Understanding Asynchronous Distributed Collaboration in an Enterprise Systems Engineering Context

End users—even though they may be distributed geographically and across time zones—can play a substantial and beneficial role in the enterprise systems engineering (ESE) process. However, it is difficult to support asynchronous distributed collaboration under typical workplace conditions, and it is even more challenging to do so in the context of a complex ESE effort that includes multiple, interdependent, supportive ESE methods and techniques. This paper presents our model of such efforts and describes the demands each model component places on asynchronous distributed collaboration during system development. Further, this paper explains how we have used the model to develop an interview protocol to probe for the presence of model components in individual ESE efforts and their levels of success in managing these variables.