Coordination: The what, the when and the how

One of the most widely used definitions of the term of „coordination“ states that coordination is „managing dependencies“.  In the talk dependencies between activities/actions executed by different actors/systems, with potentially different intentions are addressed. Dependencies between these activities exist because these activities change a shared environment, or parts of it. Coordination scenarios of this type have been investigated in a number of different disciplines with slightly varying notions. In the talk we want to highlight the large variety of existing coordination methods, and the different points in time when coordination can be done. So, before we set a coordination scheme in place for a given problem, we have to decide when to coordinate, and which coordination methodology we want to use out of the existing pool, or if it is necessary to design a new coordination methodology.