Anja Maier

Assessing Organizational Capabilities: Reviewing and Guiding the Development of Maturity Grids

Managing and improving organizational capabilities is a significant and complex issue for many companies. To support management and enable improvement, performance assessments are commonly used. One way of assessing organizational capabilities is by means of maturity grids. While maturity grids may share a common structure, their content differs and very often they are developed anew. This paper presents both a reference point and guidance for developing maturity grids. This is achieved by reviewing 24 existing maturity grids and by suggesting a roadmap for their development. The review places particular emphasis on embedded assumptions about organizational change in the formulation of the maturity ratings. The suggested roadmap encompasses four phases: planning, development, evaluation, and maintenance. Each phase discusses a number of decision points for development, such as the selection of process areas, maturity levels, and the delivery mechanism. An example demonstrating the roadmaps utility in industrial practice is provided. The roadmap can also be used to evaluate existing approaches. In concluding the paper, implications for management practice and research are presented.

Reflecting communication: a key factor for successful collaboration between embodiment design and simulation

The need for integration of computer-aided design and computer-aided engineering environments stems from the business priority to reduce product cycle times. It is exacerbated by the coexistence of two different paradigms: a topological one in embodiment design and a functional one in simulation. This dualism places increasing demands on human communication between design and simulation engineers. This paper claims that reflecting communication is a key factor for successful collaboration. Reflection is used in both senses of the Latin word ‘reflectare’: to trigger active thinking about and consideration of communication, as well as to mirror perceptions of a given situation by people collaborating. The paper reports on the development and application of a maturity-grid approach to diagnose the current and desired states of communication between design engineers and simulation engineers in the car body development of a German automotive manufacturer. Results include three themes: one, the importance of understanding of the collaborators’ information needs; two, the importance of orientation, e.g., indicated by the engineers’ overview of sequence of tasks in the design process; and three, the importance of reflection.

Identifying requirements for communication support: A maturity grid-inspired approach

Communication is a critical success factor in design. It can be seen as the social and cognitive process by which information is selected, messages are exchanged between interacting partners, and meaning is created. How communication processes can best be captured, analysed and assessed, as a preliminary step toward suggestions for improvement of communication practices, remains a challenge for researchers and practitioners. To this end, a maturity grid-inspired approach to audit communication practices has been developed. This paper employs a maturity grid approach and reflects critically on the construction and application of the approach in a structured group workshop in software design. Such an approach yields dual benefits: (a) as a research method to gather insight into communication and (b) as a guide to plan improvements in practice. Conclusions are drawn for the process of auditing communication in design. � 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Communication in Design

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A meta-model for communication in engineering design

This paper seeks to address different ways of conceptualising communication – a mechanistic and a systemic view. The views are considered complementary rather than exclusionary. A meta-model of how communication in engineering design can be conceptualised to analyse communication issues in industrial practice is proposed. The model combines an information-centred view reflecting the exchange of information with interactional and situational aspects. It is intended to provide the backbone of an audit method with which the current (‘as-is’ ) as well as the desired (‘to be’) communication situation in a company can be diagnosed. The conceptual meta-model for communication in engineering design presented here is part of a wider research project that aims at assessing the current and the desired communication situation in design teams by raising awareness and providing a platform for reflection.

Information Flow Through Stages of Complex Engineering Design Projects: A Dynamic Network Analysis Approach

The pattern of information flow through the network of interdependent design activities is thought to be an important determinant of engineering design process results. A previously unexplored aspect of such patterns relates to the temporal dynamics of information transfer between activities as those activities are implemented through the network of people executing the project. To address this gap, we develop a dynamic modeling method that integrates both the network of people and the network of activities in the project. We then employ a large dataset collected from an industrial setting, consisting of project-related e-mails and activity records from the design and development of a renewable energy plant over the course of more than three years. Using network metrics for centrality and clustering, we make three important contributions: 1) We demonstrate a novel method for analyzing information flows between activities in complex engineering design projects; 2) we show how the network of information flows in a large-scale engineering project evolved over time and how network analysis yields several managerial insights; and 3) we provide a useful new representation of the engineering design process and thus support theory-building toward the evolution of information flows through systems engineering stages. Implications include guidance on how to analyze and predict information flows as well as better planning of information flows in engineering design projects according to their individual stage and activity characteristics.

