Supporting IT-Enabled Collaboration

1. Supporting IT-Enabled Collaboration Group members Jhon philip dasalla Jason Umangay Oscar ordones Erickson J. Canosa

2. Introduction • Company of the future could be a collection of online communities • Some are internal and others reach outside organizational boundaries • Main job of managers is to foster these communities and the collaboration they engender • CIO’s job is to provide the technology to support online communities and collaboration

3. Teams: The Basis of Organizations • Organizations becoming information-based and thus flatter • Knowledge (information) specialists • Task-focused teams • Akin to hospital 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 percent of time working with others but are most productive alone

4. Understanding Groups

5. Characteristics of Groups in Organizations • Membership • Open versus closed • Interactions • Loosely coupled versus tightly knit • Hierarchy • Part of chain of command • Location • Co-located versus dispersed • Time • Ephemeral versus ongoing

6. Types of Groups • IT-enabled collaboration support for different types of groups • Authority groups • Formal authority • Hierarchy • Intradepartmental groups • Members participate in same work activity • Closed membership • Tight to loose coupling and hierarchy • Project teams • Accomplish goal within a specific time frame • Closed membership • Tight coupling and hierarchy

7. Interdepartmental 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 relationships with customers, suppliers, partners • Open membership • Loosely coupled and no hierarchy

8. Peer groups • Members meet to exchange ideas • Independent member activities • Membership can range • Loosely coupled and no hierarchy • Networks • Socialization and information exchange • Electronic groups • All forms of Internet-based social networks • Chat rooms, virtual communities, forums, listserv

9. Communities of practice (Etienne Wenger) • Groups of people who come together based on common identities or shared ways of doing things • Silicon Valley technical networks • Can arise within enterprise • Network armies (Massive Voluntary Collaboration) • Widely dispersed groups of people form to further a cause • Open source software • Wiki • Political parties

10. Supporting Collaboration • Three nurturing acts to garner benefits from CoPs in organizations • Identifying potential CoPs • Hiring CoP consultants to help develop possibilities • Providing a CoP infrastructure • Establishing legitimacy ad providing resources • Budget, incentives (for participation), executive sponsorship • Measuring CoPs • Collecting anecdotes (success stories) systematically to paint a picture of kinds of specific contributions

11. The Open Source Movement Case Example: Network armies • Members of open source software (OSS) movement are volunteers • Shared culture (“religion”) of developers who love to code and push the envelope of what is possible (software development, enhancement and management) • Linux example • Massive flat structure • 4 “influencers” (including LinusTorvalds) • 6-8 distributors, 200 project leaders, 750,000 volunteer developers • OSS movement is a force to be reckoned with

12. Systems to support collaboration • Group activities categorically a dichotomy of communication and interaction and 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

13. Group Decision Support

14. “Same Time / Same Place” IT Support • Collaboration • Supporting meetings using IT • Eliminating some meetings • Asynchronous communication (e.g. email) • Permitting better preparation • Exchanging online documents beforehand • Presentations and discussions • Enrich participation and learning

15. Texas Instruments Case Example: Same time/same place collaboration • “Decision room” with 24 networked workstations • Annual three-day strategic planning meeting led by a facilitator • Executives participate by typing comments on workstations • “Electronic brainstorming” sessions • Issue analyzer to organize ideas • Voting tool to rank ideas • Topic commenter to attach comments to existing ideas • Policy formation software to study alternatives • Participants reported that Group DSS increased involvement (efficiency) and made planning more effective • Anonymity (more questions and suggestions put forth) • Education (broader perception of company than before)

16. HICSS Case Example: Same time/same place presentations and discussions • Over a two-year experiential study at this conference, the researchers found that GSS-supported sessions elicited more participation in discussions (online) and to a higher degree than regular sessions did • Participants reported that • The typing did not distract them • There was no online “flaming” • Online transcripts were useful • Positive value was received from the sessions

17. Supporting Different Place Collaboration • Supporting dispersed groups • Development of virtual teams (teleological and ephemeral) • Same time/same place • Team meets face-to-face initially to develop basic plan and objectives • Different time/different place • Team members do data gathering and analysis separately and communicate by email (asynchronous) • Same time/different place • Audio or video conferencing to discuss developments and progress towards goals

18. Boeing-Rocketdyne Case Example: Supporting different place collaboration • Virtual team of engineers formed to build “impossible” rocket engine • Engineers from three locations conducted project online over 10 months • IP sharing, “rules of engagement”, evolving project focus • Online meetings (89); Internet Notebook (650 design critiques) • Project a success • Close cooperation maintained throughout; core creative requirements met; focus of efforts evolved over project lifetime • Group support technology played an important role in suiting needs of virtual team • Anywhere access to entries on Notebook whiteboard (think blogs)

20. Managing IT-Enabled Workflow • Workflow deals with automation of business processes • Enhance efficiency of transaction-oriented and mission critical tasks • procedural route optimization, load balancing • Different workflow modeling techniques • Coordination and communication (Winograd and Flores) • Workflow loop (“customer” and “performer”) • Workflow management systems (WfMS) provide a mechanism for planning and controlling how teams work

21. Supporting Negotiation • Negotiation—both a cooperative and dialectic process • Rounds of discussion and fine-tuning to arrive at negotiated outcome (“non-zero-sum game”) • Negotiation support systems help reduce discord and increase chance of consensus • Interactive information elicitation, process transparency and structured • User-friendly interfaces, structured modeling representation • Software agents • Useful in intense data processing and time pressure situations

22. Managing Crises and Emergency Response • A crisis (natural or man-made) is an event that has either occurred or is impending • Crisis management has high human demands • Perception • Value of possible loss (high importance) • Probability of loss (high uncertainty) • Time pressure (immediacy) • Cognition (effects on) • Reduced attention span across time and space • Loss of memory and abstract ability • Diminished tolerance for ambiguity • Deterioration of verbal performance and visual motor coordination • Regression to simpler and more primitive mode of response • Increased stress leading to random behavior and rate of error

23. Supporting Collaboration in Virtual Organizations • How to manage non-traditional collaborative structures such as CoPs, MVCs and global virtual teams? • Leadership (influence) and empowerment over command and control in increasingly knowledge-based organization today • “Semi-visible hand”

24. Motivating A Virtual Workforce • Study of Open Source movement suggests that managers of increasingly virtual organizations should consider expanding the types of motivators they use beyond money • Reputation among peers • Performance recognition • Taking pride in contributions • Technology efficacy

25. Governing Virtual Organizations • Governance structure that fosters self-governance (ownership) by employees • Open source movement may have all the trappings of a chaotic implosion but is actually a self-regulating system (homeostasis) • Four important self-governance principles • Managed membership • Rules and institutions • Monitoring • Sanctions • Social pressures (reputation)

26. Conclusion • Collaboration is at the heart of business today • Technology (IT) advancements parallel organization structures • Flatter, greater emphasis on teams, collaboration across disciplines, time and space • Technological tools for communication and interaction, problem solving, and knowledge management • IT-based collaboration takes work to the next level • Changes the process by altering who can participate, how they participate and even the nature of the work itself