thriving in an uncertain world: designing virtual teams across the innovation continuum

Annual Conference Denver

April 2013

Doug Austrom, Betsy Merck, Pam Posey (Presenters) and Be6y Barre6, Bert Painter, Ram Tenkasi

Socio-‐Technical Systems Roundtable

Thriving in an Uncertain World: Designing Virtual Teams Across the InnovaFon ConFnuum

This material is based upon work supported by the NaEonal Science FoundaEon under grant number NSF OCI 09-‐43237. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendaEons expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NaEonal Science FoundaEon.

Desired Outcomes for this Session

Through dialogue and exercises, we have the opportunity to …

•  Increase understanding of the implicaEons of virtuality on key conversaEons/deliberaEons across the innovaEon conEnuum

•  Explore the design of appropriate mechanisms of coordinaEon across the R&D/innovaEon conEnuum

•  PracEce applying STS principles to address variances in deliberaEons and knowledge management barriers in virtual (and non-‐virtual) innovaEon work

Virtual Teams/InnovaEon ConEnuum ODF 2013

EvoluEon of Sociotechnical Systems Three Waves

Wave One: 1950’s-‐1970’s

Wave Three: 1990’s-‐Present

Wave Two: 1970’s-‐1990’s


EvoluEon of Sociotechnical Systems Wave One: 1950’s-‐1970’s

Nature of the Work Design Principles*

•  RouEne work in single organizaEons

• Work groups with shared idenEty

•  Single linear conversion process

•  Joint opEmizaEon •  CompaEbility •  Sociotechnical criterion and variance control

•  Boundary locaEon •  InformaEon flow •  Design and human values •  MulEfuncEonal principle: mechanism or organism

•  Support congruence •  TransiEonal organizaEon •  Minimum criEcal specificaEon

•  IncompleEon


* Albert Cherns, 1976

EvoluEon of Sociotechnical Systems Wave Two: 1970’s-‐1990’s

Nature of the Work Design Principles**

•  Non-‐rouEne face-‐to-‐face knowledge work in single organizaEons

•  Individual performers with specialized experEse

•  MulEple, concurrent nonlinear conversion processes

•  Joint opEmizaEon

•  Self-‐design by the members of the unit being changed

•  Specify only those things that must be defined allowing for ongoing adaptaEon

•  MulE-‐funcEonality and redundancy of funcEons

•  IteraEve and open-‐ended design process


** Cal Pava, 1983

EvoluEon of Sociotechnical Systems Wave Three: 1990’s-‐ Present

Nature of the Work Design Principles

•  Virtual, non-‐rouEne work • Work and workers distributed across mulEple locaEons and/or organizaEons

•  InformaEon and communicaEon technology enabled

•  MulEple, concurrent, nonlinear, independent, and interdependent conversion processes

•  In an iVUCA world

• Whole systems opEmizaEon

•  Align on shared purpose and mutually beneficial outcomes

•  Promote dignity, meaning, challenge, mastery, autonomy, and self-‐determinaEon

•  Foster learning and knowledge sharing

•  SupporEve infrastructure and coordinaEon system

•  Minimum criEcal specificaEons

•  IteraEve design and mutual adaptaEon


HIGH Uncertainty LOWER Uncertainty

Six Stages of the InnovaFon ConFnuum

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 objecEve)

KNOW

HOW


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 tesEng)

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

Virtual Teams/InnovaFon ConFnuum ODF 2013

Three Research Sites

•  Caltech Orchid Project: R1, Fundamental research –  OpEcal RadiaEon Cooling and HeaEng in Integrated Devices

–  Tightly-‐Linked CollaboraEon for Design of Experiments & Device FabricaEon among Laboratories using 3 Technology plaeorms

–  Pasadena, Switzerland and Austria

–  Major challenge: creaEve research and design and knowledge generaEon in a complex virtual sefng

•  NACC: D2-‐D4, Virtual R&D eco-‐system –  Comprised of 29 NIA-‐funded Alzheimer's Disease Centers (ADCs) and the NaEonal

Alzheimer's CoordinaEng 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: D3-‐D4, Large video game developer –  Core team with distributed vendors in Philippines, China, India, Switzerland, North

America and across the parking lot

–  Major challenge: Cost effecEve game development work with high quality and Emeliness completed at a distance for art producEon, engineering and tesEng


HIGH Uncertainty LOWER Uncertainty

‘Orchid’ Project ‘Uniform Data Set’ Project ‘Large Video Game’ Project

Pure Research Work

DON’T KNOW

WHAT

we are looking for

DON’T KNOW

HOW


Applied Research Work

DON’T KNOW

WHAT

(i.e. end state or objecEve)

KNOW

HOW


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 tesEng)

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 of the InnovaFon ConFnuum


Key ConversaFons/DeliberaFons DefiniDon and Elements •  Key conversaFons or deliberaFons are pa6erns of exchange and

communicaEon in which people engage with themselves or others to reduce the equivocality of a problemaEc issue

•  The salient elements of a deliberaDon include the …

•  What -‐ or problemaEc issues facing the social enEty about which people reflect and communicate

•  How -‐ which may be structured, semi-‐structured, unstructured, ad hoc, in –person or virtual

•  Who -‐ both those who are currently involved and those who ideally should be involved in the deliberaEon


Examples of Key ConversaFons/DeliberaFons

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 diagnosEc 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 Eme/cost esEmate for this work?


Knowledge Work Barriers

Lack of knowledge •  In the Orchid project, the technical procedures in two different laboratories

were discovered to be incompaEble and iniEally prevented development of inter-‐dependent experiments

Failure to uFlize knowledge

•  In LVG, corporate intelligence about parEcular vendor competencies was not iniEally uElized by an individual division in their vendor selecEon procedures

Failure to share knowledge

•  In development of the NACC/UDS project, use of standardized data collecEon was seen by some researchers as an imposiEon 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


AcFvity Part 1

•  Spend 5 minutes and think of a past or present issue that you are aware of, with a team in your organizaEon that has virtual components.

•  Where would you place the project on the innovaEon conEnuum, R1-‐ D4? Why?

•  What is/was the issue? What type of knowledge work barriers do you suspect were at play?

•  Let’s share our examples and compare the findings from our project with your examples.

•  Large group conversaEon …


AcFvity Part 2

•  DirecEons: At your table, work for 10 minutes on the same issue(s) you just discussed. – What would you design to eliminate or minimize the knowledge barriers?

–  Table group reports– brief highlights from each table


CoordinaFon across the InnovaFon ConFnuum

R1 D4

Drive Problem Solving Shape and Reinforce

Converge Convey

StandardizaEon Rules Based

Mutual Adjustment

Peer-‐to-‐Peer Hierarchical

ExploraEon PrescripEve

Uncertainty

Mystery Heuristic Algorithm

Certainty


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Design ImplicaFons – Open Discussion


thriving in an uncertain world: designing virtual teams across the innovation continuum

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