A9OlgaLiskinMikelKingAntonioGonzalezWalterMahfuz

A9OlgaLiskinMikelKingAntonioGonzalezWalterMahfuz

To-Do

please discuss / address the following issues:

1. enumerate, analyze, and discusses different "distances"
2. describe technologies for all the distances (existing ones, envisioned ones) which you identified in (1) which help to overcome and reduce these distances
3. does distance matter?
   1. yes? (under which circumstances)
   2. no? (under which circumstances)
4. describe one example based on your personal experience where distance and diversity was
   1. a positive experience
   2. a negative experience

Group Members

OlgaLiskin, MikelKing, AntonioGonzalez, and WalterMahfuz

enumerate, analyze, and discusses different "distances"

1) Spatial: This dimension addresses the physical space that may exist between two or more collaborators. As stated on the text, collaborative design at a distance is well supported by technology. Two parties with access to the web can carry a video conference-call across the globe for free! But the text also claims that critical stages of collaboration require some face-to-face interaction. These more personal interactions are sometimes desired due to some element of trust, but the high costs (time and money) are making these meetings more infrequent.
2) Temporal: The design process can be continuous, and this dimension addresses the barriers of miscommunication between two teams that work on the same project during different periods of time. The new should be built on top of the old, in the sense that we learn from our experiences and our mistakes. If a new team of design contributors are not well aware of what the old teams have gone through, there is a chance that previous errors could be repeated. To avoid such costly mistakes, long-term collaborative measures should be implemented for future generations of collaborators to understand why things were done in a certain way.
3) Technological: For certain tasks, we can train computer to analyze and recommend (or do). The better computers are at recommending, the greater the role they can play in our collaborative designs. Hence, the technological dimension can augment our cognitive abilities by supporting our problem-domain interactions and increasing the back-talk.
4) Conceptual: This dimension emphasizes diversity. If a collaborative design is comprised by experts in different subjects, then part of the effort should be directed towards maintaining a knowledge system that addresses the pertinent concepts. Diversity is a tool that can help build bridges between these experts and their respective knowledges.

describe technologies for all the distances (existing ones, envisioned ones) which you identified in (1) which help to overcome and reduce these distances

(1) Spatial distance
Physical distance creates especially problems in communication. Critical points within a project are better discussed in a face-to-face situation, which is not always possible in physically distributed teams. Technologies should therefore support rich communication among members of a distributed team. Such technologies are tools like instant messengers and video conference tools (such as skype). Also, information repositories or wikis help to distribute (broadcast) information among all members easily.

(2) Temporal distance
As identified in task 1., it is important that current teams know about previous teams and their rationales, decisions, mistakes, and achievements. Technologies that help with these issues are (i) technologies that simplify documentation (so that teams can document their thoughts more easily), such as Javadoc or knowledge bases, and (ii) technologies that collect and document the ongoing of all efforts during a project. Tools that are used for this nowadays are again information repositories, but an envisioned technology might go further and create directly one project environment which, similarly to requirements management tools in software development, collects all decisions and their reasons, tracks these decisions, and presents the results.

(3) Technological distance
Technological distance is the distance between persons and artifacts. Technologies that help to deal with these issues are, as mentioned in the text, domain-oriented design environments which evaluate a user's design and create a back-talk. Other technologies, that can help, create ways for the user to quickly visualize his design. An example is Google Earth that might integrate an architect's model directly into an environment and allow him to evaluate his creation by seeing the model in the correct environment (and, for example, notice that his designed object blocks the view of the mountains in a relevant way).

(4) Conceptual distance
Technologies like information repositories or knowledge bases help people from the same design communities to solve problems that derive from the different knowledge each person has. A technology that uses knowledge bases is the domain-oriented design environment. To create a shared understanding for people who are coming from different domains, tools like the EDC (Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory) are very helpful. More generally, tools that allow a quick and simple visualization of concepts, such as mindmeister or FireFly, can help people to discuss their (different) understanding of concepts and to create a rich problem-solving space.

does distance matter?

Distances matter on the majority of cases when we engage in any designing project, does not matter if is a multi-person developing team or if the developing team has only one member. While the multi-person case is a little more straight forward to see, the one member team can be a little more difficult because most of the time when we design any piece or part of anything, does not matter if is a piece of software, a chair or a board-game, if our client does not have the same distances than us, the designer, we will have to find technologies or at least tools to reduce them.

The only time that distances does not apply is when we are designing something for us and we do not need any input/tool from external sources.

describe one example (per group member) based on your personal experience where distance and diversity was

Mikel King: Distance and Diversity is an asset in my current job because every member of my team has his/her unique skills (databases, UI, Circuit design etc.). We are constructing a hand held network testing device and without the diversity that exists in our group, the project would be nearly impossible. Also there are the proper boundary objects (business tools such as conference calls, version control etc.)in place to allow for proper collaboration. Since the team is filled with experienced engineers, temporal distance is overcome through the sharing of experience and mentorship.

I had a negative experience when I was an intern at a major corporation. There was no easy way of breaking down the symmetry of ignorance because there were no proper boundary objects to properly establish a way for me to contribute. I was forced to work with a co-worker working in Singapore and it was very difficult to find time to discuss my assignment. Because of this, we were forced to only written communication, which forced delays in the design and implementation process. While the team was filled with highly intelligent members, very few methods existed for members to propose ideas and thus creativity seemed non existent.

Antonio: A positive experience for me was when we designed SOFIA, a VLE, it was a great experience, because all the persons involved wanted to have a great product and overcome any distances, mainly conceptual and technological, that existed between us. Also, thanks to those distances we were able to create an almost perfect fit project for our institution. We always tried to have tools and any resource possible to make those distances less.

A not so positive experience was when I had to participate in the development of an observatory of media for the 2006 Mexican Presidential Elections. Our distances where, technological and conceptual, and the people involved on this design were not into reducing this gaps, even so that we try to do it, at least on the technical side, the best we could, but we always had to struggle to get it right.

Olga: Diversity was a good experience when we worked on an agile software development project. When we created the design and the architecture, everybody brought in his/her experience. It was amazing how many different experiences everybody had made in some field. All together, we had so much more valuable knowledge for the project than everybody had on his own.
On the other hand, I have also been in the situation where diversity was more difficult to handle. In this situation, everybody had different paradigms and approaches for one project, which is again great. The problem was, that we were not able to accumulate them, but needed to pick one. This is not easy, since everybody is convinced of his/her approach and as we did not communicate sufficiently about the pros & cons of the different approaches, I am not sure if everybody was satisfied with the result.