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Supporting IT enabled collaboration" (Davison and Briggs: Group…
Supporting IT enabled collaboration"
Collaboration and Social Business
Collaboration
Short lived or long term
Informal or formal (teams)
Growing importance of collaboration
Changing nature of work
Growth of professional work--- "interaction jobs"
Changing organization of the firm
Changing scope of the firm
Emphasis on innovation
Changing culture of work
Social Business
Use of social networking platforms, internal and external
Engage employees, customers, and suppliers
Goal is to deepen interactions and expedite information sharing 'Conversations"
Requires information transparency---- driving the exchange of information without intervention from executives or others
Business benefits of collaboration and teamwork
Investments in collaboration technology an bring organization improvements, returning high ROI
Benefits: Productivity, Quality, Innovation, Customer Service, Financial performance (profitability, sales , and sales growth)
Building a collaborative culture and business processes
"Command and control" organizations---- No value placed on teamwork or lower-level participation in decisons
Collaborative Business culture
Senior managers rely on teams of employees
Policies, products, designs, processes, and systems rely on teams
The managers purpose is to build teams
Teams: the basis of organizations
Organizations becoming information-based and thus flatter
Knowledge (information) specialists
task-focused teams
Hosital organizational structure: Ad hoc team of different area specialists to address patient condition and diagnosis
Salience of groupware in organizations
Paradox: people spend 60 to 80% of time working with others but are most productive alone
Understanding Groups
Collaboration is all about getting work in a group, rather than individually
Characteristics of groups
Membershop: Open vs closed
Interactions: Loosely coupled versus tightly knit
Hierarchy: Part of chain of command
Location: Co-located versus dispersed
Time: ephemeral (short lived) vs ongoing
IT-enabled collaboration support for different types of groups
Authority groups:
Formal authority
Heirarchy
Closed membership and tight coupling
Intra-departmental groups
Memberships participate in same work activity
Closed membership
Tight to loose coupling and hierarchy
Groups generally rely on LANs, departmental computers, and intranet
Project teams
Accomplish goal within a specific time frame
Closed membership
Tight coupling and hierarchy
Inter-departmental work groups
Workflow across departments
Closed membership
Tight coupling and no hierarchy
Committees and task forces
Ad hoc formation to address issue
Membership not too closed
Interaction not as tightly coupled
Business relationship groups
establish relationsips with customers, suppliers, partners
Open membership
Loosely coupled and no hierarchy
Peer groups
Members meet to exchange ideas
Independment member activites
Membership can range
loosely coupled and no hierarchy
Dispersed members who meet face-to-face rarely
Networks
Socialization
Exchange information
Expand the number of personal acquaintances
Electronic groups
All forms of internet-based social networks---- chat rooms, virtual communities, forums
Interaction is loosely coupled, membership is wide open
Communities of practice ( CoPs)
Refers to a group of people who work or socialise together for so long that they have developed an identifiable way of doing things ( Institiude of research on Learing)
Informal groups that form around a passion for or expertise about something
generally they have open membership
They last as long as their members see them as useful
Supporting Collaboration
three nurutring acts to garner benefits from CoPs in organizations
1) Identifying potential CoPs--- hiring CoP consutants to help develop possibilities
2) establishing legitimacy and providing resources----- Budget, incentives ( for participation), executive sponsorship
3) Measuring CoPs
Measuring their contributions in non-traditional ways becuase their effects may not be immediate
Collecting anecdotes (success stories) systematically to paint a picture of kinds of specific contributions
Network armies ( Massive Voluntary Collaboration)
A set individuals and communitites aligned by a cause
Have moral and intellectual influencers
Cohensive force is their value system
Widely dispersed groups of people form to further a cause
Open source software
Wiki
Systems to support collaboration
Group activities
Communication and interaction
Decision making and problem solving
Group decision support systems
increases efficiency and effectiveness of people working together to reach conclusion, decision or consensus
a "time-place" framework for categorizing the work of groups
Systems for Collaboration and Social Business
two dimensions of collaboration technologies
Space (or location)-- remote or co-located
Time-- synchronous or asynchronous
Six steps in evaluating software tools
1) What are your firm's collaboration challenges?
2) What kinds of solutions are available?
3) Analyze available products' cost and benefits?
4) Evaulate security risks
5) Consult users for implementation and training issues
6) Evaulate product vendors
"Same Time/ Same Place" Collaboration
Supporting meetings using IT----- Why? What are the problems with meetings?
Lack of agenda
People arrive late, or do not attend at all
The necessary information does not arrive
Assignments not complete, people do not speak up
Many meetings wasteful from a cost point of view
Presentations and discussions
Enrich participation and learning
Group Support Systems (GSS) found in
classrooms
Conference sessions
Business meetings
Davison and Briggs: Group Support Systems (GSS) advantages/ disadvantages in a workshop setting?
More Opportunities for Discussion
The parallel, non-oral communication channels and the interaction with each other during the actual presentation would multiply the time availible to the audience
More Equal Participation
Since the GSS would provide many parallel communication channels, loud or strong personalities probably would not dominate the discussion
Permanent Record of discussion
The GSS would capture a permanent electronic transcript of the online discussion
improved feedback to presenters
With the above-mentioned benefits, as well as the anonymity allowed by the GSS, presenters can receive more numerous and detailed comments
Improved Learning
The GSS was also expected to reduce the loss of attentiveness caused by people trying to remember what they want to say after the presentation. Working in parallel, participations could record their ideas when they occurred, then return their attention to the presentation-- users are likely to retain more knowledge than when using conventional methods
Remote and Asynchronous Participation
People who do not attend a presentation could still benefit by reading and contributing after the event
Potential Negative effects
Despite such benefits, online discussions during presentations could be a mixed blessing. Human attention is limited, so online the presentation. Furthermore, the online discussions could digress from the concepts in the presentation, or even devolve into flaming. And the anoymity of online discussion could hinder the evolution of a social community among the participants