How Virtual is Virtual: Designing for Distributed Work in Research and Development
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The document discusses research being conducted on virtual organizations and socio-technical systems supported by a National Science Foundation grant. It provides background on the grant recipients and their goal of understanding how virtual communication influences deliberations at different stages of the research and development process. The document then summarizes three research sites being studied: a fundamental research project on optical devices, a virtual R&D ecosystem compiling data on Alzheimer's disease, and the distributed development of a large video game. Key conversations and deliberations are defined and examples are given for each research site. Potential barriers to effective virtual conversations are discussed and coordination mechanisms across the R&D continuum are presented.
How Virtual is Virtual: Designing for Distributed Work in Research and Development
- 1. N A T I O N A L S C I E N C E F O U N D A T I O N G R A N T V O S S : V I R T U A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N S S O C I O - T E C H N I C A L S Y S T E M S C E N T R A L R E S E A R C H Q U E S T I O N : H O W D O V I R T U A L M O D E S O F C O M M U N I C A T I O N I N F L U E N C E T H E Q U A L I T Y O F D E L I B E R A T I O N S ( K E Y C O N V E R S A T I O N S ) A T V A R I O U S S T A G E S O F T H E R & D C O N T I N U U M / I N N O V A T I O N P R O C E S S ? How Virtual is Virtual: Designing for Distributed Work in Research and Development Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237
- 2. 2 Grant Back- ground ! University of Illinois and STS Roundtable ! Seven member team: Doug Austrom, Betty Barrett, Betsy Merck, Bert Painter, Pam Posey and Ram Tenkasi ! In final year of 3 year grant STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237 September 2012
- 3. 3 Desired Outcomes for this Session Through dialogue and exercises, we have the opportunity to … 1. Develop a shared understanding of the implications of virtuality on key conversations/deliberations across the innovation continuum 2. Consider how ‘fixes’ differ depending on the degree of uncertainty in the R&D task 3. Explore the value of coordination mechanisms employed differently across the innovation continuum, as ways to overcome the “coordination costs” of global projects and multi-university research 4. Discuss the renewed relevance of ‘STS’ for organization design in this age of virtual collaboration and global innovation September 2012STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237
- 4. 4 Evolution of Socio-Technical Systems! STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237 ! STS v1.0 -Routine work in a single organization – e.g., coal mines, factories, oil refineries - Work groups with pooled identity -Unitary conversion process -Linear conversion sequence ! STS v2.0 -Non-routine face-to-face knowledge work in single organizations – e.g., white collar office work, professional services firm, NPD and R&D -Individual performers, specialized expertise -Multiple, concurrent conversion processes -Nonlinear conversion flow ! STS v3.0 -Virtual, non-routine work – e.g., R&D consortia, complex supply chains -Individual performers and work groups distributed across multiple locations and/or organizations -ICT enabled -Multiple, concurrent, independent, and interdependent conversion processes -Nonlinear conversion flows September 2012
- 5. 5 HIGH Uncertainty LOWER Uncertainty September 2012STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237 Six Stage Continuum of the R&D Process Pure Research Work DON’T KNOW WHAT we are looking for DON’T KNOW HOW to carry out the research Applied Research Work DON’T KNOW WHAT (i.e. end state or objective) KNOW HOW to carry out the research Exploratory Development Work KNOW WHAT DON’T KNOW HOW to achieve it Advanced Development Work KNOW WHAT DON’T KNOW HOW IN DETAIL to achieve it Start-Up (pilot plants, beta testing) Development Work KNOW WHAT KNOW HOW CONCEPTUALLY to achieve it Scale-Up (volume & costs) Development Work KNOW WHAT KNOW HOW OPERATIONALLY to achieve it R 1 R 2 D 1 D 4 D 2 D 3
- 6. 6 Three Research Sites STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237 ! Caltech- Orchid Project: fundamental research, R1 ! Optical Radiation Cooling and Heating in Integrated Devices ! Tightly-Linked Collaboration for Design of Experiments & Device Fabrication among Laboratories using 3 Technology platforms ! Pasadena, Switzerland and Austria ! Major challenge: creative research and design and knowledge generation in a complex virtual setting ! NACC: a virtual R&D eco-system, D2-D4 ! Comprised of 29 NIA-funded Alzheimers Disease Centers (ADCs) and the National Alzheimers Coordinating Center Center (NACC) ! Major challenge: Create Uniform Data Set agreeing upon and compiling data from the 29 different centers as the basis of research ! LVG: a large video game developer, D3-D4 ! Core team with distributed vendors in Philippines, China, India, Switzerland, North America and across the parking lot ! Major challenge: Cost effective game development work with high quality and timeliness completed at a distance for art production, engineering and testing September 2012
