Interactive Digital Support for Concept Design Teams

This thesis develops a design method, the ICR (Inform, Create, Reflect) Grid, for improved utilisation of information during concept design. Although concept design is information intensive and critical to project direction, the effective management and use of digital information has not been adequately addressed. The ICR Grid is a prescriptive method which requires design teams to find and build information resources in parallel with creating solutions. As a solution-based approach it allows designers to freely explore ideas, while encouraging flexible thinking by using different modes of conceptual working (analysis, synthesis and evaluation). The output of the method is a linked grid of concepts and information sources. The exploratory phase of the research examined current design process models and concept design methods, with team information use patterns explored through protocol analyses of a design task. This was followed by an examination of literature relating to digital information and a class study on technological support for student designers. The outcome of these explorations was an understanding that to enhance digital information use in concept design, a new approach was necessary. Development began by correlating characteristics of computer games to concept design, with a view to applying new techniques to the structure and management of information. A number of scenarios were subsequently outlined, with one selected and developed using paper-based prototyping. This was eventually formalised as the ICR Grid. Initial evaluation of the new method was carried out through a comparative study with the 6-3-5 Method, which revealed that although fewer concepts were produced with the ICR Grid, they were of a higher quality, variety and detail. Three different companies then used the ICR Grid to address relevant industrial problems, with generally positive feedback obtained on its performance. Several areas are identified for future work and the further enhancement of information use

Knowledge Solutions: Tools, Methods, and Approaches to Drive Development Forward and Enhance Its Effects

[Excerpt] Today, sustainable competitive advantage derives from strenuous efforts to identify, cultivate, and exploit an organization’s core competencies. This calls for relentless design of strategic architecture, deployment of competence carriers, and commitment to collaborate across silos. Put simply, core competencies are the product of collective learning: their tangible fruits are composite packages of products and services that anticipate and meet demand. Knowledge is what you learn from experience before, during, and after the event. Since it is both a thing and a flow, the best way to manage knowledge is to cater at all times to the environment in which it can be identified, created, stored, shared, and used. Tools, methods, and approaches are needed to enable that. And so, to drive development forward and enhance its effects, the Asian Development Bank has, since 2008, published the Knowledge Solutions series, available at www.adb.org/knowledgesolutions. It aims to build competencies in the areas of strategy development, management techniques, collaboration mechanisms, knowledge sharing and learning, and knowledge capture and storage—all of which are essential to high-performance organizations

Harnessing Collaborative Technologies: Helping Funders Work Together Better

This report was produced through a joint research project of the Monitor Institute and the Foundation Center. The research included an extensive literature review on collaboration in philanthropy, detailed analysis of trends from a recent Foundation Center survey of the largest U.S. foundations, interviews with 37 leading philanthropy professionals and technology experts, and a review of over 170 online tools.The report is a story about how new tools are changing the way funders collaborate. It includes three primary sections: an introduction to emerging technologies and the changing context for philanthropic collaboration; an overview of collaborative needs and tools; and recommendations for improving the collaborative technology landscapeA "Key Findings" executive summary serves as a companion piece to this full report

Problem Solving in Teams and Groups

This project was funded by KU Libraries’ Parent’s Campaign with support from the David Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright and the Open Educational Resources Working Group in the University of Kansas Libraries.This textbook covers content relevant to COMS342: Problem Solving in Teams and Groups at the University of Kansas. Content in this textbook is adapted from The Open University, OpenStax, The Noba Project, and Wikipedia. Each chapter presents the source in the top header and each chapter has its own version of the Creative Commons (CC) license, noted at the bottom of the chapter. This book (commonly called an Open Educational Resource, OER) was made possible through a generous grant through the KU Libraries. Special thanks to Karna Younger, Josh Bolick, and William Hoffman for helping with this project. This textbook is designed with several purposes: 1.The primary purpose is to save students money. 2.Additionally this book is designed to cater the class reading content to the students’ needs. 3.Finally this book was created as a text that can easily change based on the needs of the course.University of Kansas Librarie

