The role of fuzzy awareness modelling in cooperative management

Cooperative management is concerned with the management of networks and services involving the cooperation of a number of human/organizational entities. One of the prerequisites for efficient management of these complex systems is related to understanding of the roles of humans and the ways hey interact with each other. Cooperative management Methodology for Enterprise Networks (CoMEN) achieves these objectives by defining an abstract measure of cooperation called Awareness level that is based on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) concepts and techniques. In view of the abstract nature of the awareness level definitions, it is not clear how abstract awareness levels can be accurately translated into equivalent cooperative management design parameters. This paper explores the notion of fuzzy sets that enables the use of linguistic values for awareness levels. This is aimed at unveiling of the deficiencies in the existing collaborative support tools with a view to developing more effective cooperative applications. We also model the CSCW tools in terms of repositories and communication mechanisms using fuzzy notions with a view to arrive at a formal design methodology for cooperative management systems. The idea has been illustrated with a case study in a large telecom organization