- 7. 7 HIGH Uncertainty LOWER Uncertainty ‘Orchid’ Project ‘Uniform Data Set’ Project ‘Large Video Game’ Project September 2012STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237 Pure Research Work DON’T KNOW WHAT we are looking for DON’T KNOW HOW to carry out the research Applied Research Work DON’T KNOW WHAT (i.e. end state or objective) KNOW HOW to carry out the research Exploratory Development Work KNOW WHAT DON’T KNOW HOW to achieve it Advanced Development Work KNOW WHAT DON’T KNOW HOW IN DETAIL to achieve it Start-Up (pilot plants, beta testing) Development Work KNOW WHAT KNOW HOW CONCEPTUALLY to achieve it Scale-Up (volume & costs) Development Work KNOW WHAT KNOW HOW OPERATIONALLY to achieve it R 1 R 2 D 1 D 4 D 2 D 3 Six Stage Continuum of the R&D Process
- 8. Key Conversations/Deliberations: Definition and Elements STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237 ! Key Conversations are patterns of exchange and communication in which people engage with themselves or others to reduce the equivocality of a problematic issue ! The salient elements of a deliberation include the … • Topics or problematic issues facing the social entity about which people reflect and communicate • Forums in which they occur which may be structured, semi- structured, unstructured or ad hoc • Participants - both those who are currently involved and those who ideally should be involved in the deliberation September 2012
- 9. 9 Examples of Key Conversations/Deliberations STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237 ! Orchid ! What experiment shall we run? ! How shall we design the experiment? ! How shall we execute the experiment? ! How do we make sense of the results? ! NACC ! What data will go in the UDS? ! What diagnostic instruments shall we use? ! Who will have access to the data? ! LVG ! What new features shall we develop? ! What contractor shall we use for this work? ! What is the scope and time/cost estimate for this work? September 2012
- 10. 10 Exercise Part 1 STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237 ! Directions: At your table, take 15 minutes to discuss the following question: ! What might be potential barriers to effective conversations/deliberations? ! Large group comments – 5 minutes September 2012
- 11. 11 Examples of Knowledge Work Barriers STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237 ! Lack of knowledge ! In the Orchid project, the technical procedures in two different laboratories were discovered to be incompatible and initially prevented development of inter-dependent experiments ! Failure to utilize knowledge ! In LVG, corporate intelligence about particular vendor competencies was not initially utilized by an individual division in their vendor selection procedures September 2012 ! Failure to share knowledge ! In development of the NACC/UDS project, use of standardized data collection was seen by some researchers as an imposition over other data more suited to their own unique research interests ! Lack of common frame of reference ! In LVG, the developers did not have a common frame of how to conduct tests of the game
- 12. 12 Exercise Part 2 STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237 ! Directions: At your table work for 10 minutes and revisit the issue related to distributed (team)work that you were asked to consider in Exercise 1 ! How, what would you design to minimize the knowledge barriers? " Select one or two barriers to think through ! Table group report outs – a brief highlight from each table September 2012
- 13. 13 Coordination across the R&D Continuum September 2012STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237 R1 D4 Drive Problem Solving Shape and Reinforce Converge Convey Standardization Rules Based Mutual Adjustment Peer-to-Peer Hierarchical Exploration Prescriptive Uncertainty Mystery Heuristic Algorithm Certainty
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- 15. 15 STRUCTURES (Roles, Organization Design) PEOPLE (Skills, Relationships, Values, Communications) TECHNOLOGY (Collaboration Tools, Media) PROCESSES (Standards, Schedules, Plans) STRATEGIES (Mission, Collaboration Agreements) Sociotechnical Systems Framework for Designing Coordination of Virtual R&D September 2012STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237
- 16. 16 Design Implications – Open Discussion STSR VOSS TEAM Supported by NSF-VOSS Award #0943237 September 2012