This master thesis examines the subject of IT-supported rostering with the purpose of identifying what the literature presents on the subject, how this can be used to analyse existing systems, and finally how it can be used to explore new approaches to IT-supported rostering. This is accomplished through three CHI formatted articles, each covering their respective subject. The three articles’ contributions, research methods and conclusions will be presented in this report. Prior to these presentations, an introduction, the research field, the research questions, and the problem statement, will be described.
The first of the three articles covers the existing literature on the subject of rostering, through an interdisciplinary Literature Review. It aims to find relevant parameters for IT-supported rostering situations. This is related to the problem statement of this report, as the parameters are necessary to identify, prior to an analysis of systems. The relevant literature was found through the Berrypicking method, where 11 texts were handpicked. Forward and backward search was performed upon these 11 texts, revealing a total of 1190 texts. The resulting amount was then screened through a 4 step screening process, using inclusion criteria, which resulted in a total of 77 texts. The texts were analysed using Open Coding and the resulting parameters were categorised using Affinity Diagramming. A total of 13 parameters were identified that were relevant to IT-rostering, and these were split into the three categories; Strategy, Context and Implementation.
The second article analyses existing IT-systems for rostering, with the purpose of giving insight into the distribution of the systems, related to how they support rostering. The article relates to the problem statement, as it takes different parameters from literature into consideration, and analyses a range of systems through heuristics created, based on these parameters. The systems were found through two comparison websites, where a total of 142 systems were found. The systems were then screened using inclusion criteria, resulting in 46 systems. These systems were evaluated using 26 heuristics, which was developed using the rostering parameters. The data was then analysed through descriptive statistics.
The third article focuses on the viability of IT-supported Self-rostering in a complex rostering situation, with the purpose of identifying tendencies or conclusions on the viability of a system. This relates to the problem statement, as the literature is very limited about IT-supported Self-rostering. Three prototypes are created through a Human-Centred Design process, where preliminary knowledge was gathered through two interviews. Afterwards three prototyping iterations using the Effective Prototyping method were conducted, followed by a final evaluation of the prototypes, through a focus group. The results revealed scepticism towards a system being able to implement the complexity of rules within their organisation, but found the concept of IT-supported Self-rostering advantageous, if the proper groundwork was put into the system. This shows a tendency towards IT-rostering being viable to implement in complex rostering situations.
Three studies were conducted, with different perspectives on IT-supported rostering. This is in order to answer the question of how existing IT-supported rostering systems can be analysed through parameters from the literature, and how this can contribute to the creation of new IT-supported rostering systems. It was managed to find core parameters for IT-supported rostering, analyse current commercial systems based on a selected range of the parameters, and create three prototypes to investigate different approaches to IT-supported Self-rostering in complex situations.