The Discipline of Organizing: Core Concepts Edition, 3rd Edition

Chapter 11. Case Studies

Applying the Roadmap

Robert J. Glushko

Navigating This Chapter

We now fulfill the promise of this book, with a set of case study examples that apply the concepts and phases of the roadmap.

§11.1, “A Multi-generational Photo Collection”

§11.2, “Knowledge Management for a Small Consulting Firm”

§11.3, “Smarter Farming in Japan”

§11.4, “Single-Source Textbook Publishing”

§11.5, “Organizing a Kitchen”

§11.6, “Earth Orbiting Satellites”

§11.7, “CalBug and its Search Interface Redesign”

§11.8, “Weekly Newspaper”

§11.9, “The CODIS DNA Database”

§11.10, “Ikea”

§11.11, “The Antikythera Mechanism”

§11.12, “My Vegetable Garden”

§11.13, “IP Addressing in the Global Internet”

§11.14, “The Art Genome Project”

§11.15, “Making a Documentary Film”

§11.16, “The Dabbawalas of Mumbai”

§11.17, “Managing Information About Data Center Resources”

§11.18, “Neuroscience Lab”

§11.19, “A Nonprofit Book Publisher”

Note

The first four case studies appeared in the first print edition of the book. All the others have been contributed by students or other readers of the book and edited for consistency. (M.M.)

Case Study Template

For the sake of consistency, we employ the questions posed in §1.3, “Design Decisions in Organizing Systems” as a template for the case studies. We remind you of six groups of design decisions, itemizing the most important dimensions in each group:

• What is being organized? What is the ...