Hi, I'm Ben.

Problem identification & Requirements engineering

Identifying problems is essential to organisational success. All too often problems are identified and only the symptoms treated. Or worse, the problem is mis-identified resulting in time and resources wasted.

Requirements engineering includes not only the identification of the problem, but the derivation of effective project specifications that resolve the problem.

My previous experience includes working as an APM certified project manager and business analyst on a £7m ERP upgrade project. This area has formed the core of my PhD providing a detailed understanding of how teams identify and resolve of problems.

Distributed work strategy

The term distributed working describes a team or organisation that collaborates from multiple locations. There are different magnitudes of distribution, from fully distributed teams that rarely meet face to face, to teams with the freedom to work from home several days a week, yet still retain a limited office presence.

Distributed working affords a valuable alternative to traditional co-located office-based working. Organisations benefit from reduced overheads as teams no longer require as much expensive office space. Employees meanwhile benefit from a greater work-life balance.

My PhD enables me to advise you on how best to introduce and manage distributed work practices in your organisation.

... being creative in both

Creativity is key to the way that teams recognise, identify and come to understand problems and opportunities. My aim is to help your organisation recognise the importance of creativity, and better incorporate it into your practices and culture. E.P.Torrance, an expert on the subject defines creativity as:

"A process of becoming sensitive to problems, deficiencies, gaps in knowledge, missing elements, disharmonies, and so on; identifiying the difficulty; searching for solutions, making guesses, or formulating hypothesis about the deficiencies: testing and retesting these hypotheses and possibly modifying and retesting them; and finally communicating the results." ¹

My academic hat

- the focus of my PhD

My PhD aims to prompt discussion about the need for traditional office work. Is it possible for organisations to have teams that work from home and who still tackle complicated projects? Are such teams capable of complex socio-cognitive tasks like designing that require both interaction and creativity and that are typically complicated in co-located design studios.

For my research I have run an extensive series of experiments that compare the performance of local/co-located and remote/distributed teams as they address a number of collaborative creativity activities. These activities are both abstract and complex requiring teams to approach them as problems that require understanding and resolving. I study how these teams think and work together to make sense of the activities as well as differences in creative performance.

My research question...