Evolution of virtual objects in Petri net modeled collaborative behavior

When design teams meet, their goal is to have an end product that satisfies a given list of requirements. During the process of designing this end product, the team evolves a virtual object whose attributes consist of a description (initially rather ill-defined), list of requirements and issues, and an indication for each item in this list indicating whether or not it has been met or has been resolved. The team´s collaboration evolves this shared virtual object´s description, the list of requirements and issues, and their satisfaction. If successful, the team´s work ends with a virtual object meeting all requirements and with all significant issues about it resolved. This collaborative evolution involves team members taking turns at modifying the virtual object. This paper uses a Petri net model of the behavior of teams working in a digital network enriched face-to-face setting to illustrate the appearance and evolution of shared virtual objects. The illustration is based on a study of team collaboration conducted in Rensselaer´s Design Conference Room. This extends earlier work (reported at SMC´97) which demonstrated how Petri net modeling applies to team behavior involving physical and electronic workspaces.