Collaborative Product Development in Ill-Structured Problem Domains

Design often includes ill-structured problems that cannot be defined in a clearly identifiable and codifiable problem space. This paper tries to explain, from the viewpoint of design knowledge, how such ill-structured problems can be formed and how to tackle them. Particularly, the paper focuses on ill-structured problems that can be found in multi-disciplinary design problems. In this context, methods to deal with ill-structured problems in the context of computer supported cooperative work could be either to establish a unifying theory for relevant areas or to build ontological descriptions about relationships among those relevant areas.