Abstract
In decentralized projects, several organizations come together to work on a joint project. Increased networking and distribution have facilitated their implementation. Common practices, such as subcontracting and consulting, sometimes lead to the creation of more flexible, less hierarchical structures. Partners are often considered as peers and the group has the flexibility to restructure itself according to its needs. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework for supporting decentralized groups using agent technology. This framework was developed based on a study of a decentralized group involved in a software research, design and development project. In our observation, a great amount of time is spent with articulation and maintaining partners up-to-date, which suggests that appropriate awareness support might facilitate the group’s activities. We define the necessary modules and a specific agent architecture to support these groups.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bernoux, P.: La Sociologie des Entreprises. Éditions du Seuil, Paris (1999)
Carstensen, P., Schmidt, K.: Self Governing Production Groups: Towards Requirements for IT Support. In: Proceedings of the Fifth IFIP International Conference on Information Technology in Manufacturing and Services (BASYS’02), Cancun, Mexico (2002)
Dourish, P., Portholes, B.S.: Supporting Awareness in distributed Work Group. In: Proceedings of the 1992 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’92), Monterey, CA, pp. 541–547 (1992)
Edwards, K.: Timewarp:Techniques for Autonomous Collaboration. In: Proceedings of ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’97), Atlanta, GA (1997)
Gutwin, C., Greenberg, S.: A Descriptive Framework of Workspace Awareness for Real-Time Groupware. Computer Supported Cooperative Work 11, 411–446 (2002)
Gutwin, C., et al.: Supporting Informal Collaboration in Shared-Workspace Groupware. The Interaction Lab Technical Report HCI-TR-2005-01, University of Saskatchewan, Canada (2005)
Hertel, G., Geister, S., Konradt, U.: Managing Virtual Teams: A review of current empirical research. Human Resource Management Review 15, 69–95 (2005)
Leinonen, P., Jarvela, S., Hakkinen, P.: Conceptualizing the Awareness of Collaboration: A Qualitative Study of a Global Virtual Team. Computer Supported Cooperative Work 14, 301–322 (2005)
McCarty, C., Bernard, R.: Social Network Analysis. In: Christensen, K., Levinson, D. (eds.) Encyclopaedia of Community: From the Village to the Virtual World, Sage, Thousand Oaks (2003)
McEwan, G., Greenberg, S.: Community Bar: Designing for Awareness and Interaction. In: Proceedings of ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2005), Portland, Oregon (2005)
Morán, A.L., et al.: Before Getting There: Potential and Actual Collaboration. In: Haake, J.M., Pino, J.A. (eds.) CRIWG 2002. LNCS, vol. 2440, Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
Olson, J., Teasley, S.: Groupware in the Wild: Lessons Learned from a Year of Virtual Collocation. In: Proceedings of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW’96), Cambridge, MA (1996)
Pinelle, D., Gutwin, C.: A Groupware Design Framework for Loosely Coupled Groups. In: Proceedings of European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW’05), Paris, France (2005)
Sandusky, R.J., Gasser, L.: Negotiation and the Coordination of Information and Activity in Distributed Software Problem Management. In: Proceedings of GROUP’05, Sanibel Island, FL (2005)
Schmidt, K., Bannon, L.: Taking CSCW Seriously: Supporting Articulation Work. Computer Supported Cooperative Work 1(1), 7–40 (1992)
Schmidt, K.: The Organization of Cooperative Work: Beyond the Leviathan Conception of Cooperative Work. In: Proceedings of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW’94), Chapel Hill, NC, USA (1994)
Shen, W. (ed.): Special Issue on Collaborative Environments for Design and Manufacturing. Advanced Engineering Informatics 19, 79 (2005)
Tacla, C., Barthès, J.P.: A Multi-Agent System for Acquiring and Sharing Lessons Learned. Computers in Industry 52, 5–16 (2003)
Vivacqua, A.S., Moreno, M., Souza, J.M.: Using Agents to Detect Opportunities for Collaboration. In: Shen, W.-m., et al. (eds.) CSCWD 2005. LNCS, vol. 3865, pp. 244–253. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Vivacqua, A.S., Barthès, JP., de Souza, J.M. (2007). Supporting Self-governing Software Design Groups. In: Shen, W., Luo, J., Lin, Z., Barthès, JP.A., Hao, Q. (eds) Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design III. CSCWD 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4402. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72863-4_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72863-4_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-72862-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-72863-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)