Modeling efficiency and effectiveness of coordination in engineering design teams

The emergence of globally competitive markets, together with rapid advances in technology, has made facility engineering projects increasingly challenging, both with respect to the efficiency of project execution and with respect to the effectiveness of project outcomes. The challenge facing engineering design teams is to learn how to deliver better facilities faster and cheaper, which requires, inter alia, better project management. In order to improve project management, we need to learn how changes in coordination lead to changes in performance. My research focuses on the effects of coordination policies on project performance, as a means for improving decision making about project communication and control. The objectives of my research were to: (1) build models of coordination load and capacity in project teams, (2) formalize these models so that they can be executed to predict project performance as a function of coordination policy, and (3) test the model's predictions against predictions from theory and observation of real world projects. My work extends the previous VDT model (Cohen 92) with a systematic method for describing the coordination load on different project team members, and with an explicit model of verification failures and decision making about how to handle the resulting rework. I defined a model of coordination load distribution on participants in facility engineering design teams, based on a set of engineering management techniques. I also defined a model that relates project team coordination capacity to project performance, based on a thorough review of organization theory. I implemented these models as a formal executable model in an object-oriented simulation environment, simulated two real-world facility engineering projects, and compared the simulation results against predictions from theory and the project managers. Thus I have shown that my models are testable, and that they may be applied to real-world projects. The main contribution of my research is to extend organization theory with a micro-level theory of coordination in engineering design teams. I have formally modeled this theory and operationalized the model for validation in the field of facility engineering design.