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Cooper, Lynne P.

Publications and source records attributed to Cooper, Lynne P..

At least 19 records

Using Collaborative Engineering to Inform Collaboration Engineering

Collaboration is a critical competency for modern organizations as they struggle to compete in an increasingly complex, global environment. A large body of research on collaboration in the workplace focuses both on teams, investigating how groups use teamwork to perform their task work, and on the use of information systems to support team processes ("collaboration engineering"). This research essay presents collaboration from an engineering perspective ("collaborative engineering"). It uses examples from professional and student engineering teams to illustrate key differences in collaborative versus collaboration engineering and investigates how challenges in the former can inform opportunities for the latter.

Collaboration Engineering

Understanding Pre-Quantitative Risk in Projects

Standard approaches to risk management in projects depend on the ability of teams to identify risks and quantify the probabilities and consequences of these risks (e.g., the 5 x 5 risk matrix). However, long before quantification does - or even can - occur, and long after, teams make decisions based on their pre-quantitative understanding of risk. These decisions can have long-lasting impacts on the project. While significant research has looked at the process of how to quantify risk, our understanding of how teams conceive of and manage pre-quantitative risk is lacking. This paper introduces the concept of pre-quantitative risk and discusses the implications of addressing pre-quantitative risk in projects.

risk levels.

A Team Mental Model Perspective of Pre-Quantitative Risk

This study was conducted to better understand how teams conceptualize risk before it can be quantified, and the processes by which a team forms a shared mental model of this pre-quantitative risk. Using an extreme case, this study analyzes seven months of team meeting transcripts, covering the entire lifetime of the team. Through an analysis of team discussions, a rich and varied structural model of risk emerges that goes significantly beyond classical representations of risk as the product of a negative consequence and a probability. In addition to those two fundamental components, the team conceptualization includes the ability to influence outcomes and probabilities, networks of goals, interaction effects, and qualitative judgments about the acceptability of risk, all affected by associated uncertainties. In moving from individual to team mental models, team members employ a number of strategies to gain group recognition of risks and to resolve or accept differences.

Cooper, Lynne P.

Playing a 3-Stringed Violin: Innovation via the Joint Evolution of People, Process, and Knowledge Management System

Users continuously evaluate the value and performance of their Knowledge Management Systems (KMS). As suggested by a punctuated socio-technical system process model, today's success can quickly become tomorrow's failure should the KMS fail to meet evolving needs and expectations. The more deeply a tool is embedded in the actual work process, the more vulnerable it is to emergent changes and perturbations. This paper uses the metaphor of a "3-stringed violin" to explore how differing levels of user knowledge about tools and processes can lead to system perturbations and how the active involvement of other actors can dampen the impact of perturbations, i.e., help the system survive the operational equivalent of a broken string. Recommendations suggest ways to increase system resiliency and contribute to incremental innovation.

Socio-technical systems

Experience as Knowledge in a New Product Development Team: Implications for Knowledge Management

This study was conducted to better understand how New Product Development (NPD) team members apply their experiences to meet the task needs of their project. Although "experience" is highly valued in team members, little research has looked specifically at experiences as a type of knowledge, and how this knowledge is used in work settings. This research evaluated nearly 200 instances where team members referenced past experiences during team meetings. During these experience exchanges, team members structured the sharing of their experiences to include three common elements: the source of the experience, the nature of the experience, and the degree of relevance to the current work of the team. The experiences fell into four categories: people (relationships), process, product, and politics. This paper describes how team members structured, applied, and integrated their individual experiences and presents the resulting implications for knowledge management systems that wish to exploit experience knowledge.

Cooper, Lynne P.

