Cognitive-Based Guidelines for Effective Use of Collaboration Tools
Abstract
Industry is creating many types of collaboration tools. These include not only general purpose group collaboration tools like e-mail and shared whiteboards, but also tools to facilitate group processes like brainstorming and negotiation, tools to help manage workflow, and tools that help people understand one another. Experience shows that not all teams collaborate effectively all the time and for all tasks. We hypothesize that teams are not taking full advantage of available collaboration tools and that doing so will improve team effectiveness. The research described here, part of a Navy SBIR, seeks to identify and validate theory-based guidelines to help teams select the tools that are right for their team and their tasks. Identification and validation of these guidelines requires taxonomies for tasks, tools, and teams, a cognitive-focused collaboration theory, and a validation process. This research will build on the insight and expertise of expert practitioners. Such practitioners have distilled many rules of thumb for effective collaboration. Informed by taxonomies and a cognitive theory of collaboration, the SBIR guidelines to be developed here will both generalize these existing guidelines and focus them on those collaboration environments where they are most critical.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADA523158
Entities
People
- David Noble