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