No abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic made visceral for many the fact that virtual forms of collaboration— simultaneously liberating and frustrating—are here to stay. Workers’ frustrations demonstrate that challenges remain for work and its design in increasingly “hybrid” collaboration— work in which some people, interacting face-to-face, are co-located while others with whom they work are remote. Using Buchanan's four orders of design, in conjunction with management and information systems scholarship, we present a framework for improving these virtual forms of collaboration. In this article, we review the latest knowledge from these disciplines on virtual collaboration through the lens of the four orders of design. In doing so, we demonstrate that conceiving of work in terms of flexible collaborative environments could increase the unity of purpose between work and workers by leveraging the capabilities of varying degrees of virtuality to engender experiences that benefit all those who interact with work systems.

Parameter estimates in large-scale complex engineered systems (LaCES) affect system evolution, yet can be difficult and expensive to test. Systems engineering uses analytical methods to reduce uncertainty, but a growing body of work from other disciplines indicates that cognitive heuristics also affect decision-making. Results from interviews with expert aerospace practitioners suggest that engineers bias estimation strategies. Practitioners reaffirmed known system features and posited that engineers may bias estimation methods as a negotiation and resource conservation strategy. Specifically, participants reported that some systems engineers “game the system” by biasing requirements to counteract subsystem estimation biases. An agent-based model (ABM) simulation which recreates these characteristics is presented. Model results suggest that system-level estimate accuracy and uncertainty depend on subsystem behavior and are not significantly affected by systems engineers' “gaming” strategy.

Communication has been shown to affect the design of large-scale complex engineered systems. Drawing from engineering design, communication, and management literature, this work defines miscommunication as when communication results in a “deficiency” or “problem” that hinders parties from fulfilling their values. This article details a consequential example of miscommunication at a Fortune 500 engineering firm with the potential to affect system performance. In phase 1, interviews with engineering practitioners (n = 82) identified disagreement about what constitutes a parameter “estimate” in the design process. Phase 2 surveyed engineering practitioners (n = 128) about whether estimates communicated for system-level tracking approximate “current” design statuses or “future” design projections. The survey found that both definitions existed throughout the organization and did not correlate with subsystem, position, or design phase. Engineers inadvertently aggregated both current and future estimates into single system-level parameters that informed decision-making, thereby constituting widespread or systemic miscommunication. Thus, even technical concepts may be susceptible to miscommunication and could affect system performance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted how many teams work, from face-to-face interactions to remote and hybrid forms of collaboration. Even at its best, though, virtual collaboration remains less effective than face-to-face collaboration, leaving millions of workers with both the temporary and permanent challenges of virtual work. Design is uniquely positioned to not only alleviate these ails but even make virtual teams strategically advantageous by developing innovative solutions specifically for hybrid virtual collaboration. To aid in that process, this article summarizes the communication technologies, individual techniques, and leadership techniques that "work" for effective virtual collaboration. Then, we highlight several outstanding concerns and possibilities as an impetus for designers and researchers to develop solutions to the challenges of sustained remote and hybrid collaboration. In doing so, we seek to motivate designers and researchers to consider social practices as designed artifacts, and therefore constituents of solutions to social systemic problems.