336 Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter XXIII Systems Design with the Socio-Technical Walkthrough Thomas Herrmann University of Bochum, Germany AbstrAct Socio-technical systems integrate technical and organizational structures and are related to various stakehold- ers and their perspectives. The design of socio-technical systems has to support this integration and to take the differing perspectives into account. To support this goal, the design concepts have to be represented with appropriate documentation methods, which combine formal and informal aspects. Communication processes have to be facilitated which systematically refer to these kinds of documentation. Therefore a socio-technical, semi-structured modeling method (SeeMe) is introduced. It represents socio-technical concepts with diagrams which can be developed, evaluated and improved by the socio-technical walkthrough (STWT). This facilita- tion method—together with a corresponding software-tool—has proven to be suitable for socio-technical design in complex, practical projects. A maximum of explicitness leads to a minimum of understandability —Ungeheuer, 1982 (translated from the German p. 328) IntroductIon Socio-technical systems comprise the interaction and dependencies between aspects such as human actors, organizational units, communication pro- cesses, documented information, work procedures and processes, technical units, human-computer interactions, and competencies. They are character- ized by continuous evolution which is infuenced by interests, conficts and power relations. The socio-technical walkthrough (“STWT,” Herrmann, Kunau, Loser and Menold, 2004a; Herrmann, Loser