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Communication Differences in Virtual Design Teams: Findings from a Multi-Method Analysis of High and Low Performing Experimental Teams. Rosalie J. Ocker College of Information Sciences and Technology Pennsylvania State University Jerry Fjermestad School of Management
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Communication Differences in Virtual Design Teams:Findings from a Multi-Method Analysis of High and Low Performing Experimental Teams Rosalie J. Ocker College of Information Sciences and Technology Pennsylvania State University Jerry Fjermestad School of Management New Jersey Institute of Technology Accepted for Publication in Data Base for the Advances in Information Systems
Requirements determination is a collaborative process • Involving the interaction of analysts with the development team • For the purposes of acquiring, sharing, and integrating knowledge • To develop a mutual shared understanding of the software goals
Research Motivation • Software that fails to meet user requirements is a serious problem • Competitive pressure requires more creative and innovative software • Time pressure requires shorter development cycles
Research Question Are high performing virtual design teams distinguishable from low performing virtual design teams in terms of the content of task-related communication?
Team Climate for Innovation enhances • Design Team Performance • Creativity of Design • Quality of Design Relationship between Team Climate for Innovationand Design Team Performance
Relationship between a Team Climate of Support and Performance Creativity Climate of Support Increased Supportive Feedback Increased communication Cross- fertilization of ideas Increased creativity of team performance
Relationship between a Team Climate of Excellence and Performance Quality Climate of Excellence Tolerance for diversity Increased critical debate Flawed ideas rejected Increased quality of team performance
Communication Activity Number of words Number of messages High Performing VDTs Communication Content Supportive Debate Design Summary Coordination Other Low Performing VDTs Research Model
Task • Computerized Post Office (CPO) • groups develop initial high-level requirements for the CPO • submit requirements in the form of a report • report on functionality of CPO and the interface • one group = one report
Subjects & Groups • Subjects: graduate students in the CIS and IS majors at Eastern Universities • Most subjects had coursework and/or job experience related to systems design • group size: predominantly 4-5 subjects
Technology, Facilitation & Training • computer-mediated groups used asynchronous computer conferencing system • Web-EIES each group had its own private conference for communication or FirstClass • all groups were minimally facilitated • provided technical assistance only • all groups had trainingsession • all groups had a leader
Dependent Variables • Panel of Expert judges • Quality of report • Creativity of report • Quality Measure: The quality of each team's CPO solution was • judged based on a consideration of the • functionality • interface layout • coherence of these ideas
Table 5A. Coding Results by Team (in words) H- high performance, L – low performance
Table 6. Team Communication Activity Table 7. Mean and Std. Deviation for Team Communication Activity
Findings from the Qualitative Analysis • Design • Compared to high performing VDTs, low performing VDTs spent more communication on idea generation. • Low VDTs neglected to build upon or question others’ ideas, instead opting to contribute by suggesting more ideas. • Thus, endless brainstorming where members worked in parallel on the same activity rather than as a team, each espousing his or her own ideas with little questioning of, or integration with, the ideas of others. • Brainstorming, while good for generating many ideas, precluded an in-depth interactive discussion or critique concerning the merits of the ideas being contributed.
Findings from the Qualitative Analysis • Debate: • High performing virtual teams continually assessed their members’ contributions • Constructive conflict and deliberation was the norm as members actively participated in frequent, and often intense and direct debate of ideas and issues. • Critical examination resulted in the back and forth exchange of opposing ideas, which frequently spanned several or more days. • The critical argumentation of the high teams is in harsh disparity to the convergent behavior which was dominant in the low performing VDTs.
Findings from the Qualitative Analysis • Summarization: By High Performing VDTs • Reviewing the knowledge repository created as a result of their electronic communication, • Summarizing content. • A leader sifted through the team’s communications in order to summarize discussion content on a given topic. • The summaries provided a structuring mechanism that organized the team’s work and progress-to-date on a topic. • The summaries also served to bring all members up-to-date and thus helped to keep a team on the same “virtual page.”
