Not all organizations or parts of organizations are visible in a physical location. Entire organizations or units of organizations can now possess virtual components that permit them to change configurations to adapt to changing project or marketplace demands. Virtual enterprises use networks of computers and communications technology to bring people with specific skills together electronically to work on projects that are not physically located in the same place. Information technology enables coordination of these remote team members. Often virtual teams spring up in already-established organizations; in some instances, however, organizations of remote workers have been able to succeed without the traditional investment in a physical facility.
There are several potential benefits to virtual organizations, such as the possibility of reducing costs of physical facilities, more rapid response to customer needs, and helping virtual employees to fulfill their familial obligations to growing children or aging parents. Just how important it will be to meet the social needs of virtual workers is still open to research and debate. One example of a need for tangible identification with a culture arose when students who were enrolled in an online virtual university, with no physical campus (or sports teams), kept requesting items such as sweatshirts, coffee mugs, and pennants with the virtual university’s logo imprinted on them. These items are meaningful cultural artifacts that traditional brick-and-mortar schools have long provided.
Many systems analysis and design teams are now able to work virtually, and in fact, many of them marked the path for other types of employees to follow in accomplishing work virtually. Some applications permit analysts who are providing technical assistance over the Web to “see” the software and hardware configuration of the user requesting help, in this way creating an ad hoc virtual team composed of the analyst and user.
Contents
- Organizations as Systems
- Virtual Organizations and Virtual Teams
- Taking a Systems Perspective
- Enterprise Systems: Viewing the Organization as a System
- Systems and the Context-Level Data Flow Diagram
- Systems and the Entity-Relationship Model
- Use Case Modeling / Use Case Symbols
- Use Case Relationships
- Developing Use Case Diagrams & Use Case Scenarios
- Use Case Levels (Use case Modeling)
- Levels of Management
- Organizational Culture
