Presentación de Pedro Antunes
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
paa@digitais.ist.utl.pt

Overview

•      Introduction

•      Basic notions

–    Process support

–    Process structure

–    Task support

–    Task structure

•      Software tools

–    Meeting Works

–    GroupSystems

•      Meeting rooms in usage

–    Matching tools with meetings

–    Before, during and after the meeting

•      Current knowledge

  Introduction

Teamwork and meetings

There is someone wiser  than any of us ... and that is all of us
Napoleon Bonaparte

•       Many problems faced by organisations cannot be solved by individuals (lack of experience, information, resources)

•       These problems lead to the formation of teams

•       Teams of people have gone to the top of the Everest!

•       Teamwork brings a new set of problems

–    Failure to understand goals

–    Lack of participation, domination, misunderstandings

–    Expensive

•       Fortune 500 companies in US, in 1988, had >11 Million meetings per day, managers spent ~20% of time in meetings and ~85% of time communicating

Poor teamwork [Nunamaker 97]

Perspective 1 - Technology

Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS)

•       Provide common computational facilities (e.g. storage)

•       Attempt to structure the group decision process in some way [Pinsonneault 89]

•       Where they stand in the groupware taxonomy? [Anson 96]

Perspective 2 - Teamwork

GDSS may address different categories of teamwork

•       Group interaction

Participants in a group must share and exchange information, establish common relations and objectives and define work strategies [Patton 89]

Interaction through computing systems, instead of face-to-face interactions, requires the development of support mechanisms which do not obstruct the above objectives [Rodden 91]

•       Group decision making

A decision group has an objective. Its task is structured and, therefore, the system must support that structure [Johanson 91]

•       Organisational decision making

A group is open and permissive to external influences. Decision processes are influenced by the organisational context [Applegate 91]

Perspective 3 - Support

GDSS may provide different levels of support [DeSanctis 87]

•       Communication level - Allow communication between group members: (1) audio and video communication through dedicated networks; (2) multimedia communication through computer networks; (3) message systems [Matsuura 93, Hiltz 93, Ishii 94, Machrone 94, Scrivener 94, McCarty 94]

•       Information-sharing level - Consider information sharing and coordination of group members: (1) automatic message or document processing; (2) coordination systems; (3) multiuser editors; (4) multiuser hypertext systems [Pendergast 90, Ellis 91, Beaudouin-Lafon 92, Haake 94]

•       Process level - Allow interventions in group processes: (1) process specification systems; (2) expert systems; (3) agent systems [Matwin 89, Shaw 93, Edmonds 94, Greif 94]

Perspective 4 - Support/Structure

Some clarifications [Nunamaker 91]

•       Process - Defines patterns of cooperation

•       Task - Required activity to accomplish a goal

•       Support - Provides the infrastructure

•       Structure - Provides prescriptive intervention and/or control

•       Process support - Infrastructure that facilitates communication among group members (e.g. public displays, teleconferencing, shared views)

•       Process structure - Techniques and rules for establishing logical phases in group decision making (e.g. delphi)

•       Task support - Computational tools that support cooperative activities (e.g. group outliner)

•       Task structure - Techniques and rules that implement each specific phase in cooperative activities (e.g. brainstorming rules)

Process Structure

•       How does a group analyse a problem and cooperatively develops a solution?

•       How decision processes can be planned?

•       How to avoid erratic processes?

•       How to improve group effectiveness and quality of solutions?

Decision making theories identify phases

[Robbins 92]
+ Search - Grasp data on a problem
+ Evaluation - Evaluate and identify solutions
+ Exploration - Discuss proposals and reach a group decision

[Johansen 91]
+ Orientation
+ Trust building
+ Goal clarification
+ Commitment
+ Implementation
+ High performance
+ Renewal

Process Structure

Multiple techniques for process structure are based on previous theories and practical considerations taken during extensive usage within organisations.

