Two Tools for Analyzing Coordination Problems To Design for Distributed Work: A Case Study in Urban Air Mobility

The design of a distributed work system can be framed as a set of dynamic coordination problems, where functions need to be developed for actors to synchronize their activities over time. For example, in envisioned Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) operations,coordination problems arise when operators need to synchronize responses with thebehavior of an autonomous aircraft that has lost its communication link. We present ananalysis of the dynamics of this specific coordination problem, showing how uncertaintyin the behavior of autonomous capabilities and the dynamic nature of UAS operationscan create challenges in synchronization. We combine the modeling and simulation framework Work Models that Compute (WMC) with visual analytics to understand howprojection and retrojection play a role in effective synchronization, simulating alternateresponse strategies for coping with these challenges. This combination provides a moregeneral method for analyzing synchronization and identifying functional requirements forcoordination in dynamic environments.