About Me
Dr. Susan Gasson, Associate Professor Emerita, College of Computing & Informatics
Prior to becoming an academic, I pursued a successful career in information systems development, management, and consulting. I have performed most software engineering industry job functions: firmware designer, operating system debugger, real-time systems developer, software architecture integration specialist (integrating cross-platform datacomms architectures and standards), project manager, IS business group manager, and systems architecture consultant.
I worked with many large corporations in the United Kingdom, including British Telecom, Bell Northern Research and ICL (now Fujitsu Computing). I specialized in the area of systems software architectures and data communications, advising on systems integration and compatibility problems, working on early implementations of standards and implementation languages for object-oriented system design (implementing ASN.1), OSI network protocols, and software architectures for co-resident network protocols and office system document access standards (the precursor to XML).
During this time, I discovered that many projects failed because of an inability to integrate multiple sets of (often incompatible) requirements for change, originating from different stakeholder groups. This realization spurred me to undertake a PhD at Warwick Business School (one of the top Business Schools in the UK). The resulting dissertation, Co-operative Information System Design: How Multi-Domain Information System Design Takes Place In UK Organizations, provided the academic basis for my current work in design and collaborative knowledge processes in boundary-spanning groups.
My external research blog site explores emergent design and contains a detailed exploration of the use of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM).
I also have a life, shared with my husband and co-researcher Jim Waters, who is a faculty member at Neumann University Business School, and two bossy border collies!