Developments in the networking of interactive multimedia spurred by the convergence of telecommunications and computing technologies will cause dramatic changes in the way we work, learn, and live. The effects of global change are beginning to surface in the business environment. A 1994 Gartner Group report makes note of these global changes. "The move to groupware reflects a shift in management models from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. Information technology will play a critical role by better 'informating' employees with 'just in time -- extremely current -- information.' "3
This same report emphasizes that, "Groupware is not a product. It's a design center, a way of building applications and solutions. Groupware products are platforms on which groupware solutions can be implemented.... An effective groupware strategy depends on the presence of a coherent backbone services strategy, which, in turn, depends on a coherent core network infrastructure strategy."4
Key problems with groupware deployment include:
While these problems are difficult to manage in corporate LAN/WAN environments, they become more complicated as companies expand from intra-office networking to inter-office networking with clients and global partners. In the public and small business sphere, lags in the diffusion of connectivity, hardware, and software caused by economic constraints and user inexperience continues to be problematic.
A recent story in Fortune asserts that global competition is forcing companies to make the investment in groupware because the only thing sure to be harder than operating with teams is operating without them.5 But, they also point to a recent survey conducted by The Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California which showed that, while 68% of Fortune 1,000 companies use self-managed or high-performance teams, only 10% of the workers participated in teams. It seems that companies are utilizing groupware considerably more for "work groups" than for teams.
Grantham and Nichols relate teams and technology to a business process that can be described in terms of temporal and spatial flow, pace, and information flow. They define three characteristics of information flow:
In this model, technology is characterized by how fast it changes, how it provides feedback, and how visible it is. Technology and teamwork interact. Each seems to simultaneously cause and effect. The key issues are:
Teams are also central to The Institute for the Future's description of groupware as: "the most common term used in the marketplace to describe the information technology to support flatter, team-based, network-style organization and its collaborative work groups." Groupware is related to:
[A] strong trend in the U.S. toward what we think of as a "marginal" workforce, working at the margins of full-time work.... By the year 2000 these non-traditional work arrangements will approach one-half of the total U.S. workforce.... It is clear that the organization of the future in the U.S. will have less hierarchy (although hierarchy will not go away completely), it will be network-style in its structure, and it will be team driven. By teams we mean small, ad hoc, cross-organizational, time-driven, task-focused work groups.7
Groupware design should seek the flexibility of different time-different place, "virtual" interactions, with the personal familiarity of a face-to-face meeting. As place and time give way to virtual spaces, communications can be organized along asynchronous and synchronous modes of communications, delineated into four basic types of groupware options: same time/same place, same time/different place, same place/different time, and different place/different time.
Table 1 outlines where some of the most important communications tools fall in this paradigm. It should be noted, however, that these are non-exclusive categorizations, and some technologies are useful in several categories. We should also note the importance of the simplest of tools, such as the fax and phone. Conference calling (simple group audio teleconferencing), for example, constituted a $1 billion dollar market in 1993.
| Table 1 | |
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| Same Time/Same Place Technologies (Face-to-Face Meeting) | Different Time/Different Place Technologies |
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| Same Time/Different Place Technologies (Simulating Face-to-Face Meeting) | Same Place/Different Time Technologies |
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| Source: Institute for the Future | |
Groupware for teams appears to succeed most often when it is simple and relies on simple applications built quickly and evolves in small, gradual steps based on user feedback. In addition, teams must be implemented in combination with other organizational changes. When they're introduced in isolation, with little or no training or support, they tend to fail. Knowledge workers or creative types whose primary tasks are done alone aren't necessarily better off in a team; making them sit in a team meeting waiting to reach a consensus can even stifle creativity. The most common problem: inadequate planning leads to the wrong teams being formed for the wrong kind of job.
The formation of teams is a factor that should be incorporated into the groupware design process. Organizations should build on their specific structures and goals. Key questions to ask are:
The following two tables provide useful information for designing teams and groupware. Table 2, abstracted from literature dealing with teams, outlines key considerations for the development of teams. Table 3 defines five of the most common "species" of business teams. Depending on their structures and needs, however, organizations may have other types of teams.
| Table 2: Key Considerations for Developing Teams |
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Use the right team for the right job.
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Create a hierarchy of teams.
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Develop integration teams: A fourth layer of management to move information horizontally.
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Teams require trust.
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People issues should be tackled head-on.
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| Source: Fortune (September 5, 1994) |
| Table 3: The Five Most Common "Species" of Teams |
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| Source: Fortune (September 5, 1994) |
As envisioned by the Gartner Group, a Design Center defines primary constraints that come into play in the design and tradeoff processes. Ideal groupware solutions are optimized around three factors: User-Centric, Externally Aware, and Individually Rewarding (see Table 4).
| Table 4 | ||
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| User-Centric | Externally Aware | Individually Rewarding |
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| Source: The Gartner Group | ||
User-Centric models focus on design by class of user, identifying specific benefits to deliver to each class of user and biasing the system toward optimizing around user (and job specific) needs rather than system resources. Leverage the human asset, not the system. These models support flexible, ad hoc, user-driven processes. User-Centric systems recognize the different roles and responsibilities of the user and the system:
Externally Aware factors revolve around issues of portability and connectivity. A stateless design -- one that considers all possible user platforms -- should be implemented that supports the broadest range of user styles and connectivity options. Since various system and external factors may cause interruptions in data flow, design should also assume that the communications state is only sometimes connected. Workstations should be able to perform even when connectivity problems occur.
