Traditionally the functions of management are centralised and performed by managers. This limits the amount of work that can be done. The Internet has provided the opportunity for people to work together globally. However, “manager centric” approaches have been unable to provide a practical means to fully utilize the available connectivity. Social networking has been tried, but it lacks an underlying management method and the tools to apply the method globally and consistently.
History
In his Doctorate on Introducing Technology into Organizations completed in 1990, Dr Neil Miller identified the need for a distributed management paradigm. In 1991, he founded Pty Ltd to develop, operationalise, and commercialize a new distributed management paradigm. Patents on the core parts of distributed management were granted in Australia and USA. In 1995, TASKey correctly estimated that the web technologies required to globally implement distributed management would not be available for about 15 years. TASKey has used this time for comprehensive experimentation and to refine TASKey methods and software tools, so they are acceptable and workable for most people with minimal training.
Key Parts
The key parts of Distributed Management are:
Each task has stakeholders with one person responsible
Related tasks are joined through a task tree
Context, task visibility, security and privacy are based on task team membership
Team members list the actions/ToDo's required to do a task
Team members create action teams to do each action
Web software creates a ToDo list for each person based on action team membership
Task progress reporting is based on completed actions
Differentiators
The differentiators between distributed management and traditional management are:
Includes specialist software tools for templating, and adjusting complex task, team and ToDo relationships
Software Tools
Implementing the distributed management paradigm required new web software to manage the complex dynamic relationships that need to be managed to get work done. Over 13 years, TASKey has developed, validated and commercialized web software called for enterprise distributed management and . TASKey web software is unique in that it automatically tracks and organizes all tasks, synchronizes all stakeholders’ personal To Do lists, and automatically reports progress.
Validation
TASKey software functionality has been developed and validated in a range of workplaces over 13 years. Case studies demonstrate effective use by both managers and workers.
Management Insights
Management insights that have been gained during the development, validation and commercialization of Distributed Management are explored in
