Interdependence as an Element of the Design of a Federated Work Process

In the paper we briefly discuss principles for designing multi-team collaboration, specifically coordination, which include man and machine components, focusing on interdependence and emergent dynamics of work flow. To shed light on these design principles and discuss it in an empirical context we use a case from military information processing, specifically a NATO Exercise where multiple teams collaborated to do tasking, collection, processing, exploitation and dissemination (TCPED) in support of Joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (JISR). The case indicated that the interdependencies became increasingly complex over time, but there was not planning tools in place to support the management of the multi-team coordination. Implications for further conceptual and design work is suggested, such as developing further the consideration of soft and hard interdependencies, going from an inward look to consider the influence of the external environment and the role of trust, and development of task assignment tools.