Observing network characteristics in mass collaboration design projects

Abstract

Mass collaboration efforts can increase innovation and design possibilities. Incorporation of open innovation into the product development process allows for a vast array of unique perspectives and ideas. However, with the broad expansion of design possibilities, coordination of these development processes is paramount. To best make use of open innovation in product development, increased organizational efforts must be considered. The mass collaboration of individuals must account for individual intellectual abilities (competencies), working experience and even personality traits or idiosyncrasies. Approaches to this problem require the fusion of social network analysis with quantifiable design impacts. This work proposes a simulation framework that evaluates the design potential of a project team based on individual attributes and the team network structure. The overall contribution of this work comes from the exploration of team structure, focusing on network composition metrics such as centrality and network density, while attempting to understand the role of individual ability and positioning on the success of the design process. This work aims to garner a more thorough understanding of how the network structure of design teams correlates with their potential performance through a generalized simulation framework, applicable to future crowd and design initiatives.

Identifying challenges in crowdfunded product development: a review of Kickstarter projects

“…In this sense the (digital) user plays an increasingly important role in the way goods are used and consumed (Brenner et al. 2014), and these dynamics share some similarities with the ‘open-design’ paradigm (Boisseau, Omhover & Bouchard 2018), ‘mass collaboration design’ (Ball & Lewis 2018), ‘social product development’ (Forbes & Schaefer 2017) and the ‘creative consumers’ phenomenon by Berthon et al. (2007).…”

“…Such expectations set particular requirements for the openness of the product development approach and interactions between the backers and the developers. In this sense the (digital) user plays an increasingly important role in the way goods are used and consumed (Brenner et al 2014), and these dynamics share some similarities with the 'open-design' paradigm (Boisseau, Omhover & Bouchard 2018), 'mass collaboration design' (Ball & Lewis 2018), 'social product development' (Forbes & Schaefer 2017) and the 'creative consumers' phenomenon by Berthon et al (2007). Such requirements for openness can be considered a particular characteristic of crowdfunded product development.…”

Wisdom of Microcrowds in Evaluating Solutions to Esoteric Engineering Problems

“…Independence of opinion (no contact between the individuals) constitutes one of the major differences between the traditional collaborative design teams and micro-crowds. Team network structure in mass collaboration design projects and effect of individual's characteristics have been studied in [22]. In contrast to our work, aforementioned study assumes each individual in the group has known levels of expertise and ability.…”

An analysis of design process and performance in distributed data science teams

“…Many platforms for crowdsourcing compose and organize many different individuals into teams with the objective of solving a single problem. The crowdsourcing of engineering and design problems has seen increased interest in recent years (Ball & Lewis, 2018;Ren, Bayrak, & Papalambros, 2016). For these reasons, a team-based crowdsourcing platform is a useful laboratory to facilitate the study of team processes.…”