ComputerSupported Cooperative Working

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Computer-Supported Cooperative Working

• Legentis Case Study

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This is what I wrote on the board
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This was an attempt at Organisation Design

• Organisations are the result of human design just
  as much as buildings and motorbikes
• Designs can be beautiful and fit for purpose or
  ugly and difficult to work with
• The range of possible designs is limited by
  constraints which change as technology progresses

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Legentis Goals

• Stakeholders
• Shareholders, customers, employees, public
• Maximise shareholder value
• Satisfy (delight) customers
• Reward, motivate and develop the full potential
  of employees
• Minimise environmental impact, be a good
  neighbour, contribute to community, pay taxes

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Design
The Bad and Ugly (Royal Ontario Museum)
The Good
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Another example
The Good
The Bad and Ugly (Electroglide in pink and white)
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What is possible changes with technology

• G53DBC is about using modern technology to
  overcome the constraints that limited traditional
  organisations
• That is to design organisations that are better
  able to meet their goals effectively and
  efficiently
• To enable working practices that are preferred by
  employees and are more cost effective

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Key areas

• Improved knowledge acquisition.
• Improved access to and sharing of relevant and
  up-to-date information
• Shared applications that support teamwork
• Applications that support remote and also mobile
  collaboration
• Changes the constraints on organisation design
  virtual organisations become possible.

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Applications

• Entry portal with widgets and directory
  functions http//partnerpage.google.com/weed.cs.n
  ott.ac.uk
• Email
• Phone (VOIP) CHAT ? Message Board
• Shared Calendar
• Wiki
• Shared documents / Source control
• Shared development project bug status/ build /
  test / publish

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Spoiled for choice the curse

• Microsoft Sharepoint services 2007
• LAMP based
• Java enterprise / Open documents
• Java Spring and Hibernate
• Python Zope
• Proprietary - expensive
• Proprietary cheap/free (e.g. iGoogle)

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What was I trying to show?

• The activities or roles necessary for the
  organisation to accomplish its goals
• Decision making and control structures (chains or
  responsibility)
• Necessary communication channels

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Some analogy with Object-oriented design

• We need a control structure
• Top down decomposition?
• Autonomous asynchronous agents?
• We need a breakdown of function into maximally
  cohesive and minimally interacting units
• We need the methods that represent the function
  performed by the organisation

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A big difference from OOD

• Human beings!
• They need to be motivated to work effectively
  (see Maslow Porter Bigley Steers)
• Hygeine factors
• Feel useful and appreciated, personal
  development, status, salary
• Clarity of role, fairness, a stake in success, to
  feel they are listened to etc.
• Identify with organisation, appropriate role
  support and training

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Teams

• Most tasks will involve team working
• Potential for conflict, competition rather than
  cooperation, failures in communication and
  coordination
• http//weed.cs.nott.ac.uk/wiki/index.php/Student_e
  xperiences_of_working_in_a_group
• Computer tools can makes a HUGE difference
• Belbins work shows that care is needed selecting
  people with a balance of skills and personality
  types

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Designing Legentis

• Organisational structure
• Decision making and control
• Tasks and teams
• Communication channels
• Hardware and software infrastructure

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The Products

• Reader for the blind
• Desktop translator
• Phone-based translator
• Arabic/Chinese OCR

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Why use departments and a hierarchy?
6 communication paths
21 communication paths
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Principles of communication structures

• Fomalise and facilitate the trunk communication
  links (reduces entropy)
• Allow free communication and facilitate finding
  the right person
• by role, by expertise
• Chains of responsibility should be clear
• Decision making should be informed by those it
  affects Hierarchy of pools of democracy with
  feedback down-up-down with explanation

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Forms of communication

• Traditional Face to face, letters, phone, memos,
  circulated reports, photocopier and filing
  cabinets.
• Current Assubing TCP/IP network
• Email with attachments
• Instant messenger / chat programs
• Add common whiteboard, shared desktop, Voice over
  IP and perhaps Video. (Video conferencing?
  virtual environments? )
• Shared access applications
• Web pages, Wiki, Calendars, SCCS, DMS, shared
  project plans, bug reporting systems, automated
  build/test systems etc
• Curse is too much choice, too little security.

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Knowledge

• What forms of knowledge exist in Legentis?
• How might they best be stored?
• How can this information be kept secure?
• 93 of companies that lost their data center for
  10 days or longer due to a disaster filed for
  bankruptcy within one year of the disaster. 50
  of business that found themselves without data
  management for this same time period filed for
  bankruptcy immediately. (Source National
  Archives Records Administration in Washington)

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Multi-tier architecture
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The University or think of an organisation that
you know well

• What are the goals?
• Is the organisational structure appropriate?
• Are the communication channels appropriate?
• Is knowledge retained and easily available?
• Is best use made of DBC Apps?

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Questions or Comments?