INF 5210 Information Infrastructures

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INF 5210Information InfrastructuresComplexity
IntroductionComplexity Science

• (Innovation/design and complexity)

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Teachers

• Petter Nielsen
• Terje Sanner
• Ole Hanseth
• Eric Monteiro
• Knut Rolland
• Miria Grisot

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Why infrastructure?

• Increasing number of systems all integrated
• Networking technology
• Globalization
• gt increased organizational and technological
  complexity

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Complexity and IS (SE)

• Continuously increasing
• Increased computer power, network technology,
  globalization,
• Methodologies have not scaled
• New methodologies have not been developed
• The Challenges of Complex IT Projects. The report
  of a working group from The Royal Academy of
  Engineering and The British Computer Society.
  http//www.bcs.org/NR/rdonlyres/3B36137E-C5FE-487B
  -A18B-4D7281D88EF7/0/complexity.pdf 

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What is an information infrastructure?

• Categories and examples
• Universal service Internet, mobile phone
  networks
• Business sector infra EDI networks, HISP, CPA
• Corporate infrastructures ERP systems, ERP
  systems, IS portfolios
• An info. infra. is a
• shared,
• Evolving open,
• heterogeneous,
• installed base, which is also
• (and standardized in one way or another).
• No life cycle

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Infrastructure development

• From
• Tool to infrastructure
• System to network
• Design (from scratch) to (installed base)
  cultivation

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Installed base

• Complex (socio-technical)
• Always exists not designed from scratch
• Value increases with size
• Autonomy increases with size
• Design dilemmas
• Take-off
• Lock-in (out of control)
• Challenges managing
• Tension between standardization (stability,
  order) and flexibility (change, un-order)
• Socio-technical complexity.
• Design dilemmas strategies
• Take-off bootstrapping
• Lock-in - gateways

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Objectives

• Familiarity with
• Examples of infrastructures
• Understanding key issues and dilemmas
• Strategies
• The literature

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Teaching plan

• Lectures and projects
• Principle Learning is (hard) work
• Resources Yourself, fellow students, teachers

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Projects

• Members
• All students have to participate in a project
  group and write a research report.
• Each project group should have (up to) 4
  participants.
• Members who do not contribute, can not take the
  exam.
• Analyze one infrastructure (apply the design
  theory)
• First deliverable
• Describe the infrastructure
• Second deliverable
• Changes required? Discuss challenges
• Third deliverable
• Propose change strategy
• Contrast with other theories
• Fourth deliverable
• Reflections
• Did the theory fit the case?
• Do the other literature support or falsify the
  theory?
• For all deliverables Compare with other cases
  (Internet, CPA, HISP and SAP in Norsk Hydro, EPR
  at Rikshospitalet (or other cases reported in the
  literature))

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Time and place

• Lectures Fridays 12-14 (15)
• Tuesdays 8.30-10.15 and Wednesday 14.15 -16
• Lectures Fridays 12-14 (15)
• Lille auditorium 3A

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Complexity

• Complexity Socio-technical, globalization
• Complexity (ies) Number of types of
  componentsnumber of types of linksspeed of
  change
• Key issues incomplete knowledge, side-effects
  (history), unpredictability, out-of-control
• Complexity theories
• Actor network theory
• Socio-technics
• Orders disorder
• Complexity Science self-reinforcing processes,
  driven by side-effects (network externalities)
• Reflexive Modernization Self-destructive
  processes

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Complexity Science

• Biology, physics, economics (finance, standards,
  ..)
• Autonomous systems, huge number of agents
• Chaos theory, Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS), ..
• Emergent order (not designed)
• Non-linearity

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Complexity Science Basic Concepts

• Network externalities
• Increasing returns/Attractor
• Path dependency
• Diffusion of standards
• Change of standards Backward compatibility
• Chain of events
• Lock-ins
• Installed base as complex system

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A self-reinforcing installed base
).
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Multidimensional critical mass

• Diversity of users (motivation, knowledge, style,
  )
• Heterogeneity of use areas and of technologies.
• Granovetters pedestrians distribution of
  individual preferences.
• Networks of networks

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Challenges

• Doesnt take off No value for few users
  everybody waits for the others.
• If it does it becomes autonomous
• Lock-in
• Develops in undesired directions

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Strategies (some ideas)

• Flexibility
• The duality of standards
• Minimalism, modularisation (loose coupling)
• (gateways)
• Use the installed base as resource
• Bootstrapping
• Build upon existing installed bases
• Build an installed base (users before functions)
• Avoid lock-ins Gateways

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The installed base

• Heterogeneous network of networks
• Technology
• Knowledge
• Organizational structures (power, status, ..)
• Knowledge as infrastructure

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Corporate infrastructures

• Groupware Take-off lock-ins
• Application portfolios Lock-in
• From proprietary (IBM, Microsoft,..) to open
  (Linux, Internet, ..)
• The legacy systems problem