1. RADICAL INNOVATION
WITHOUT COLLOCATION:
A CASE STUDY AT
BOEING-ROCKETDYNE
Malhotra,Majchrzak,Carman and Lott
MIS Quarterly 2001
Aravind Sesagiri Raamkumar
Kannan Venkataramanujam
Muthu Kumaar Thangavelu

2. AGENDA
• Radical Innovation
• Cross Fertilization of Ideas
• VC3 team for Rocketdyne’s mission
• SLICE TEAM Success Story
• Management Practices
• Restructuring work with VC3
• Implications for practice and research
• Key Takeaways

3. Radical Innovation
In an increasingly complex world, sometimes
old questions require new answers !!

4. Cross Fertilization of Ideas
Reactivity Collaborative
AxB success rate
>=AxB
Knowledge
base AxB +
Composition AxB
Interaction
value add
Environment
A or B
Hybrid
Product
Reactivity B Stand alone
Reactivity A Stand alone
success rate B
success rate A
Breed 1 Breed 2
Knowledge Knowledge base B Composition B
Composition A
base A
Environment B
Environment A

5. How about a warm Ice Cream?
• Mapping Market Expectations to Hybrid Element’s attributes
• Choosing the best elements for interaction
• Forecasting the collaborative value
• Choosing the best possible ba
• Implementing Process concurrency
• Restructuring for a best combination by trial & error method
with prior knowledge on the subject

6. VC3- Virtual Cross Value Chain, Creative, Collaborative Team
for BOEING – ROCKETDYNE’s mission
Project
Team Leader Stress
Concept Analyst
Designer
Rocket Engine Design
Lead cost by 100 times CAD
Engineer Commercialize 10 times Specialist
Combustion
Analyst
Thermal Manufacturability
Analyst Engineer
Rocketdyne
Raytheon
MacNeal-Schwendler

7. In terms of complexity
VC3 Teams >> Virtual Teams
• Emerging Design & Ever Changing tasks
• Consistent need for Shared Understanding
• Efficient use of Virtual Interaction Space
• Non-rigidity in Role Definitions
• Unconventional Communication Protocol

8. Collaborative platform – A snapshot

9. SLICE TEAM – SUCCESS STORY
“Designed thrust chamber of rocket engine” in 10 months
Feature Traditional stats SLICE engineered stats
Parts 1200 6 (200 fold decrease)
Manufacturing Cost 7 mil USD 0.5 mil USD(14 fold
decrease)
Predicted Quality Level 6 sigma or 2-4 sigma 9 sigma
First Unit Production Cost 4.5 mil USD 47000 USD
Development Time 6 years 10 months
Data Gathering Tools – Ethnographic Observations, Panel Questionnaire Surveys, Interviews
Group Meetings, Weekly Logs etc
89 virtual meetings and 651 entries in internet notebook and Project Vault

10. Mgmt Practice 1 – Strategy Setting –
Virtual Teaming Umbrella Agreement
Initiated by Senior Managers, Contract Managers and Program
Managers of 3 companies well before the SLICE project
Continuous Ordering Agreement
Protection of intellectual Property and
Company’s Confidential Information Best practices sharing
Allocation of Liability Required Complimentary skills
Specification of level of participation
Mgmt practice 1
Trust and consensus
No subdivisions created
SLICE project kickoff in days instead of months
Common budget due to this agreement
Open sharing of ideas

11. Mgmt Practice 2 - Collaborative
technologies are KM technologies
Internet Notebook and Project Vault developed by third party
company based on the project requirements
•Secure access from any location
•Create, Comment, Reference-link, Sort and
Internet Notebook hot-linking features
•Electronic whiteboard
•Used for all communication and knowledge-
sharing needs
•Secure common file storage
Project Vault •Transfer of large and small files
•Single version of truth
•Document Vault
•Adherence to Coordination Protocol
•Face 2 face discussion -> Tech collaborations
Other •Couple written documentation with oral
communication
improvisations •Incomplete entries for in-depth discussion
•Parallel work to complement contribution
•Exclusive attention to meetings

12. Mgmt Practice 3 - Restructure Work
without Changing Core Creative Needs
“Adopting to Virtual Collaboration”
Creative Need 1: Create a Creative Need 2: Engage in
Shared Understanding Frequent interaction Creative Need3: Rapidly create
context-specific knowledge
• Enhanced participation meant • Guarding against alienation • 20 designs over 40 weeks - 1
more productiveness • Virtual interaction with week shelf life
• Partial decentralization of lead notebook • Synergy by rapid contribution
engineer role • Internet notebook became one • Sharing of only high context
• Common language metaphor stop shop for file sharing, specific knowledge
• Shared artifact- Matrix style information sharing, proj mgmt
decision enabler tempalte plan, status reports, budgets,
meeting agendas etc
• Focus on sharing and not
completeness

13. Summary of How to Restructure Work
with VC3 teams
 Successful because work
processes were changed to
meet its core needs
 Clear strategy was needed
 Lifespan of Strategy,
Technology and Work were
different at different times

14. Implications for Practice
• Shared destiny with other organizations
• Importance of global and knowledge
intensive competition
• Transitioning from traditional mode of
collocated teams to VC3 teams
• Formulation and structuring of inter-
organizational strategy and work process

15. Early Warning Signs
“Effective Handling of Warning Signals ensure the success of VC3 teams”

16. Implications for Research
• Conduct research on virtual teams in terms of
innovativeness
• Scope for research in building KM systems as
a collaborative platform facilitating
– Distributed Cognition
– Knowledge Capture
– Knowledge Fusion
– Knowledge Transfer

17. Effective Virtual Team Working

18. Takeaways from the Article
• VC3 teams are new, exciting and cost-effective work form
• Virtual team working is reliant on collaboration between
people
• Focus on the need for future research on this type of
virtual teams
• Critical Role of Knowledge Management in processes
related to innovation
• Importance of careful planning before the start of any
project
• The capacity to innovate and make life better is present in
each individual

19. QUESTIONS?

20. THANK YOU