1. Groups
groups are important in organizations teams becoming basic unit of organizational
work researchers found that groups experienced
"process losses" findings of recent study - executives spent
more than 800 hours/year in meetings (30 %) most execs. reported that they considered 240
hours wasted in useless meetings (30 %)
Activities of work groups
schedule meetings hold meetings communicate with one another collaborate to develop ideas share the preparation of documents share knowledge share information on the work each
member is doing
Problems with meetings
too many ftf meetings length of meetings number of meeting attendees (too many
people) lack of agenda no problems clearly spelled out in
advance and no specific action items proposed for addressing problems
Problems with meetings
alternative actions not considered key people late in arriving/ poor attendance poor job by meeting chairperson a few people dominate discussion -
repetitious/say same things over and over wasteful from cost standpoint - high salaries
2 generic types of activities performed by groups 1) communication and interaction
(back and forth communication)
2) decision making/problem solving
IT can be an important tool for facilitating effective group performance
2. Group Support Systems
an interactive computer-based system to facilitate the solution to unstructured problems by
group of decision makers incorporates:
– computer technology – communication – decision making processes
to support group problem solving and decision making developed in response to unproductive/ineffective
meetings
Common terms used to refer to GSS computer-supported cooperative work
(CSCW) group decision support systems collaborative computing computer-mediated communication group decision support systems distributed group support systems groupware
Electronic communication changes the way groups work Findings of Eveland and Bikson (1988) 2 work groups given a year to develop a set of
recommendations about pre retirement planning for employees about to retire
each group consisted of retirees (1/2) and employees (1/2)
one group supported by e-mail, the other group was not
study lasted for 18 months
Results
group structures differed – electronic group more fluid and changeable,
people served on multiple committees and formed committees ad hoc, spent little time organizing themselves
leadership– conventional group more centralized - relied
on a few members to carry out the work; electronic group - more even participation
Results
leaders changed in electronic group final reports differed
– conventional groups report was 15 pages long and contained mostly anecdotal advice about preparing for retirement;
– electronic group's report was 75 pages long and was composed mainly of tables describing results of an opinion survey that they had designed and analyzed on-line
Electronic Meeting Systems
attempt to structure the group process along with providing electronic tools to support (and hopefully improve) group performance
types of tools - electronic brainstorming/idea creation– anonymity– message exchange– project planning– document preparation– voting tools
Electronic Meeting Systems
groups typically meet FtF in a decision room
room has big screen projection, printing capabilities, individual terminals for each meeting participant, and a workstation for a facilitator
GSS promotes desirable meeting elements improved pre-planning of meetings increased participation open, collaborative meeting atmosphere criticism-free idea generation evaluation objectivity - evaluate idea based solely on its
merits idea organization and evaluation setting priorities and making decisions documentation of meetings preservation of organizational memory eliminate some meetings
Why are group systems important? Teams - basis for orgs. HBR - Peter Drucker (1988)
– orgs. will become information based, and that they will be organized like a symphony orchestra, a hospital, or a university (rather than like a manufacturing firm)
– composed mainly of specialists who direct their own performance thru feedback from others - colleagues, customers, and headquarters.
this move being driven by 3 factors, says Drucker 1. knowledge workers are becoming
dominant portion of labor - they resist command-and-control form of org.
2. all companies need to find ways to be more innovative and entrepreneurial
this move being driven by 3 factors, says Drucker 3. IT forcing shift - once companies
use IT to handle information - not data - their decision processes, management structure, and work patterns change.
e.g. IT changes org. structure when firm shifts focus from processing data to producing information -- turning data into information requires knowledge; knowledge requires specialization
information-based org. needs many more specialists than managers who relay info.
Team based organizations
So... orgs. will be flatter with fewer staff and many specialists in operating units.
team-based orgs. will work like orchestras and hospitals
many specialty units, each with its own knowledge, training, and language; little middle management
work done by ad hoc teams assembled to meet patient's condition and diagnosis
3. Groupware
software that supports the collaborative activities of work groups
includes functions for information sharing, electronic meetings, scheduling, and e-mail
requires use of a network to connect group members
groupware
represent fundamental change in way people think about using computers - things they need to work together are different from things they need to work alone - so groupware is different from past software
need groupware - most people spend 60-80 % of their time working with others
Lotus Notes
take a tour of Notes on the Web at: http://www.st.rim.or.jp/~snash/Notes/
workspac.html leading groupware software essentially a way to share a database
over a network to create information-sharing applications
Lotus Notes
Notes databases - collections of documents stored in a group; can contain free-form text, graphics, file attachments, along with sound, image and video data
supports compound documents - documents consisting of differing types of information from separate sources - e.g. text, graphics and spreadsheet data
the whole document stored as a single record (with normal office sw, these pieces are only combined at print time)
Lotus Notes
each application is a separate database; each application has its own icon
each database logs all communications among group members
can operate on wide range of systems data stored in a distributed database with multiple
servers runs on network operating systems - Novell,
Banyan, IBM user interface is Windows-like and icon-based