A systems engineering approach to managing communication in globally dispersed teams

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 197-202).Globalization has caused firms to redefine regional strategies for distributed design and manufacturing into one of worldwide coordination and integration of resources in order to compete in the world market. This need to address customers and markets worldwide and to achieve a customer focus has led to restructuring of the organization, functions, activities and teams into globally dispersed entities. Globally dispersed teams are attractive because they promise benefits such as increased flexibility, responsiveness and lower costs factors critical to succeeding in this dynamic business environment. The major challenge facing product development and manufacturing organizations is to achieve high performing teams so that all the mentioned benefits can be realized. Globally dispersed teams not only face the challenges of traditional teams; their situation is usually further aggravated by a lack of personal contact, culture and language differences as a result of dispersion in space and time. These factors make communication both within and outside the team boundaries difficult and can negatively impact team performance. This thesis proposes that communication technology and multi-media capabilities can greatly enhance communication and organizational learning in the context of a globally dispersed team. Understanding which technologies and media solutions to apply in the face of culture, language and distance barriers in order to provide the most effective knowledge-sharing environment to support such a team is critical. By studying and analyzing the communication needs and media choices of dispersed product development teams and the impact of culture, language and distance differences on needs and choices, a method is proposed to design a communication environment and management strategies that reduce the effect of barriers and improve communications in globally dispersed teams.by Viesturs G. Lenss and Gloria A. Pumpuni.S.M

Lex Informatica: The Formulation of Information Policy Rules through Technology

Historically, law and government regulation have established default rules for information policy, including constitutional rules on freedom of expression and statutory rights of ownership of information. This Article will show that for network environments and the Information Society, however, law and government regulation are not the only source of rule-making. Technological capabilities and system design choices impose rules on participants. The creation and implementation of information policy are embedded in network designs and standards as well as in system configurations. Even user preferences and technical choices create overarching, local default rules. This Article argues, in essence, that the set of rules for information flows imposed by technology and communication networks form a “Lex Informatica” that policymakers must understand, consciously recognize, and encourage

A Generic Information and Consent Framework for the IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) raises specific issues in terms of information and consent, which makes the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) challenging in this context. In this report, we propose a generic framework for information and consent in the IoT which is protective both for data subjects and for data controllers. We present a high level description of the framework, illustrate its generality through several technical solutions and case studies, and sketch a prototype implementation

The Partial Evaluation Approach to Information Personalization

Information personalization refers to the automatic adjustment of information content, structure, and presentation tailored to an individual user. By reducing information overload and customizing information access, personalization systems have emerged as an important segment of the Internet economy. This paper presents a systematic modeling methodology - PIPE (`Personalization is Partial Evaluation') - for personalization. Personalization systems are designed and implemented in PIPE by modeling an information-seeking interaction in a programmatic representation. The representation supports the description of information-seeking activities as partial information and their subsequent realization by partial evaluation, a technique for specializing programs. We describe the modeling methodology at a conceptual level and outline representational choices. We present two application case studies that use PIPE for personalizing web sites and describe how PIPE suggests a novel evaluation criterion for information system designs. Finally, we mention several fundamental implications of adopting the PIPE model for personalization and when it is (and is not) applicable.Comment: Comprehensive overview of the PIPE model for personalizatio

Privacy In The Smart Grid: An Information Flow Analysis

Project Final Report prepared for CIEE and California Energy Commissio

Understanding how people choose to pursue taught postgraduate study

HEFC

A User-Focused Reference Model for Wireless Systems Beyond 3G

This whitepaper describes a proposal from Working Group 1, the Human Perspective of the Wireless World, for a user-focused reference model for systems beyond 3G. The general structure of the proposed model involves two "planes": the Value Plane and the Capability Plane. The characteristics of these planes are discussed in detail and an example application of the model to a specific scenario for the wireless world is provided