TR138: When Project Information Flow Becomes Turbulent: Toward an Organizational Reynolds Number

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: When managers try to develop complex products with many interdependent subsystems quickly, the high information processing load this creates can cause organizational failure. There is currently no way for managers to tell when the demands placed upon a project team are great enough that the risk of organizational failure has reached unacceptable levels. Engineers use the Reynolds number in fluid mechanics as a metric that predicts whether the flow of a fluid will be smooth and stable versus turbulent and chaotic. This paper describes an initial attempt to define a similar metric for project information flow, an "organizational Reynolds number" that uses various organization and work process parameters to predict whether a project team is approaching the turbulent information flow regime and is thus at risk of organizational failure.

Type of resource	text
Date created	August 2002

Author	Fyall, Michael

Subject	CIFE
Subject	Center for Integrated Facility Engineering
Subject	Stanford University
Subject	Metrics
Subject	Organization Design
Subject	Organization Theory
Subject	Project Management
Subject	Reynolds Number
Subject	Simulation
Subject	SimVision
Subject	VDT
Subject	Virtual Design Team
Genre	Technical report

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/jd174yc6371

Use and reproduction: User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.

Preferred Citation: Fyall, Michael. (2002). TR138: When Project Information Flow Becomes Turbulent: Toward an Organizational Reynolds Number. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/jd174yc6371

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