Communication, Trust, Awareness? Who needs it?

Speaker
Jim Herbsleb
Professor, Institute for Software Research, Carnegie Mellon University

When
-

Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)

Description

Research on collaboration—particularly collaboration over distance—tends to focus mainly on how to improve connections among people and among groups. Relatively little attention is given to understanding where and why and what kinds of connections are actually needed. Indeed, if tasks are partitioned appropriately, perhaps no connections are needed at all. In this talk, I review research I have conducted over the last several years, in which my collaborators and I approach such questions by identifying coordination requirements, how well matched these requirements are with coordination activities, and the consequences of mismatches.

Speaker's Bio

James Herbsleb is a Professor in the Institute for Software Research, SCS, CMU. His research interests lie primarily in the intersection of software engineering and computer-supported cooperative work, focusing on such areas as geographically-distributed development teams, open source software development, and more generally on coordination in software engineering. The research on which this talk is based has won the Best Paper award at CSCW 2006, the Best in Track award at ICIS 2006, and an ACM Distinguished Paper award at ESEM 2008.

Speaker's Website
http://herbsleb.org/