Computer-supported project coordination in virtual work environment

Abstract

A virtual project team in asynchronous and distributed environment is certain to be a new working pattern, as working environment has been changing lately. A major requirement for the creation and management of the virtual team is distributed project coordination. A entire project cycle follows project proposal, planning, execution /change and evaluation process. It also includes efficient distribution and management of resource, communication among members, and change management. In this thesis, a conceptual model to support collaborative and flexible project coordination for the virtual team is suggested in order to develop a computer-supported project environment. The model is focused on representing interaction mechanism among a manager and members that has been disregarded in existing researches so far. This thesis places emphasis on coordination among members rather than control and top-down management of project by one manager. A virtual software development team is presented as an application, and a WWW-based project coordination system is implemented based on the suggested model and the concrete scenario of a typical project cycle for the virtual team.