Martin Ollus VTT

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ECOLEAD Summer School September 28-29,
2006 Virtual Organizations Management (VOM) in
relation to VBE PVC
Martin Ollus (VTT)
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CONTENT

• Some definitions
• Challenges for VO Management (VOM)
• VOM approach in ECOLEAD
• Relationship to VBE (PVC) inheritance
• VO realization
• Future challenges

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Virtual Organizations, some definitions
The Virtual Organization (VO) is a temporary
consortium of partners from different
organizations established to fulfil a value
adding task, for example a product or service to
a customer. The lifetime of a VO is typically
restricted It is created from the network for a
definite task and dissolved after the task has
been completed.
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Some features of Virtual Organizations

• Set of co-operating (legally) independent
  organisations
• Provide services and functionality to the outside
  world as if they were one organisation
• The set of co-operating organisations can change
  with time
• dynamic configuration depending on the
  function/service to be provided at a certain
  point in time
• Can also be a more stable configuration with a
  sizeable time span and a stable set of services
  and functions
• EC http//europa.eu.int/ISPO/ecommerce/books/aec
  ev2/2_1.htm

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FROM TRADITIONAL ORGANIZATIONS TO CNOs
Figure modified from Erastos Filos
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A DEFINITION OF VO MANAGEMENT (VOM)
VO Management denotes the organisation,
allocation and co-ordination of resources and
their activities as well as their
inter-organisational dependencies to achieve the
objectives of the VO within the required time-,
costs- and quality frame.
Full life-cycle of VO covered
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Challenges for the VO management

• Independent organizations
• little/no forcing power
• no clear command structure
• structure heterogeneous
• Partner specific objectives
• hidden agendas
• partners objectives motivation partly unknown
• Incomplete information
• measurements mainly at interfaces
• Different cultures, business practices
  organizations
• Temporary organization (dynamics needed)
• evolution in time
• one-of-a-kind operative scenarios
• does not justify investments in application
  specific platforms

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SOME RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• What set-up, collaboration mechanisms, incentives
  etc. can make a virtual organization achieve its
  common goals?
• What are the control management means?
• Is the virtual organization controllable in a
  similar sense as the traditional organization?

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Focus for the VO manager

• View of the ongoing work
• Homogeneous across the consortium of partners
• Independent of partners' internal operations
• Based on business activities - not on local
  enterprise functions
• Performance of the virtual organization as a
  whole
• Quantitative output
• Cost and revenues
• Quality
• Time
• Qualitative output
• Collaboration performance
• Trust
• Credibility

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OBJECTIVES FOR VOM

• Performance measurement based real-time VO
  management
• Management structure measurements VO specific
• Set-up phase short as possible (Ideally in days)
• Management has to be beneficial during the
  life-time of VO
• Build on existing applications in partners
  organizations

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Performance-measurement based real-time VOM
Adaptation to dynamically changing needs

• based on measurements

• proactive

• real time

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VO management tasks

• Set up
• management
• - approach
• - methods
• - tools
• monitoring
• schedules
• check points
• etc

• Coordination
• Monitoring
• task
• partners
• structure
• Revision
• schedules
• tasks
• consortium
• structure

• Collection of
• VO outcome
• performance
• experience

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Performance measurement in VOM

• Categories of Performance
• fulfilling the given task
• contribution from partners
• partners collaboration
• performance of management approach methods

• Performance info to VBE/PVC
• Experience, references
• Results
• Liabilities
• Rights
• Input to value system "bag of assets

VO
VBE
Different management approaches etc. require
their own support from the measurement
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Inheritance from a VO
Experience, knowledge, liabilities, rights
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Views on VO Management
HUMAN CENTRIC APPROACH
Different VO Managers imply different management
styles (even if they rely on the same management
elements and on the same enablers)
Enablers . Technological . Organizational . Human
Need to support different management styles
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Examples of Management Approaches

• Multi-organizational project management
• Encouragement approach
• Self-organizing approach
• Time-dominated VOs
• Supply Chain Management approach (not considered
  in ECOLEAD)

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Preparation phase for VOM
A specific VO is established out of a VBE
VO Description
VBE
VO

• - VO members
• Structure
• ...

Startup VO-DB
VO and Task specific data

• - WBS
• Rules
• ...

• - Conditions
• Prices
• Dates

VO Contracts
A generic VO structure is elaborated beforehand
Generic Framework

• - Relations
• Roles Resp.
• Performance I.

Meta Model
VO Structure

• - Partner Attributes
• Process Attrib.
• ...

VO Data
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Instantiation of VOM
A specific VO Model is created
Startup VO-DB
Operational VO-DB
GUI
SID
VO and Task specific data
VO specific Model Task specific data VO
specific KPIs
Generic Framework Generic KPIs

• FUNCTIONS
• Instantiation of the specific VO Model
• Selection of KPI to use
• Supported indicator definition - SID
• Additional modification and specification of
  attributes, roles, relations etc.

Meta Model
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Operation Management of VO
Operational VO-DB
GUI
MAF
Alert.
Simul.
STATIC DATA VO specific Model Task specific data
Alert Dispatcher

• DSS
• Simulation
• Re-/scheduling

MAF
Local repository
FinancialsMonitor
ActivitiesMonitor
PerformancesMonitor
DYNAMIC DATA KPI Values, Planned work
Communication Services
Integration Broker DI3
VO
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Modification Evolution of VO
The VO Model is changed and adapted
Adapted Operational VO-DB
VO-DB
GUI
SID
STARTUP DATA VO and Task specific data
VO specific Model Task specific data VO
specific KPIs
OPERATIONAL DATA VO specific Model Task specific
data VO specific KPIs

• FUNCTIONS
• Change of VO Model (Partners, Task)
• Modification of KPI to use
• Additional modification and specification of
  attributes, roles, relations etc.

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RAVO Functional architecture
SID
DSS
VO Model
MAF
SID Inheritance
DI3
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Some remaining Challenges

• Efficiency of virtual organisations depends on
• Performance of the partners
• Collaboration between partners
• Trust between partners
• Configuration of the VO
• Modelling of the relationship between partners
  performance and task fulfilment still a major
  challenge
• Needed for definition of management actions
• Measurements
• All interesting measurements are not available
• Management of qualitative subjective
  measurements