Community Structures for Large Scale Collaboration

Abstract

The paper describes an approach to design complex systems that are now increasingly found in Government. It suggests that rather than using a prescriptive top own approach to design systems, a better approach is to use a more descriptive method focused on a flexible architecture with cognitive tools to adapt the architecture to evolving needs. The architectural approach described in this paper proposes community structures where communities collaborate towards a common but evolving vision with a focus on sustainability and adaption to change. The cognitive support is through different perspectives including activity, social structure, knowledge and organization. The perspectives improve understanding of what are increasingly complex systems by managing change through the relationship of the change in one perspective on relationships throughout the system.