Managing Distributed Expertise and Knowledge Foraging to Reduce Unplanned Redesigns in Product Development

In product development contexts, work is frequently carried out by cross-functional teams to share workload and expertise. One significant challenge is enabling individuals to correctly answer questions such as: What do you know that I need; and what do I know that you need? Distributed teams coordinate tasks that depend on triggers generated by other members of the team, or changes in system state based on team members’ or external actions. We apply the concept of resource foraging to this coordination problem. Risk events that occur over extended periods permit system dynamics measures of how interventions or compensations can affect, moderate, or even halt the progression of an event. Viewing costly, unplanned redesign as an ongoing process instead of an instantaneous change can improve the robustness of budget/resource allocation for verification and validation at all levels of product development. We demonstrate a systems engineering approach that describes ranges of effective capacity for team response and coordination, using applications from healthcare delivery and control system design.