Learning from project experiences using a legacy-based approach

As project teams become used more widely, the question of how to capitalize on the knowledge learned in project teams remains an open issue. Using previous research on shared cognition in groups, an approach to promoting post-project learning was developed. This Legacy Review concept was tested on four in tact project teams. The results from those test sessions were used to develop a model of team learning via group cognitive processes. The model and supporting propositions are presented.

knowledge reuse

Personalizing knowledge delivery services: a conceptual framework

Consistent with the call of the Minnesota Symposium for new theory in knowledge management, we offer a new conceptualization of Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) as a portfolio of personalized knowledge delivery services. Borrowing from research on online consumer behavior, we describe the challenges imposed by personalized knowledge delivery services, and suggest design parameters that can help to overcome these challenges. We develop our design constructs through a set of hypotheses and discuss the research implications of our new conceptualization. Finally, we describe practical implications suggested by our conceptualization - practical suggestions that we hope to gain some experience with as part of an ongoing action research project at our partner organization.

knowledge management

Personalizing Knowledge Delivery Services for Emerging Knowledge Processes (EKPs): A Conceptual Framework

The contents include: 1) What do most KMS in use today assume?; 2) Assumptions are violated when KMS is used by EKP workers - Why?; 3) Current State of KMS for EKPs are inadequate; 4) What would an "adequate" KMS for EKPs look like?; 5) "User-as-Consumer" Analogue: Ecommerce/Eem ployee Services; 6) Why is an ideal KMS for EKPs hard to achieve?; 7) So, what type of KMS design would work?; 8) Human-Based KMS for EKP - Proposal Call Managers at R&DLAB; 9) Proposal Call Managers (PCMs); 10) Specific PCM tasks; 11) Why is a R&DLAB PCM a human metaphor for a KMS for EKP?; 12) Data Collection; 13) Finding #1; 14) Finding #2; 15) Finding #3; 16) Factors affecting How/when; 17) Finding #4; 18) Finding #5; 19) Implication#l for a KMS for EKP: From System to Service; 20) Implication #2: From technology or human-centric to Mixed Mode; 21) Implication #3: From Simple User Profiles to Dynamic Delivery Profiles; 22) Implication #4: Maintaining a trustworthy environment; 23) Implication #5: Constructing a dynamic delivery profile; 24) Implications for Research: Model; and 25) Example Research Qs on KMS Support for EKPs.

knowledge management

Managing a project's legacy: implications for organizations and project management

Organizations that rely on projects to implement their products must find effective mechanisms for propagating lessons learned on one project throughout the organization. A broad view of what constitutes a project's 'legacy' is presented that includes not just the design products and leftover parts, but new processes, relationships, technology, skills, planning data, and performance metrics. Based on research evaluating knowledge reuse in innovative contexts, this paper presents an approach to project legacy management that focuses on collecting and using legacy knowledge to promote organizational learning and effective reuse, while addressing factors of post-project responsibility, information obsolescence, and the importance of ancillary contextual information. .

risk management

Using Knowledge-Based Systems to Support Learning of Organizational Knowledge: A Case Study

This paper describes the deployment of a knowledge system to support learning of organizational knowledge at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a US national research laboratory whose mission is planetary exploration and to 'do what no one has done before.' Data collected over 19 weeks of operation were used to assess system performance with respect to design considerations, participation, effectiveness of communication mechanisms, and individual-based learning. These results are discussed in the context of organizational learning research and implications for practice.

knowledge management

Electronic Performance Support for Operational Systems: A Case Study of the Link Monitor and Control Operator Assistant

For complex operational systems, help needs to come from the inside out. It is often not realistic to call a help desk for problems that need immediate attention, especially for tasks that put a heavy cognitive load on the system operator. This session addresses the issues associated with providing electronic performance support for operational systems, including situations where the system is already fielded and can only change through evolution rather than revolution. We present a case study based on our experiences in developing the Link Monitor and Control Operator Assistant for NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). The goals of the Operator Assistant are to improve the operability of the system and increase the efficiency of mission operations.

Hill, Randall W., Jr.

