Understanding and (Re)Designing Organizational Systems

1
Understanding and (Re)Designing
Organizational Systems

• Walt Scacchi
• (wscacchi_at_uci.edu)
• Institute for Software Research
• UCI
• http//www.ics.uci.edu/wscacchi/Presentations/Org
  Systems/

2
Backstory

• Collaborative RD study sponsored by and for the
  Office of Naval Research
• Redesigning acquisition processes for
  Internet-based ECommerce
• Acquisition of Science and Technology RD
  services by Federal Government is now (FY2002
  Federal Budget) 95B/year industry

3
Backstory

• Personnel at ONR were unfamiliar with the
  concepts, techniques, and tools for understanding
  and redesigning their work processes.
• ONR had a heterogeneous computing infrastructure
  and isolated information systems that often made
  information sharing problematic.

4
Backstory

• There was recurring difficulty in efficiently
  managing and tracking research grants funding
  expenditures.
• There was a lack of trust and lack of data
  integrity controls in existing data sets.
• How to best address these challenges via
  organizational transformation, process redesign
  and Web-based systems integration?

5
Overview

• Research Questions
• Approach and Methods
• Findings and Results
• Opportunities
• Related Papers

6
Research Questions

• How to understand the procurement of contracted
  services?
• How is service procurement at ONR the same or
  different than other government organizations or
  commercial enterprises?
• How to reengineer business processes like
  procurement?
• How to redesign procurement processes using
  Web-based process management techniques?

7
Approach and Methods

• Socio-Technical Action Research
• Focus on Organizational System
• Web of people, processes, IS, other resources
• Participatory Design and Empowerment
• Process Reinvention Collaboratory
• Wide-area information infrastructure for
  designing or redesigning process-based
  organizational systems

8
Findings and Results

• Situated Findings
• Process pathologies
• (Re)Designed as-is, to-be, and here-to-there
  organizational systems for managing acquisition
• Transformation to integrated funds management
• Integration of multiple views across autonomous
  heterogeneous financial databases

9
Findings and Results

• Web-based computational modeling, analysis, and
  prototyping techniques can support participatory
  (re)design of organizational work systems

10
Results

• Resulting redesign reduced cycle time 20X over
  three years (from 60 days to 2-3 days now down
  to 2-3 hours), and identified 10M in annual
  operational savings
• Organizational transformation took between 1-2
  years to implement and routinize

11
Opportunities

• Acquiring Large Software-Intensive Systems via
  Virtual System Acquisition (e.g., the U.S. Navy
  DD-21 Program)
• USAF and Defense Acquisition University
• 1996-97, 1999-2004
• Open Acquisition Processes
• DAU (2001-2003, Pending)

12
Opportunities

• Modeling Organizational Systems in Open Source
  Software Communities
• NSF, 2000-2003
• (Re)Designing Organizational Systems in Corporate
  Settings
• Acquisition and Management of Scientific
  Knowledge at the National Level

13
Related Papers

• W. Scacchi, Redesigning Contracted Service
  Procurement for Internet-based Electronic
  Commerce A Case Study, J. Information and
  Technology Management, to appear, 2001.
• J. Noll and W. Scacchi, Process-Oriented
  Hypertext for Organizational Computing, J.
  Network and Computing Applications, 24(1)39-61,
  2001.
• W. Scacchi and J. Noll, Process-Driven Intranets
  Life Cycle Support for Process Reengineering.
  IEEE Internet Computing, 1(5)42-49, 1997.

14
Process Pathology ExampleONR Justification and
Approval Process
15
Transformation to Integrated Financial Oversight
16
To-Be ONR Process Demo
17
To-Be ONR Process Demo
18
To-Be ONR Process Demo
19
To-Be ONR Process Demo
20
Computational Model of ONR Organizational System
for Acquisition

• process Proposal_Submit
• action submit_proposal
• agent PrincipalInvestigator
• requires proposal
• provides proposal.contents file
• script "ltpgtSubmit proposal contents.\
• ltpgtBAA to which this proposal responds \
• ltinput name'baa' type'string' size16gt\
• ltpgtCBD source for this BAA \
• ltinput name'cbd' type'string' size50gt\
• ltbrgtProposal title ltinput name'title'
  type'string' size50gt\

• action submit_budget
• agent PrincipalInvestigator
• requires proposal
• provides proposal.budget file
• script "ltpgtSubmit budget.\
• ltbrgtProposal title ltinput name'title'
  type'string' size50gt\
• ltbrgtBudget file ltINPUT NAME'file' TYPE'file'gt\
  
• ltbrgtEmail address of contact ltinput
  name'user_id' type'string'gt"