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CREW investigators are studying geographically distributed business teams. They analyze the team’s current work situation and are make recommendations on how the team can apply collaboration technology to improve efficiency. They then interview and observe the teams months later to see how the work has changed and how the technologies are used.
There are two goals in this line of work: 1) to get a better understanding of what distributed teams need if they are to function cohesively and effectively without regular face-to-face meetings and 2) to understand how to customize a suite of technologies to fit the particulars of a work group's work, communication, management style, and culture.
To date we have studied four such teams in depth: Two manufacturing/design teams and two teams in finance, one responsible for the reporting of monthly sales and revenue and another coordinating their pricing for products worldwide. Team members are various located in the US and in 15 countries world-wide. As might be expected, there is no standard recommendation for technology to suit these different teams. Each team has its:
- unique work requirements (individuals are tightly coupled with others in getting their work done, and others need only loose awareness of the others’ actions in order to coordinate well)
- communication needs (some need to share objects or drawings in real time, others need conversations about trends and events, and others need access to repositories of information on past designs, tests, and financial figures)
- management style (laissez faire vs. one-on-one monitoring of individuals’ activities vs. moment by moment distant awareness of the status of the work)
- culture (whether team members expect to follow procedures or are free to be entrepreneurs, whether all team members are involved in decisions or not)
A number of different technologies have been found useful by these groups: Lotus Notes for tracking open issues lists and new ideas, Notes repositories for guidelines and lists of roles and responsibilities, video conferencing for helping non-native speakers of English both understand others and convey their ideas (found much superior over audio only), and video object cameras for long-distance diagnosis of faults and solutions in hard-to-describe parts.
On the flip side, there were a number of solutions that did not help the teams, though team members thought they would be helpful in the beginning. Of note, it is important how managers show their support of the use of a technology--by participating, by avoiding inappropriate monitoring, etc. Technologies that make "in progress" work appear permanent are not well received. In the end, long-distance work is very difficult to conduct, mainly because it is not clear when someone is available (calendars help, but no technology can solve the time zone difference), and when conversation ensues, it is often unsatisfactory because even with video, delays impede the clear easy conversation that is necessary.
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