Delphi [Turoff 91]
+ Initial questionnaire
+ Analysis of answers and construction of a topic list
+ 2nd questionnaire, collecting opinions and votes
+ Analysis of votes and production of a summary
+ 3rd questionnaire, for identifying agreements and disagreements among participants
+ Final report

Brainstorming [Hwang 87]
+ Accept all ideas
+ Rule out criticism
+ Display ideas to all
+ Support combination of ideas

Cognitive Maps [Eden 93]
+ Construct graphical representation of person΄s beliefs
+ Ideas are represented by nodes
+ Causal relations are represented by links

Quality Circles [Patton 89]
+ Oriented towards quality control
+ Identify problems and propose solutions
+ Has a leader which sets an agenda and interfaces with management

Task Support

Categories of task support

•       Convergent tasks - Allow group members to integrate and build consensus on their activities (e.g. group outliner)
–    Convergence requires specific support for synchronous/same-time/tightly-coupling data sharing, interaction control and user-interfacing [Rein 91,Benford 93, Ackerman 95]

•       Divergent tasks - Allow individual exploration and idea generation (e.g. brainstorming)
–    Divergence only requires support for asynchronous/different-time/loosely-coupling data sharing and, when data is distributed, concurrency control [Rein 91, Miller 92]

•       Meta-tasks - Include regulation, facilitation and socio-emotional tasks (coordinate efforts, avoid conflicts, clarify positions)
–    One particularly important meta-task is the facilitation task, which requires support for a human facilitator

Human Facilitator

•       Induces a logical structure in group decision processes in a non prescriptive way

•       Promotes participation

•       Focus the group on the task

•       Increases productivity

Specific facilitation techniques [Kaner 96]

Task Structure

Task structure is much dependent on specific applications. One possible characterisation of task structure identifies applications’ control over user interactions

•       Conferencing - Circulate individual accesses to the medium, as in a face-to-face conference [Ellis 91, Pedersen 93]

•       Semi-formal messages - Use rules to circulate messages sequentially through users [Malone 87, Malone 93]

•       Argumentation - Use a rhetoric model of argumentation (e.g. each participant can present positions and arguments, related to issues) [Kunz 70, Conklin 88]

•       Linguistic - Use a linguistic model (e.g. conversations between participants introduce commitments and actions, necessary to accomplish commitments) [Winograd 86]

•       Formal - Specify users’ roles (e.g. workflow) [Karbe 90, Marshak 94]

Software Tools

Meeting Works (Enterprise Solutions)

•       Free up to 8 users, available on the Internet  (US$5000 > 8)

•       Windows, Internet (different-time) meeting mode

•       Based on a set of independent tools

–    Agenda planner (prior definition of steps, by the facilitator)
–    Generate
–    Organise
–    Evaluate
–    Cross Impact analysis
–    Multiple Criteria Analysis
–    Timer

•       Requires a chauffeur (responsible for tool management) and a facilitator (responsible for meeting)

Agenda

Generate

Organize

Evaluate - Voting

Evaluate - Results

Software Tools

Group Systems

•       Originally from Univ. of Arizona [Nunamaker 87, Nunamaker 92]

•       Ventana Corp. (Windows, US$20.000)

•       Based on a set of independent tools

–    Idea generation
–    Idea organisation
–    Selection/evaluation
–    Analysis/planning
–    Specific tools (e.g. re-engineering)

•       Allows combination of tools

•       Requires (at least) a facilitator

Agenda

Brainstorming

Categorizer

Group Outliner

 

Meeting Rooms in Usage

Example: Meeting room at ISCTE (Management Sciences Univ., Lisbon, Portugal) 8 portable PC’s (Windows 95, 16 MB RAM), 1 NT Server (required by GroupSystems), 1 SmartBoard (Smart Systems Inc.), 2 video cameras, MeetingWorks, GroupSystems

Meeting Rooms in Usage

3 basic types of meetings with GroupSystems

•      List building meeting

–    Brainstorming - Generate items

–    Clarifying - Generate comments on items

–    Categorising - Define categories for items

•      Decision-making meeting

–    Evaluation process

•    Identify “pro’s and con’s”

•    Define criteria and measure items against criteria

–    Consensus strategies

•    Combine items

•    Identify areas of agreement and disagreement

•    Negotiate

•    Vote

•      Decision-making meeting

–    Problem-solving processes

•    Goals

•    Barriers - Identify parameters, criteria and issues

•    Alternatives - Identify potential resources and solutions

•    Select - Evaluate solutions, choose solution

•    Sequence - Define action plan, people and resources

•      Action planning meeting

–    What will we do?
–    How will we do it?
–    When will it be done?
–    Who will do it?
–    What resources are needed?
–    How to measure results?

