Decentralized Design Management: Managing People and the Design Process for a Geographically Dispersed Creative Team

Collaboration is a key factor to fostering innovation, and in the creative economy innovation is indispensable to success. Advances in technology are evolving the ways in which designers, as well as people in every profession, collaborate. The growth of social networking, instant messaging, web conferencing, online project management, and even distance learning are clear indicators of this evolution.Currently within the design profession, twenty-five percent of people are self-employed working as a freelancer or an independent contractor. This figure is approximately five times the proportion for all professional and related occupations and is likely to grow in coming years.3 As larger companies continue to downsize from top-heavy, centralized approaches to leaner, more nimble organization structures, centralized in-house design functions are likely to be outsourced or downsized along with them.With companies downsizing and the need for creative collaboration increasing, it is necessary to develop better leadership of decentralized creative work. Looking at the human component, this thesis will define best practices for design leaders to use when overseeing creative teams that are geographically dispersed.

Name thesis:degree_name

MFA

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

College of Communication and Information / School of Visual Communication Design

Grantor dc:publisher

Kent State University

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Buirge, Brian Michael

Contributors dc:contributor

• Visocky O'Grady, Ken

• Design
• Management
• virtual teams
• creative teams
• long-distance collaboration
• flow
• design management
• meaningful design work

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1365177762

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:kent1365177762