Plans are resources rather than determinants of behavior
Aliases: situated action · plans as resources · determinants of behavior
What it is
Situated action treats plans, procedures, and training materials as resources available to action, not mechanical determinants. A nurse may work from a medication schedule yet change order immediately because of the patient’s state, an occupied device, or a colleague’s reminder; opening a tutorial does not mean following it.
Why it happens
A plan is an abstraction formed in a past situation, while the present brings new time pressure, visible opportunities, tool state, others’ actions, and unforeseen exceptions. People reorganize steps while preserving the goal and use the plan as legitimacy, memory support, or communication. Post-hoc interviews may also produce a tidied “procedure” that differs from actual decision order.
Studying it
Use field observation, video, and document comparison to contrast written plans, oral instructions, and actual operation sequences. Record deviation points, triggering cues, participants, and outcomes; combine interviews to distinguish deliberate workarounds, situated adjustment, and violation. Collect exceptions as well as normal flow rather than coding only the ideal path.
Where it stops holding
Not every domain is equally improvisational. Safety-critical procedures, legal signing, and irreversible operations must constrain improvisation, while still providing controlled paths for real exceptions. The resource view also does not deny organizational constraints; it says behavior should be explained by present resources rather than labeling every deviation as noncompliance.
Applying it
- Design SOPs, templates, and wizards as pausable resources whose steps may be skipped with recorded reasons.
- Provide entries and rationale fields for common exceptions instead of forcing hidden workarounds.
- State in support material which steps are fixed and which may adapt to the situation.
- Calibrate workflows from observation rather than designing only from management description.