Transcript Distributed work (improvements)

How Can We Support Geographically
Distributed Teams
Virtual teams are often less efficient &
effective than collocated ones
But many can be successful
Boeing-Rocketdyne team was successful
• Small distributed engineering team radically
& successfully redesigned rocket engine
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Reduced part count fm 1,200 to 6
Reduced first unit cost from $4.5m to $47K
Reduced design time from 6 years to 10 months
Increased quality three orders of magnitude
(from 6 sigma to 9 sigma)
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What Did the Boeing-Rocketdyne Team Do
To Be Successful?
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What Did the Boeing-Rocketdyne Team Do
To Be Successful?
• Recruiting: High quality team
• Create supportive environment: Explicit contracts
• At organizational level – level of effort, intellectual property,
autonomy, budget
• At group level – ways of using technology, amount of & place for
communication, role of leader (all modified with experience)
• Frequent communication
• 2.5 virtual meetings per week
• Technology support
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Voice communication
Real-time drawing
Data repository
Technology facilitator
(Although many modifications of both technology & SOP to deal
with problems)
• Combination of documented conceptual sketches + verbal
annotation
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Periodic intense communication
• Compare 3 global teams within
a single company
• 2 effective:
• 1 ineffective
Effective
• Effective teams
• Matched type & duration of
communication sessions with
function/topic & complexity
• Used periodic, face-to-face
meetings to drive function
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Maznevski, M., & Chudoba, C. (2000). Bridging
space over time: Global virtual team dynamics and
effectiveness. Organization Science, 11(5), 473492.
Effective
In effective
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Appropriate launch activities
• Often helps to start the work with face-toface meeting, with food, time for leisure, etc.
• Goal is to build rapport and trust & to shortcircuit the us/them social categorization.
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Smooze or loose
• Analogous to having a ‘get-to-know-each-other phone
chat’ before email negotiation
• In email negotiation vs face-to-face negotiation, partners
• Less likely to ask questions abt preferences
• Less likely to reveal non-negotiable issues
• Were more likely to use threats, ultimatums and references to
obligations that resulted in negotiation impasses
• But a preliminary phone chat reduced these effects
• Increased rapport
• Reduced likelihood of an impasse
Morris, M., Nadler, J., Kurtzberg, T., & Thompson, L. (2002). Schmooze or lose: Social friction and
lubrication in e-mail negotiations. Group Dynamics, 6(1), 89-100.
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Reduce needs for communication
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Decompose the work into parts that are most interdependent and parts
that are less so.
Position people so that those doing the most interdependent work are
the most collocated
E.g., Decision makers at NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense
Command) vs information sources (intelligence, radar)
E.g., Academic departments on campus
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Cummings & Kiesler (2005; 2007) Study of Large
NSF Projects
• Project outcomes declined
with more sites involved
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Multi-university projects were
less successful than singleuniversity projects
More successful projects
used a variety of specific
coordination mechanisms
Multi-university projects used
fewer coordination
mechanisms than singleuniversity projects
Reduced use of coordination
mechanisms mediated the
relationship between # of
university and performance
Knowledge Outcomes**
Tools Outcomes
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Training Outcomes**
Outreach Outcomes
Collaboration Outcomes
Leverage Outcomes
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Number Universities
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What coordination techniques help
distributed scientists? (Cummings & Kiesler, 2007)
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Reduce Needs for Communication
Stealth Bomber/Boeing 777
• Digitally designed and tested aircraft
• Database of component specifications & designs (CAD)
• Simulations and modeling to test the integration of
independently designed components
• Visualizations to help identify alternative design
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Agency problems
• The principal–agent problem
• One person (the "agent") is able to make
decisions on behalf of another (the "principal“)
• Agent is motivated to act in his own best interests
rather than those of the principal.
• Occurs when the two parties have different
interests and asymmetric information (the
agent having more information
 Principal cannot guarantee that the agent is
always acting in its (the principal's) best
interests, particularly when activities that are
useful to the principal are costly to the agent
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Generic Methods for Countering Agency
Problems
• Aligning incentives
• Clan control & socialization
• Liking
• Pay for performance
• Control
• Reduce information asymmetry via monitoring
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Hudson’s Bay Company1670-1826
• The challenge
• Owners & headquarters in
London
• Local management & work in
North America
• Communication restricted to
annual ship runs
North American operations
had substantial autonomy
• Agency problem
• How to align interests of
owners and operators?
• Need to balance costs
• Costs associated with selfinterest
• Costs resulting from
monitoring & preventing selfinterest
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Techniques
• Clan control:
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Selection to get right type of people
Socialization to develop a company-centric value system
• Transition rite of passages on leaving England & arrive in new world
• Total institutions
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Onboard ship
In posts
• Promotion from within
• Communication
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Annual letters
• Detailed daily journals (like ship logs), with more detail after post fire
• Lists to make important information more salient: supplies, personnel,
salaries, movements, expentitures, disciplinary actions,
• Active management by senior managers (governor) in
Canada
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Longevity
Wandering around
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Analogous to modern Management by Walking Around (Tom Peters).
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Surveillance Reduces Agency
Conflicts
• Both knowledge that
actions are visible &
self-monitoring can
increase compliance to
norms
Guard tour patrol system
Body-worn police camera
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Police & body-worn cameras
• Police wearing body-worn cameras reduces frequency of police
use of force against public
• Year-long experiment with Rialto CA Police reduced use of force
by 59% (17 to 8 incidents)
• Complaints against police dropped by 87%
• Intervention included both camera & verbal reminder by police
that the incident was being recorded
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Summary: Ways to Improve Success of
Distributed Work
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Reduce needs for direct communication
Use appropriate launch activities & visits
Increase communication intensity
Develop tools for Awareness
• Task state
• Participant state
• Increase quality of communication sessions
• Develop contracts with clear expectations
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