Electronic Commerce Customer Relationship Management: A Research Agenda
Information Technology and Management
Multi-team facilitation of very large-scale distributed meetings
ECSCW'03 Proceedings of the eighth conference on European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
Facilitation Roles and Responsibilities for Sustained Collaboration Support in Organizations
Journal of Management Information Systems
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Over a decade of face-to-face GSS research and practical experience suggests that facilitation skills maybe just as important as the collaborative support tools a team uses. Facilitation research in face-to-face environments has proven to be complex and the results have been varied. While insights have been gained through both research and real work experience, much of it remains ungeneralizeable to or across other situations or teams. Today complex environmental and organizational pressures are driving a move towards teamwork for business teams distributed along the dimensions of space, time, and technology. Distributed teams must collaborate effectively and efficiently to solve complex problems in a timely manner. Many information systems provide simple information sharing, however GSS research suggests that productive problem solving extends far beyond mere information sharing. Group Support System (GSS) researchers and product reviewers suggest that simple discussion GroupWare tools may fall short of supporting additional phases of group problem solving. As teams move into this new distributed or "Virtual" realm, user experiences suggest that both facilitation and participation complexities increase and even skilled face-to-face facilitators have a tough time keeping sessions on track, that is if they can get them moving at all. Field research is needed to gain insights into the processes and technological support mechanisms required to enable distributed facilitators to provide effective support and distributed participants to effectively contribute. This paper presents lessons learned from four years of experience with virtual teams and a three year case study with the US Navy at Sea on board the USS Coronado. Field action research is used to study the domain of distributed GSS facilitation and participation. Distributed teams worked together using GSS tools from their work desktops, homes or where ever they found themselves to solve complex problem and complete work together that they could not do without distributed GSS technology and facilitation. The results of the research have lead to valuable lessons learned and a set of guidelines for effective distributed facilitation and participation.