When I asked Proquest about cost here is the response I got,” “The cost of our team is quite large because we want the best of the best, who are usually freelance people. This means the hourly cost of the team is more than the travel costs.”

The cost, of course, is directly related to the frequency and to the sophistication of the social media used. Proquest at first met 4 times a year, but discovered that they had not finished all the work before they were meeting again so they moved to 3 times a year.The team leader says, “After four months we are out of steam and have a loss of shared sense of direction.” So for the ProQuest team coming together for three days every four months seems the most effective frequency.

Erhard,
One of phenomenon that happens when people come together for collective sensemaking is a growing sense of community and relationship that ameliorates against the kinds of manipulation who are concerned about. In my own blog there is a full case study of Proquest that explains what happens in those meetings http://www.nancydixonblog.com/2014/05/-proquest-case-study-using-the-oscillation-principle-for-software-development.html. Let me know what you think

David,
Thanks for this confirmation with Pentland’s work. I had read an article of his, but now will buy the book. I like your natural ecosystem analogy. I like the steering mechanism analogy as well using March’s work.

Understand me right. I do not contest oscillation as a reasonable principle, but I have my doubts about the organizational fluidity and elasticity that is a sort of premise for the well functioning of oscillation.

Empirical evidence is coming for the work of Sandy Pentland of MIT who hangs “sociometers” round people’s necks to pick up several dimensions of body language. He can predict performance based on the effectiveness with which teams come together to engage and then disperse to explore. We have long known that this engage/ explore pulse is a feature of hunter/gatherer bands as they search for mobile, ephemeral resources in a vast landscape.

See my blog: http://www.davidkhurst.com/the-ecology-of-innovation/

Steve,
By all accounts Marissa Meyer and Yahoo! are both doing very well, but the extent to which it was the result of bringing people in, I haven’t heard.

I’m certainly a fan of pair programming, and like you believe it reduces defects and is a kind of continuous convening. It is a good example of the value of having more than one perspective on an issue, a la Scott Page and cognitive diversity

Nice article. You write: “The normal way of working will be: Isolate to concentrate, Convene to collaborate!” This sounds like a good rule of thumb for many situations.

One question is whether it applies to all situations. For very complex tasks, such as computer programming with very complex problems, particularly where the nature of the problem to be solved isn’t understood in advance, some research suggests that what is known as pair programming, (which is in effect “continuous convening,”) can be more productive than “oscillation” between isolating and convening. To traditional management, this appears to make no sense because it costs more in terms of staff time, but research suggests that pair programming can result in higher quality code with fewer defects to fix, and so in the end is both more efficient and more effective. Does your research shed any light on this?

As to Marisa Meyer and Yahoo: do we know what was the problem she was trying to solve and did her change in policy resolve it?