FROM THE BOOKSHELF
ANDREW RUPPEL, Feature Editor, McIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia

Computer-Supported Cooperative Teams

by Katherine M. Chudoba, McIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia

Networking computers and using technology to support the work of teams is quickly becoming one of the defining trends of the 1990s. Much of the work done in organizations product development, process engineering, marketing, manufacturing operations, and systems development is accomplished in teams. The individuals in these teams must integrate each person's specialized product, market, and business knowledge if the team is to successfully meet its mandate. Technology is seen as one way to help organizations foster collaboration and teamwork among workers, but exactly how this happens is not always clear.

Some technologies, such as interactive computer conferences, electronic mail, and group support systems, all forms of groupware, have been specifically designed and developed to help team members communicate, collaborate, cooperate, and coordinate. Yet we also know that technology can be used in many ways, some not intended by its developers. For example, we might see team members use collaborative software to advance their personal agendas at the expense of group goals. There are also instances where technology is implemented to support the work of teams, and yet it is seldom used by team members.

I offer comments below on two books whose authors recognize that we miss an important part of the equation if we focus only on the technology and ignore the organizational setting in which the technology is used. Only when we're conscious of both can we help our students, and through them organizations, create environments that are most likely to foster successful computer-supported cooperative teams.

Teams and Technology
Dan Mankin, Susan G. Cohen, Tora K. Bikson
Harvard Business School Press, 1996, 284 pp.
This very readable book deals with two timely topics for organizations. The authors describe how companies can develop and implement teams and technology which synergistically support one another. They discuss clearly how to create effective teams and how to design the technology that these teams use. One of the strengths of the book is that the authors force readers to broaden their focus to include the organization in which technology is used, and not simply to focus on the technology alone. Using many real world examples, the authors reinforce the point that technological and organizational change must occur in tandem. Because the book focuses on both methodological and organizational issues, I highly recommend it for graduate systems analysis and design classes. Practitioners in IS and HRM will also find the book very useful.

The authors' experiences lend credence to their work. Their research and consulting has taken them to more than 100 corporations of all shapes, sizes, and varieties since the early 1980s, and it is the insights gained from this work that forms the foundation of Teams and Technology. Mankin, Cohen, and Bikson have also published numerous articles and books on managing technology and innovation, teams and teamwork, and computer supported cooperative work.

Part one presents a framework for changing organizations using teams and technology which the authors call MDI, Mutual Design and Implementation. The three apexes of their framework's triad are organization, information technology, and user teams. The triangle thus formed, as the authors remind us, is also the shape of the Greek letter delta to symbolize change. Bi-directional arrows connect the three components of the MDI framework to indicate that all three areas must be considered to ensure successful development and use of the technology. Part two describes the framework in more detail, including how to identify an MDI opportunity and how to design an MDI team.

Part three focuses on the design and implementation of technology to support cooperative work. Rather than following the traditional "waterfall" systems development life cycle, the authors argue that RAD, Rapid Applications Development, should be used as the systems development methodology. RAD involves iterative prototyping and ongoing interaction between users and developers to determine system functionality and screen design, and continuing through testing and evaluation. Thus, a system intended to support collaborative teamwork is itself developed collaboratively.

The chapters in Part four discuss the larger organizational issues that surround the implementation of teams using collaborative technology, including human resource policies for assessing and rewarding team members. The authors provide examples of unsuccessful system implementations when organizations failed to synchronize the corporate culture with collaborative nature of the technology.

Groupware in the 21st Century
Peter Lloyd, editor
Praeger, 1994, 307 pp.
The premise of Lloyd's compendium is "Groupware is about people and processes first, technology and systems second." He brings together papers on the topic of groupware by 42 authorities who share their views on both the positive and negative implications of the technology. Among the authors included are Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz, who first coined the term "groupware" in 1978; consultant and author Esther Dyson; Jay Nunamaker, considered by many to be the "father" of electronic meeting systems; and Alan Benjamin, director of several information technology companies, and who was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE). One of the strengths of the book is that it provides both a grounding in the history of groupware over the past 20 years, and a look ahead to how groupware might evolve in the next century.

Lloyd's book is organized into six parts. Part one provides an overview of groupware, from its origins to its current uses. The chapters in Part two describe the tools and technologies that are used to support teams, such as multimedia, computer conferencing, e-mail, and GDSS.

Parts three, four and five contain chapters that explore groupware and implications of its use from the perspective of organizations, teams, and creativity. For example, Tom Malone and John Rockart describe in Chapter 14 how the introduction of groupware has fundamentally changed the way some organizations work. When an electronic trading system was installed on the London International Stock Exchange, the trading floor was deserted as trading moved to electronic terminals. Because the system improved coordination by efficiently matching buyers and sellers, it reduced the profits of brokers and trading specialists. Malone and Rockart posit that it is this potential decline in profits that may keep other exchanges from moving to electronic trading. And while there has not been an exodus to electronic trading as of late 1996, business publications are full of stories describing the actions of some Nasdaq traders to circumvent its trading system. Traders worked around the system, usually using the telephone to coordinate larger point spreads (difference between the buying and selling price of a stock) with other traders. Once again, simply designing technology to improve coordination and increase efficiency does not ensure it will be used as intended.

In Chapter 26, David Newman describes how groupware can be used to support cooperative learning. The scenario that begins his chapter presents students exchanging and discussing ideas using computer conferencing, idea generation tools, foreign language translators, and the like to promote deep learning. This area has lots of promise for those of us who are seeking new and innovative ways to teach our students and help them teach each other. And yet for these innovations to take hold, teachers must think "out of the box" to conceive of new delivery mechanisms, and administrators and promotion and tenure review panels must be open to new ways of teaching that go beyond lecturing or traditional case discussions.

Both Teams and Technology and Groupware in the 21st Century demonstrate that it takes more than technology to facilitate collaboration and cooperation. Those who use the technology must be open to its possibilities. In addition, management practices must be in place if organizations are to nurture the positive attributes of computer-supported cooperative technology and reap its rewards. A quotation from the foreword of Groupware in the 21st Century captures this realization:

We trained hard...but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of Progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation. (Petronius Arbiter, 218 BC)