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Coordination of the intellectual work of individuals and teams is a fundamental problem in software engineering, and one with which the field has grappled since its inception. I am particularly interested in how software structure, interdependencies, and design instability give rise to the need to coordinate, and how formal and informal organizational structures support coordination needs.

Software engineering can also be viewed as an example of a domain characterized by highly interdependent and complex tasks, in which the task-specific aspects of collaborative work can be explored more generally. Typical tools used in software engineering create a very rich history of how the work is done, when, and by whom. Thus, it provides a detailed archival record which can be used to understand coordination and to support awareness, communication, and management tools. It also provides hints about how tools in other domains of collaborative work can be structured to provide similarly rich work histories in other domains.