Time: 4pm, Tuesday May 8
Place: 202 Soda Hall

      Coordinating over Distance: Conway's Law and Beyond
                      Rebecca Grinter
                        Xerox PARC

Abstract:
Many companies that build software have begun to develop their 
products across multiple sites.  Geographically distributed 
development offers the promise of reducing development cycle time by 
facilitating "round the clock" work.  However, while the vision 
remains seductive, for many development efforts, geographical 
separation creates new kinds of coordination challenges.

In this talk I describe research that examined the coordination 
required to organize distributed development work.  Specifically, I 
will focus on four methods used to coordinating distributed 
development: functional areas of expertise, product structure, 
process steps, and customization.  I will describe the benefits and 
difficulties with each model.  Finally, I will discuss two 
difficulties that occur irrespective of the method
used: consequences arising from unequal distribution of project mass, 
and problems of finding experts at remote sites.

Biography:
Rebecca (Beki) Grinter is a member of research staff at Xerox Palo 
Alto Research Center.  Her research interests include computer 
supported cooperative work, design-oriented fieldwork, 
telecommunications, and software development.  Prior to joining Xerox 
PARC, she worked at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies.  She 
holds a PhD from the University of
California, Irvine and a BSc from the University of Leeds.