Launching the Grand Challenges for Ocean Conservation

The ten most pressing Grand Challenges in Oceans Conservation were identified at the Oceans Big Think and described in a detailed working document:A Blue Revolution for Oceans: Reengineering Aquaculture for SustainabilityEnding and Recovering from Marine DebrisTransparency and Traceability from Sea to Shore:  Ending OverfishingProtecting Critical Ocean Habitats: New Tools for Marine ProtectionEngineering Ecological Resilience in Near Shore and Coastal AreasReducing the Ecological Footprint of Fishing through Smarter GearArresting the Alien Invasion: Combating Invasive SpeciesCombatting the Effects of Ocean AcidificationEnding Marine Wildlife TraffickingReviving Dead Zones: Combating Ocean Deoxygenation and Nutrient Runof

Subjectivity and reflexivity in an 'exemplary' virtual team

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University, 15/10/2003.This thesis discusses the findings of a 'virtual' ethnography of a 'virtual team' of teleworkers called 'FlexiTeam'. The concept of teleworking refers to workers who use Information and Communication Technologies to work flexibly in time and space. A 'virtual team' is a group of teleworkers organised into a 'team'. There are three substantive findings of this research. First, the discourses of virtual teamwork as 'effortless' and 'flexible' are subject to critique through a description of the forms of labour and (self-)discipline enacted on the part of FlexiTeam members in order to implement 'best practice'. Second, the analysis examines how team members' commitment to this 'best practice' can be understood in relation to their identity at work. This is explored using a theory of subjectivity as constructed through social relationships at work. The analysis focuses on FlexiTeam's social relationship with clients, their employing organisation and within the team. The client relationship is highlighted in particular because FlexiTeam are interesting in their role as 'teleworking consultants'. FlexiTeam not only practice but also sell the concepts of teleworking and virtual teams. Unlike existing studies of 'top-down' change imposed by management upon the workforce, FlexiTeam are active in the production of the very same discourse they also consume. It is argued that this production/consumption relationship constructs a reflexive dynamic for team members' subjectivity, as they strive to be 'experts', 'exemplars' and 'embodiments' of the 'best practice' discourse they sell. However, the third finding suggests that, for some team members, their relationship to the 'best practice' consultancy discourse is characterised less by 'internalisation' and more by ambiguity, ambivalence and instrumentality. This exposes the limits to the 'normalising' power of discourse, even in the case of a team who produce the discourse in question, thereby helping to develop a more sophisticated theory of the subjectivity/discourse relationship.ESR

IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP STYLES ON THE PERFORMANCE OF VIRTUAL TEAMS IN THE UAE GOVERNMENT SECTOR: ASSESSMENT OF TRANSACTIONAL AND TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP STYLES

The widespread availability of computers and the presence of ubiquitous internet has motivated organizations to acknowledge the potential role of virtual teams in reducing the cost of operations, increasing firm productivity, and creating flexible work environments. Consequently, most global firms are running their operations using multiple experts located remotely in different parts of the world (virtual teams) to plan, design, and implement projects and tasks. However, virtual teams face many challenges resulting from a lack of face-to-face contact. Based on existing relevant literature, this study contributes a unique insight into how some challenges surrounding virtual team performance might be addressed. Specifically, this thesis investigates the effect of transformational and transactional leadership styles on the virtual teams’ performance in the UAE Government sector. In addition, it also examines the interactive effect of key virtual team contextual factors such as cohesion, trust, creativity, and team empowerment. Research hypotheses were tested using the quantitative research method, wherein data was collected from a sample of 344 participants followed by analyses. The obtained findings indicate that both transformational and transactional leadership styles had significant effects on virtual team performance, with transformational style having a stronger impact. As regards moderator effects, team cohesiveness and team creativity significantly affected the impact of leadership style on virtual team performance. Team empowerment was only significant for transformational leadership, but surprisingly team trust was not significant for both forms of leadership styles. To sum up, these findings were largely in line with the results of prior studies in that both transactional and transformational styles were best suited to organizations for improving the performance of their virtual teams. However, the transformational style worked better in an organizational environment of higher team empowerment than the transactional style. This thesis recommends that further studies investigate other internal and external factors of virtual team performance to gain more insights into the various sets of factors shaping the commitments of virtual teams to work performance