The Coordination Pyramid: A Perspective on the State of the Art in Coordination Technology

Authors

Anita Sarma, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
David Redmiles, University of California, IrvineFollow
André van der Hoek, University of California, IrvineFollow

Date of this Version

2009

Citation

Computer Science and Engineering, Department of CSE Technical Reports, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Year 2009

Comments

Copyright 2009 University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Abstract

Effective coordination is essential for any group work and has been studied widely in the fields of Management Science and Organizational Behavior. A classic definition of coordination is “the management of task dependencies” as proposed by Thompson [16], who distinguished among pooled tasks, where the results of individual actions are simply aggregated; sequential tasks, where the output for one is the input for another; and reciprocal tasks, where work flows back and forth between tasks. More recently, Malone and Crowston [12] developed detailed catalogs of general types of interdependencies that occur across many domains, and particular types of dependencies that occur only in specific domains.