Matching tasks with settings

Matching tools with tasks

Matching tools with goals

Meeting Rooms in Usage

Before the meeting

•       Determine the goal of the meeting

•       Select process type

•       Choose tasks and settings

•       Choose tools

During the meeting

•      State the purpose of the meeting

•      Explain roles of facilitator, leader and participants

•      Provide instructions for tools usage

•      Run agenda...

–    Start/stop tools

–    Re-configure tool settings

–    Change agenda and tool functionality according to participants intentions

•      Run agenda...

–    Follow facilitation guidelines for conducting meeting

–    Apply facilitation techniques when intervening

–    Anticipate events

–    Have a contingency plan

After the meeting

•      Evaluate session with the participants (surveys)

–    Usefulness
–    Satisfaction
–    Coverage of topics

•      Discuss results with group leader

•      Provide reports

Current Knowledge

Lessons learned so far about GDSS [Nunamaker 97]

•       In the organisational context

–    Can make a well-planned meeting better and a poorly-planned meeting worse

–    Can reduce 50% labour costs and 90% project time

–    Individuals must have incentives to participate

•       In the group context

–    Can increase number of ideas generated

–    Increases energy and group focus

–    Anonymity encourages objectivity

–    Anonymous criticism improves quality of ideas

•       About software

–    Build independent special-purpose modules

–    Subtle differences in user-interface have strong impact in the group

–    Provide short learning curve

–    Provide both task and process support

Lessons learned (cont.)

•      About voting

–    Can be used to clarify, focus discussion, reveal consensus and stimulate thinking

–    Anonymity brings buried issues

–    Can demonstrate areas of agreement

–    Can close issues too painful to face at

–    Methods need not be democratic

•      About room facilities

–    Public screen is important to focus attention

–    Provide visual line of sight and desktop space

–    Provide individual space for reflection

Lessons learned (cont.)

•      About facilitation

–    Pre-session planning is critical

–    Group must always see where they are headed to

–    Focus must be on group rather than technology

–    Small changes in tool setup make big differences in group dynamics

–    Expect agenda to be changed

–    Mix modes between verbal and computer-supported interaction

To be learned...

•      Maintainability of meeting room facilities

•      Multicultural teams

•      Long-term projects

•      Video and support to non-verbal cues in software

•      Creation of large documents by large groups

•      Measure quality

•      Facilitation support

•      Distributed facilitation


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Basic Readings

[DeSanctis 87] DeSanctis, G., Gallupe, R. 1987. A Foundation for the Study of Group Decision Support Systems. Management Science, 33(5).

[Nunamaker 91] Nunamaker, J., Dennis, A., Valacich, J., Vogel, D., George, J. 1991. Electronic meeting systems to support group work. Communications of the ACM, 34(7).

[Bostrom 92] Bostrom, R., Watson, R., Kinney, S. (eds), Computer Augmented Teamwork. Van Nostrand Reinhold.

[Nunamaker 97] Nunamaker, J., Briggs, R., Mittleman, D., Vogel, D., Balthazard, P. 1997. Lessons from a Dozen Years of Group Support Systems Research: A Discussion of Lab and Field Findings. Journal of Management Information Systems. V. 13 N. 3. Winter.

[Pinsonneault 89] Pinsonneault, A., Kraemer, K. 1989. The Impact of Technological Support on Groups: An Assessment of the Empirical Research. Decision Support Systems. N. 5.

[Turoff 91] Turoff, M. 1991. Computer-Mediated Communication Requirements for Group Support. Journal of Organizational Computing, 1(1).

[Patton 89] Patton, B., Giffin, K., Patton, E. 1989. Decision Making Group Interaction. Harper Collins Publishers.

[Johanson 91]  Johansen, R., Sibbet, D., Benson, S., Martin, A., Mittman, R., Saffo, P. 1991. Leading Business Teams. Addison-Wesley.

