Decision Support Tool Overview

The term coordination implies the use of mechanisms that tightly and formally link together different components of a system (Mulford and Rogers, 1982; Alter and Hage, 1993; Metcalfe, 1994; Peters, 1998).  Coordination is argued to involve strategies and tasks that require information sharing as well as joint planning and decision-making, joint policy, projects and funding initiatives (Lawson, 2002). Therefore, coordination essentially occurs when there is a need to better align or “orchestrate’ people, tasks and systems to achieve a predetermined goal or mission (Litterer, 1973; Lawson, 2002). As Ovretveit (1993: 40) and others (Litterer, 1973; Dunshire, 1978) suggest the exercise of coordination places emphasis on bringing together interdependent parts into an ordered relationship to produce a whole. In coordination, organisations remain separate from each other (independent) but jointly contribute to an agreed outcome.

According to this view, coordination is not dependent on the good will of the different actors, but has some force of an objective, often a mandate, leading to a more enduring and formalised system of relationships. This may involve adherence to a prearranged plan or formal rules or direction by an independent ‘coordinator’. This potential for an external mandate to drive networked action locates coordination at the fulcrum between horizontal and vertical integration. Since coordination moves beyond information and sharing to the pooled use of resources and joint planning and operation, it requires a higher level of commitment as well as the agreed loss of some autonomy.

Link to Coordination Case Study