COORDINATION THEORY - Human-Computer Interaction and Management Information Systems: Foundations - page 105

Table 7.1

Examples of Common Dependencies Between Activities and Alternative Coordination Processes
for Managing Them

Examples of Coordination Processes for Managing

Dependency Dependency

Shared resources “First come/first serve,” priority order, budgets, managerial
decision, market-like bidding
• Task assignments (same as for “Shared resources”)
Producer/consumer relationships
• Prerequisite constraints

Notification, sequencing, tracking

• Transfer Inventory management (e.g., “just in time,” “economic

order quantity”)

• Usability Standardization, ask users, participatory design

• Design for manufacturability Concurrent engineering

Simultaneity constraints Scheduling, synchronization

Task/subtask Goal selection, task decomposition

Source: From Malone and Crowston (1994).
Note: Indentations in the left column indicate more specialized versions of general dependency types.

common dependencies and their related coordination mechanisms across a wide variety of orga-
nizational settings.
Another common dependency is the producer/consumer (or flow ) dependency, in which one
task creates a resource that is needed by another. Malone and Crowston (1994) divided this
dependency into three subdependencies, usability , transfer , and precedence . The usability sub-
dependency means that the resource created by the first task must be appropriate for the needs of
the second task. The transfer subdependency means that the resource must be moved from where
it was created to where the consuming task will be performed. And finally, the precedence sub-
dependency means that the actor performing the second task must learn when the resource is
available and when the task can be started.
To overcome these coordination problems, actors must perform additional work, which Malone
and Crowston (1994) called coordination mechanisms . For example, if particular expertise is neces-
sary to perform a particular task (a task-actor dependency), then an actor with that expertise must be
identified and the task assigned to him or her. There are often several coordination mechanisms that
can be used to manage a dependency. For example, mechanisms to manage the dependency between
an activity and an actor include (among others): (1) having a manager pick a subordinate to perform
the task; (2) assigning the task to the first available actor; and (3) a labor market in which actors bid
on jobs. To manage a usability subdependency, the resource might be tailored to the needs of the
consumer (meaning that the consumer has to provide that information to the producer) or a producer
might follow a standard so the consumer knows what to expect. Mechanisms may be useful in a
wide variety of organizational settings. Conversely, organizations with similar goals achieved using
more or less the same set of activities will have to manage the same dependencies, but may choose
different coordination mechanisms, thus resulting in different processes.
CT suggests that, given an organization performing some task, one way to generate alternative
processes is to first identify the particular dependencies and coordination problems faced by
that organization and then consider what alternative coordination mechanisms could be used to