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Collective agility, paradox and organizational improvisation: the development of a particle physics grid
Author(s) -
Zheng Yingqin,
Venters Will,
Cornford Tony
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
information systems journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.635
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1365-2575
pISSN - 1350-1917
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2575.2010.00360.x
Subject(s) - agile software development , improvisation , grid , grid computing , process (computing) , collective intelligence , scale (ratio) , knowledge management , computer science , process management , systems engineering , physics , engineering , software engineering , geography , quantum mechanics , acoustics , operating system , geodesy
This paper examines systems development in a global collaborative community of high‐energy physics and offers insights and implications for agile systems development in other large scale and distributed settings. The paper studies the ongoing construction of the UK's computing grid for particle physics (GridPP), a grid that is itself part of the world's largest grid, the Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid. We observe in this project a collective, agile and distributed performance through which the Grid is constructed. We express this through the concept of ‘collective agility’ which captures a large distributed performance rather than the more conventional sense of agility as small‐group and deliberate systems development practices. The collective agility of GridPP is analysed as a process of ‘enacted emergence’ expressed through the dynamics of six improvisation paradoxes.