Formal computer-aided product family architecture design for mass customization

Conventional methods for product family architecture design are informal and limit the support for architecture communication, synthesis and documentation.A formal computational approach requires the integration to configuration systems, improved generic models and extended structural analysis methods.Product family architectures can be modelled interchangeably with generic design-structure matrixes, generic node-link diagrams and product variant masters.Supportive tools automate the documentation and formalize the synthesis of architectures, thereby making any decision about a preferred solution explicit and transparent. With product customization companies aim at creating higher customer value and stronger economic benefits. The profitability of the offered variety relies on the quality of the developed product family architectures and their consistent implementation in configuration systems. Yet existing methods are informal, providing limited support for domain experts to communicate, synthesize and document architectures effectively. In single product design explicit visual models such as design structure matrices and node-link diagrams have been used in combination with structural analysis methods to overcome the limitation of the informal approach. Drawing on thereto established best practises, this paper evaluates and extends the relevant methods and modelling techniques, to create a consistent and formal approach for the design and customization of entire product families. To validate its applicability, the approach is tested on a case study at a manufacturing company offering bespoke industrial applications. A generic modelling method termed the integrated design model (IDM) is developed and complemented with a computational structural analysis method, to assist domain experts in their daily work. When combined with a configuration system, the presented IDM tool automates the documentation and formalizes the synthesis of architectures, thereby making any decision about a preferred solution explicit and transparent.

Pervasive assistive technology for people with dementia: a UCD case

Smart mobile and wearable technology offers exciting opportunities to support people with dementia (PwD). Its ubiquity and popularity could even benefit user adoption – a great challenge for assistive technology (AT) for PwD that calls for user-centred design (UCD) methods. This study describes a user-centred approach to developing and testing AT based on off-the-shelf pervasive technologies. A prototype is created by combining a smartphone, smartwatch and various applications to offer six support features. This is tested among five end-users (PwD) and their caregivers. Controlled usability testing was followed by field testing in a real-world context. Data is gathered from video recordings, interaction logs, system usability scale questionnaires, logbooks, application usage logs and interviews structured on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model. The data is analysed to evaluate usability, usefulness and user acceptance. Results show some promise for user adoption, but highlight challenges to be overcome, emphasising personalisation and familiarity as key considerations. The complete findings regarding usability issues, usefulness of support features and four identified adoption profiles are used to provide a set of recommendations for practitioners and further research. These contribute toward UCD practices for improved smart, pervasive AT for dementia.

Perceiving Design as Modelling: A Cybernetic Systems Perspective

The creation and use of models is central to engineering design, to the extent that designing might be perceived as a propagation from model to model and modelling may be described as the language of the designer (the terms product model and artefact model are used synonymously throughout this chapter). Given this, how should design activities be coordinated and how should the design process be regulated? This chapter suggests that a cybernetic perspective may help to understand designing as a self-regulated modelling system and help to reach a better understanding of the effectiveness of models and modelling as used in design. This perspective emphasises the role of models in progressing the design and design process evolution. In particular, it suggests that most models in design fulfil a synthetic role. For instance, when designers sketch a mechanism, then formalise and analyse it, they are on one level analysing, but stepping back they are synthesising something that did not previously exist. What makes a model a good model thus lies not so much in goodness of fit, meaning how accurately it represents observations made, but rather the degree to which it informs decision-making that turns out to add value for a given purpose and context. Implications of a cybernetic perspective that could guide effective modelling in design are discussed.

Prototyping with your hands: the many roles of gesture in the communication of design concepts

ABSTRACT There is an on-going focus exploring the use of gesture in design situations; however, there are still significant questions as to how this is related to the understanding and communication of design concepts. This work explores the use of gesture through observing and video-coding four teams of engineering graduates during an ideation session. This was used to detail the relationship between the function behaviour structure elements and individual gestures as well as to identify archetypal gesture sequences – compound reflective, compound directed one-way, mirroring, and modification. Gesture sequences occurred at critical periods during the design session, such as idea evolution and developing shared understanding. They are used to act out design concepts, repeat and learn from sequences, and establish shared understanding. Finally, a number of implications are identified for both researchers and those seeking to support practice.