Groupware and Technology for Teams

Infsy 540

Dr. Ocker

Groups and IT

Main topics Groups Group Support Systems Groupware

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 group decision making

requires ftf meetings

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