Individually Rewarding factors rely mostly on hardware and software design, but are also related to User-Centric factors. Users should feel as close to the data and operations as possible. Groupware should be easy to use and connect to. It should facilitate work -- not complicate it, and users should feel that it adds value to their work. Interface design should be sensitive to the particular culture of the user. Executives, for example, may not like entering long strings of texts, or even using keyboards. Instead of users conforming to the process, the process should adapt to the user.
User-Centric systems, like most groupware mail and scheduling packages, tend to be document smart and data stupid, despite the emergence of semi-structured documents. Process-centric systems, like most client/server applications, tend to be data smart and document stupid. This dichotomy is a major barrier to both business and educational communications, as business increasingly adopts networked communications, and universities increasingly seek to adopt the best in scheduling, calendaring, e-mail, workflow, and distributed data systems.
New models are also emerging from university environments and impacting product development. An excellent example is the Mosaic client/server architecture developed by the University of Illinois which has been a driving force in the emergence of Internet access via service providers such as MCI and America Online. While the diffusion of home information networks will be fueled by the demand for entertainment, the most successful service providers will likely be those who also offer services that address changing needs and demographics, such as distance learning and telecommuting. In addition to the development of new applications, the move toward groupware to support collaborative work in universities will prepare the workforce of tomorrow to be more team-oriented, more technologically capable and innovative, and better prepared to deal with the global environment.
For the business environment, the first (micro) wave of change is likely to be characterized by four factors:
The market will be driven primarily by the way management strategies for teamwork are evolving. Groupware adoption is currently less than 5%, but the industry is entering a rapid adoption phase which should continue for the next five years.10
Groupware will stabilize over the next 10 years as it becomes an integral part of the system software. A new form of groupware, described as the "Little Sister" paradigm (as opposed to "Big Brother"), will emerge. Intelligent personal professional assistants will evolve into personal groupware.
"Personal groupware is defined as technology that records interpersonal interactions, extracts patterns, and interrogates their owner about the interactions, building a heuristic model. It advises the users and does their bidding semiautomatically."11 Intelligent agent technology is developing rapidly and will play an important role in "informating" society. At last year's Groupware '94 conference, vendors demonstrated sophisticated agents that can scan data sources for context and meaning, rather than just words.
Abstraction is key to both ROI and cost/benefit analysis. Additionally, it adds value to the growing quantity of multimedia data being compiled, stored, and accessed via client/server technology and large interdependent networks. Key factors affecting the growth of networks are issues over the ownership of information and ongoing developments in applications relating to the security of the networks. These factors are increasingly important as defense industry repurposing, and national information infrastructure projects are launching gigabit testbeds for linking research and educational institutions, government, and industry. All will require the skills of information workers.
Robert Johansen says an important reason for instituting groupware is to achieve continuity. He is optimistic about the future of groupware and collaborative work because the human and organizational needs are so great. He believes that "groupware is gradually overcoming barriers that are part technological, part social, and part cultural."13 This notion of continuity is related to the changing nature of the workforce -- employers want to retain more of the knowledge of veteran staff who retire or move on. Continuity will also be important as public and private institutions begin to establish networks that will carry them into the 21st century.
Developments in groupware and networking technologies occur symbiotically. Advances in one spur developments in the other. For example, many of the simplest applications for automated information retrieval that make navigating massive networks possible are tested and improved in public/private networking projects. Some simple search tools, or "knowbots," are already proliferating on the world wide web. These represent the "larvae stage" of intelligent agents and are referred to generically as "spiders" and "robots," or by proprietary names such as "Lycos," "WebCrawler," or the "WWW Worm.".
| Table 5 Functions That Groupware Supports | |
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Examples of intelligent machine development at advanced research laboratories include:14
The development and diffusion of these types of technologies will radically change our conceptions of work, learning, and leisure activities and will depend greatly on advances (and increasing affordability) of the silicon chip. In his book, Microcosm, George Gilder states:
The Central event of the 20th century is the overthrow of matter. In technologies, economics, and the politics of nations, wealth in the form of physical resources is steadily declining in value and significance.... The powers of mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things.... Today, ascendant nations and corporations are masters not of land and material resources but of ideas and technology.15
If, as Gilder claims, we are shedding our "materialism," then groupware systems must be "designed" to address all aspects of communication. Groupware design needs to recognize the value and facilitate the creation of the immaterial: those virtual and intellectual products that are increasingly shaping our future.
Illustrations of concepts from this article have been published on the World Wide Web in connection with a teleconferencing seminar between the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas, El Paso on the effects of NAFTA and other border issues. They may be accessed through the table of contents at http://naftalab.bus.utexas.edu/. -- Ed.