[Hwang 87] Hwang, C., Lin, M. 1987. Group Decision Making under Multiple Criteria: Methods and Applications. Springer-Verlag.

[Whitaker 94] Whitaker, R. 1994. GDSS' Formative Fundaments. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2.

[Applegate 91] Applegate, L. 1991. Technology Support for Cooperative Work: a Framework for Studying Introduction and Assimilation in Organizations. Journal of Organizational Computing, 1(1).

References

[Anson 96] Anson, R., Fellers, J., Kelly, G., Bostrom, R. 1996. Facilitating Research with Group Support Systems. Small Group Research. V. 27. N. 2.

[Applegate 91] Applegate, L. 1991. Technology Support for Cooperative Work: a Framework for Studying Introduction and Assimilation in Organizations. Journal of Organizational Computing, 1(1).

[Ackerman 95] Ackerman, M., Starr, B. 1995 (Nov.). Social Activity Indicators: Interface Components for CSCW Systems. Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. ACM, Pittsburg.

[Beaudouin-Lafon 92] Beaudouin-Lafon, M., Karsenty, A. 1992 (Nov.). Transparency and Awareness in a Real-Time Groupware System. Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. ACM, Monterey, California.

[Benford 93] Benford, S. 1993 (Sep.). A Spatial Model of Interaction in Large Virtual Environments. Proceedings of the Third European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work - ECSCW '93.

[Conklin 88] Conklin, J. 1988. Gibis: a Hypertext Tool for Exploratory Policy Discussion. Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work CSCW  '88. Portland, Oregon: ACM Press.

[DeSanctis 87] DeSanctis, G., Gallupe, R. 1987. A Foundation for the Study of Group Decision Support Systems. Management Science, 33(5).

[Eden 93]  Eden, C. 1993. Strategy Development and Implementation: Cognitive Mapping for Group Support. Chap. 5: Strategic Thinking: Leadership and the Management of Change. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[Edmonds 94] Edmonds, E., Candy, L., Jones, R., Soufi, B. 1994. Support for Collaborative Design: Agents and Emergence. Communications of the ACM, 37(7).

[Ellis 91]  Ellis, C., Gibbs, S., Rein, G. 1991. Groupware: Some Issues and Experiences. Communications of the ACM, 34(1).

[Greif 94] Greif, I. 1994. Desktop Agents in Group-Enabled Products. Communications of the ACM, 37(7).

[Haake 94] Haake, J., Neuwirth, C., Streitz, N. 1994 (Sep.). Coexistence and Transformation of Informal and Formal Structures: Requirements for More Flexible Hypermedia Systems. ACM European Conference on Hypermedia Technology ECHT '94.

[Hiltz 93] Hiltz, S., Turoff, M. 1993. The Network Nation. MIT Press.

[Hwang 87] Hwang, C., Lin, M. 1987. Group Decision Making under Multiple Criteria: Methods and Applications. Springer-Verlag.

[Ishii 94] Ishii, H., Kobayashi, M., Arita, K. 1994. Iterative Design of Seamless Collaboration Media. Communications of the ACM, 37(8).

[Johanson 91]  Johansen, R., Sibbet, D., Benson, S., Martin, A., Mittman, R., Saffo, P. 1991. Leading Business Teams. Addison-Wesley.

[Kaner 96] Kaner, S. 1996. Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. New Society Publishers.

[Karbe 90]  Karbe, B., Ramsperger, N. 1990. Influence of Exception Handling on the Support of Cooperative Office Work. Proceedings of IFIP WG8.4 Conference on Multi-User Interfaces and Applications. Crete: North-Holland.

[Kunz 70] Kunz, W., Rittel, H. 1970. Issues as Elements of Information Systems. Institute of Urban and Regional Development, University of California at Berkeley.

[McCarty 94] McCarthy, J., Monk, A. 1994. Channels, Conversation, Cooperation and Relevance: All You Wanted to Know About Communication but Were Afraid to Ask. Collaborative Computing, 1.

[Machrone 94] Machrone, B. 1994. Seeing Is Almost Believing. PC Magazine, June 14.

