published (Maier and Thalmann, 2008). One aim of the
workshop was to agree on the procedure for data analysis and how to develop, structure, describe and
visualize the implications for the MATURE project.
3.3.3 Phase 3: Analysis
UIBK started with data analysis, i.e. with coding field notes and an investigation of initial implications in
two directions: describing Personas and describing maturing practices and cases (for results see section
16