SGER: Workgroup Protocols: Human Protocols for Synchronization of Task Planning, Execution and Information Exchange in Groups

随着组织处理日益复杂的问题，他们寻求方法来增强工作组的集体智慧。一个关键问题是，当任务定义、任务所有者和通信路径只有在工作展开时才能知道时，如何协调活动。是否可以对工作组成员的行为施加限制，这些行为足够灵活，可以允许这种创造性，但结构足够好，可以最大限度地利用工作组的认知资源？许多组织发现动态工作流是一个具有挑战性的问题，并积极寻求更好的方法。这个试点项目使用正式的工作组协议作为组织原则来解决动态工作流问题。第一步是定义用于结构化任务流的执行模型，而不限制任务的内容。下一步是为计划、委托、报告等常见活动定义明确的协议。最后，我们将在人类受试者身上进行实验，以测试协议框架对性能和一般可用性的影响。这项工作的智力优势在于构建协作工作的新方法。这项研究不是依赖自由形式的交流来分配认知资源，而是探索计算机系统的设计思想如何适应新兴的认知活动，以及需要进行哪些修改。这项工作的更广泛影响将体现在三个方面：(I)提供管理知识工作的新愿景，对责任和透明度进行更动态的控制；(Ii)为开发工具、模型、语言和系统设定研究议程；以及(Iii)建议大规模协作结构，类似于维基百科，但具有更复杂的任务依赖和通信流。

As organizations tackle increasingly sophisticated problems, they seek methods for enhancing the collective intelligence of workgroups. A key problem is how to coordinate activity when the task definitions, task owners, and communication paths can be known only as the work unfolds. Can constraints be imposed on the behavior of workgroup members that are flexible enough to allow this kind of creativity, but structured enough to make best use of the group's cognitive resources? Many organizations find dynamic workflow to be a challenging problem and actively seek better methods.This pilot project addresses the question of dynamic workflow using formal Workgroup Protocols as an organizing principle. The first step is to define an execution model for structuring the stream of tasks, without limiting the content of the tasks. The next step is to define explicit protocols for such common activities as planning, delegation, reporting, and so on. Finally, experiments will be conducted with human subjects, to test impacts on performance and general usability of the protocol framework.The intellectual merit of this work rests in the novel approach to structuring collaborative work. Rather than relying on free-form communication to allocate cognitive resources, this research explores how design ideas from computer systems may be adapted to fit emergent cognitive activity, and what kinds of modifications would be needed.The broader impacts of this work would be seen in three areas: (i) providing a new vision for managing knowledge work, with more dynamic control over accountability and transparency; (ii) setting a research agenda for developing tools, models, languages, and systems; and (iii) suggesting massively-collaborative structures, similar to Wikipedia, but with more intricate task dependencies and communication flows.