[Malone 87] Malone, T., Grant, K., Lai, K-Y., Rao, R., Rosenblitt, D. 1987. Semi-Structured Messages Are Surprisingly Useful for Computer-Supported Coordination. ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems, 5(2).

[Malone 93] Malone, T., Grant, K., Lai, K-Y., Rao, R., Rosenblitt, D. 1993. The Information Lens: An Intelligent System for Information Sharing and Coordination. Baecker, Ronald M. (ed), Readings in Groupware and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc.

[Marshak 94] Marshak, R.1994 (Aug.). Workflow White Paper: An Overview of Workflow Software. WORKFLOW '94 Conference Proceedings.

[Matsuura 93] Matsuura, N., Fujino, Go, Okada, K., Matsushita, Y. 1993. VENUS: A Tele-Communication Environment to Support Awareness for Informal Interactions. 12th Schaerding International Workshop, The Design of Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Groupware Systems. Schaerding, Austria: Elsevier Science.

[Matwin 89] Matwin, S., Koperczak, Z., Kernsten, G., Michalowski, W. 1989. Negoplan: An Expert System Shell for Negotiation Support. IEEE Expert, Winter.

[Miller 92]  Miller, D., Smith, J., Muller, M. 1992 (Nov.). TelePICTIVE: Computer Supported Collaborative GUI, Design for Designers with Diverse Expertise. Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. ACM, Monterey.

[Nunamaker 87] Nunamaker, J., Applegate, L., Konsynski, B. 1987. Facilitating Group Creativity: Experience with a Group Decision Support System. Journal of Management Information Systems, 3(4).

[Nunamaker 91] Nunamaker, J., Dennis, A., Valacich, J., Vogel, D., George, J. 1991. Electronic meeting systems to support group work. Communications of the ACM, 34(7).

[Nunamaker 92] Nunamaker, J., Dennis, A., George, J., Martz, W., Valacich, J., Vogel, D. 1992. GroupSystems. Bostrom, R., Watson, R., Kinney, S. (eds), Computer Augmented Teamwork. Van Nostrand Reinhold.

[Nunamaker 97] Nunamaker, J., Briggs, R., Mittleman, D., Vogel, D., Balthazard, P. 1997. Lessons from a Dozen Years of Group Support Systems Research: A Discussion of Lab and Field Findings. Journal of Management Information Systems. V. 13 N. 3. Winter.

[Patton 89] Patton, B., Giffin, K., Patton, E. 1989. Decision Making Group Interaction. Harper Collins Publishers.

[Pedersen 93] Pedersen, E., McCall, K., Moran, T., Halasz, F. 1993. Tivoli: An Electronic Whiteboard for Informal Workgroup Meetings. Human Factors in Computing Systems INTERCHI '93 Conference Proceedings. Amsterdam: Addison-Wesley.

[Pendergast 90] Pendergast, M. 1990. Design and Implementation of a PC/LAN-Based Multi-User Text Editor. Proceedings of IFIP WG8.4 Conference on Multi-User Interfaces and Applications. Crete: North-Holland, IFIP.

[Pinsonneault 89] Pinsonneault, A., Kraemer, K. 1989. The Impact of Technological Support on Groups: An Assessment of the Empirical Research. Decision Support Systems. N. 5.

[Rein 91] Rein, G., Ellis, C. 1991. rIBIS: A real-time group hypertext system. Int. J. Man-Machine Studies, 34(3).

[Robbins 92] Robbins, S. 1992. Essentials of Organizational Behavior. Prentice-Hall.

[Rodden 91] Rodden, T., Blair, G. 1991. CSCW and Distributed Systems: the Problem of Control. Proceedings of the Second European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work -ECSCW '91.

[Scrivener 94] Scrivener, S., Clark, S., Keen, N. 1994. The LookingGlass Distributed Shared Workspace. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2.

[Shaw 93] Shaw, M., Fox, M. 1993. Distributed Artificial Intelligence for Group Decision Support. Decision Support Systems, 9.

[Turoff 91] Turoff, M. 1991. Computer-Mediated Communication Requirements for Group Support. Journal of Organizational Computing, 1(1).

[Winograd 86] Winograd, T., Flores, F. 1986. Understanding Computers and Cognition. Addison-Wesley.