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Title: Socio-technical coordination (keynote)
Product architecture structures the coordination problem that the development organization must solve. The modularity strategy establishes design rules that fix module functionality and interfaces, and assigns development work for each module to a single team. The modules present relatively independent coordination problems that teams attempt to solve with all the traditional coordination mechanisms available to them. The applicability and effectiveness of this strategy is limited with increasing technical and organizational volatility. In the absence of theory explaining why and when modularity works, the technique is brittle, with very little firm basis for adjustment or for complementing it with other strategies. I present a theory of coordination, based on decision networks, that generalizes the modularity strategy. I review evidence testing several hypotheses derived from the theory, and explore how this theoretical view can drive coordination research and provide a theoretical basis for practical techniques to assist architects, developers, and managers.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1111750 0534656 0414698
PAR ID:
10038375
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Date Published:
Journal Name:
International Conference on Software Engineering
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1 to 1
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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