RESEARCH - ONLINE TEAMS TOO DIFFICULT

Entered 20/02/03

HUMAN LEARNING - ONLINE TEAMS TOO DIFFICULT
Cramton,C.D. (2002) Finding Common Ground in Dispersed Collaboration
Organizational Dynamics. Spring p.356-367

'This work revealed five serious problems in the way the
dispersed groups typically exchanged information.'
- C.D. Cramton

Summary

Accurate communication happens when there is high common ground - high level context knowledge - between participants. Cramton's study reveals poor levels of common ground in virtual global teams (online dispersed work groups), making them largely inefficient. She identifies the hidden, likely insurmountable, obstacles which has implications for any online communication, including simple emails.

Problem

Telecommunications have created less common ground levels. Yet companies are migrating to this perceived efficient communication vehicle, particularly seen in global teams. Remote partnering may sound fine but in reality difficult to achieve. Communication is often a 'leaky' and incomplete process. Establishing mutual knowledge is ' a central problem of technology-mediated communication and geographically dispersed collaboration.'

Method

Examined 13 geographically dispersed work teams including 1,649 pieces of email, records of online chats, and work products produced by the teams.

Problem # 1.
Failure to communicate and remember contextual information.

'Locations (simply) differ from one another in ways that are difficult for partners to anticipate.' All sorts of assumptions : quality, accessibility, different equipment features, distances travelled to complete tasks, competing work responsibilities, localised pressures, local customs etc… Could be a simple as holiday times….time differences. Simply difficult to store and update peculiarity information. Failure to understand and remember each other's deadlines.

Problem # 2.
Uneven distribution of information.

'The bucket of information being passed among team members proved to be far more leaky than they realized.' Technical errors, unintentional disregard for information. Managing perceptions is difficult. All the private exchanges and the group exchanges demonstrate an uneven spread. Mutual knowledge is degraded.

Next...

Page 1 2 3