Technology for organizational coordination

The author discusses integrated simulation models as an organizational coordination mechanism. ENVISION, a software technology, is used to link distributed models, each reflecting the critical aspects and activities of those involved in the collaborative effort. The system views created by model integration formalize the relationships, dependencies, and interactions among the participants and provide a basis for coordinating changes and decisions. Models such as discrete event simulation are developed to capture the concerns and critical variables, parameters, and relationships for each of the members of the collaborative team. ENVISION links the models to create sharable system models that help to formally describe the collaborative task, capture decision streams, and provide a broadly accessible organizational memory for projects