An OSI architecture for the deep space network

The flexibility and robustness of a monitor and control system are a direct result of the underlying inter-processor communications architecture. A new architecture for monitor & Control at the Deep Space Network Communications Complexes has been developed based on the Open System Interconnection (OSI) standards. The suitability of OSI standards for DSN M&C has been proven in the laboratory. The laboratory success has resulted in choosing an OSI-based architecture for DSS-13 M&C. DSS-13 is the DSN experimental station and is not part of the 'operational' DSN; it's role is to provide an environment to test new communications concepts can be tested and conduct unique science experiments. Therefore, DSS-13 must be robust enough to support operational activities, while also being flexible enough to enable experimentation. This paper describes the M&C architecture developed for DSS-13 and the results from system and operational testing.

Heuser, W. Randy

Representing operations procedures using temporal dependency networks

DSN Link Monitor & Control (LMC) operations consist primarily of executing procedures to configure, calibrate, test, and operate a communications link between an interplanetary spacecraft and its mission control center. Currently the LMC operators are responsible for integrating procedures into an end-to-end series of steps. The research presented in this paper is investigating new ways of specifying operations procedures that incorporate the insight of operations, engineering, and science personnel to improve mission operations. The paper describes the rationale for using Temporal Dependency Networks (TDN's) to represent the procedures, a description of how the data is acquired, and the knowledge engineering effort required to represent operations procedures. Results of operational tests of this concept, as implemented in the LMC Operator Assistant Prototype (LMCOA), are also presented.

Fayyad, Kristina E.

OMP-26 - An interactive scheduling tool for the 26 meter subnetwork

Operations Mission Planner for the 26 Meter (26M) Antenna Subnetwork (OMP-26) is an interactive scheduling tool developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to assist in allocating the Deep Space Network (DSN) 26M antennas to support Earth-orbiting Spacecraft (SC). Prior to integrating OMP-26 into the 26M scheduling arena, the text-based, labor-intensive task lacked the sufficient means to support the 1992 mission support increase. Therefore, JPL developed the OMP-26 interactive scheduling tool to automate the time consuming tasks of the existing, manual scheduling process. OMP-26 has addressed the scheduling dilemma by assisting schedulers to identify and resolve conflicts more quickly through its graphical display features and constraint-checking editing capability. Although OMP-26 has reduced the scheduler's existing workload by easing the identification and resolution of conflicts, it will not meet the needs of another mission support increase to occur by 1995. Therefore, future plans for OMP-26 involve transitioning from a solely interactive scheduling tool to one that is highly automated and more powerful.

Rosas, Jody L.

Operations automation using the Link Monitor and Control Operator Assistant

The Link Monitor and Control Operator Assistant (LMC OA) is a knowledge-based prototype system which uses AI techniques to provide semiautomated monitor and control functions to support operations of the Deep Space Network (DSN) 70-m antenna at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex (DSCC). The manual and time-consuming process of configuring the 70-m antenna and its associated communications and processing equipment, known as precalibration, is an overhead activity; the time spent in precalibration is time which cannot be spent supporting actual mission operations. Therefore, the major goal of the LMC OA task is to demonstrate techniques that reduce precalibration time, decrease operations overhead, and increase the availability of this valuable and oversubscribed NASA resource. The LMC OA prototype was tested in a parallel, experimental mode at the Goldstone DSCC performing semiautomated precalibration using the actual operational equipment. This test demonstrated that a reduction of 40 percent in precalibration time can be achieved with the LMC OA prototype.

Lee, Lorrine F.

An OSI Architecture for the Deep Space Network

The flexibility and robustness of a monitor and control system are a direct result of the underlying inter-processor communications architecture. A new architecture for monitor & control at the Deep Space Network Communications Complexes has been developed based on the Open System Interconnection (OSI) standards. The suitability of OSI standards for DSN M&C has been proven in the laboratory. The laboratory success has resulted in choosing an OSI-based architecture for DSS-13 M&C. DSS-13 is the DSN experimental station and is not part of the "operational" DSN; it's role is to provide an environment to test new communications concepts can be tested and conduct unique science experiments. Therefore, DSS-13 must be robust enough to support operational activities, while also being flexible enough to enable experimentation. This paper describes the M&C architecture developed for DSS-13 and the results from system and operational testing.

OSI