Findings from the Qualitative Analysis • Summarization: Low Performance VDTs • Knowledge management activities were almost non-existent in the low performing teams. • Only one member summarized the team’s discussion of functionality. • In the remaining teams, summary comments were either absent or only re-capped a single individual’s input. • Since the means of communication was asynchronous and spanned two weeks, the content of design communications was often disjointed and lacking in coherence. • When it was time to produce the final report deliverable, the low performing teams were at a disadvantage as there were few summaries from which to directly draw report content.
Figure 5. Virtual Team Climate for Innovation Decreased idea generation Increased communication Review communication repository Increased critical debate Summarize results of debates Incorporate summaries into Final Deliverable Cross-fertilization of ideas Review and amend summaries
Conclusions & Contributions • High Performance VDTs were effective in the absence of any technological support designed to aid knowledge management • The act of summarizing appeared quite effective. • By attending to the management of knowledge, by designating the role of knowledge manager within the team, may be a simple means of reaping the benefits of knowledge management without increasing the complexities of the communication technology.
Communication and Leadership Differences in Virtual Design Teams: Why some teams do better than others Jerry Fjermestad Rosalie J. Ocker Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society, 3 (13), 2007, 37-50
Figure 1: Research Method 1998 Study Current Study Content Coding Scheme • Design • Functionality • Interface • Advantages • Disadvantages • Implementation • Summary • Summary • Write-up • Coordination • Goal • Management • Other • Digression • Other Asynchronous 4 High Performing Teams Computer Conferencing Transcripts 2 Highest Asynchronous 2 Lowest 2 Highest Combined 4 Low Performing Teams Computer Conferencing Transcripts 2 Lowest
Table 5 T-test Results for Team Leaders Using Ratio of Leaders Messages to that of the Team ** = significant at α = 0.001; t(6) α=.001 where t crit = 5.2 * = significant at α = 0.05; t(6) α=.05 where t crit = 3.14
Theory—Distributed Cognition- Information processing • Group information processing is the degree to which information, ideas, or cognitive processes are shared • Information affects both individual and team outcomes • Distributed cognition-information processing theory further suggests that sharing relates to a process activity that takes place within team members’ working memory leading to a modification of shared knowledge. • In virtual teams the information is the messages and their content. • The sharing through distributed cognition is the assimilation, combining and understanding of the shared knowledge which leads to new knowledge or knowledge presented in a new way.
Theory—Distributed Cognition- Information processing • The distributed cognition theory provides a basic framework for how teams work. • Each team member brings to each activity a network of ideas representing the individual’s prior knowledge that is relevant to the task. • As the activities continue members of the team share some of their ideas about the task and they process ideas shared by others. • As these and other activities proceed the team may construct artifacts (models, diagrams, reports) of their interaction and develop a shared understanding. • A leader (assigned or emergent) may monitor and comment on the team’s performance further enabling the sharing of information. • Thus, the distributed cognition theory suggest that team performance is the interaction of team member’s ideas, the sharing and processing of these ideas, and a leader process of commenting and processing of the shared information.
Discussion • High VDTs differed from their low VDTs in terms of number of messages, message length and in the content profile of those messages. • The high VDTs had significantly more messages, longer messages as measured by the number of lines) and had a higher message length per message than the low VDTs • The leaders of the high VDTs had more messages and longer messages than the leaders of the low teams. • High VDTs communicated more regarding aspects of the design (especially functionality, interface design and implementation considerations).
Discussion • High VDTs had more messages and message length focused on summarizing their work and discussing the write-up. • Simply put, it takes more effort to communicate more, especially in virtual space. • High VDTs not only communicated more, but they communicated regarding key design aspects of the CPO project. • Through their increased communication, it is not hard to conceive that they generated a greater number of high quality and creative ideas.
Discussion • High VDTs spent time summarizing their work and sharing these summaries with their teammates. • This supports the distributed-cognition theory in that the summarization is the development of a shared understanding. • High and low teams did not differ with respect to the amount of messages concerning team management issues, the summaries served a coordination function by keeping members apprised of their teammates’ ideas and progress. • The summaries also appear to be a key when preparing the final design report. • The transcripts shows that much of the design reports came directly from the text of comments, many of which were summary comments.
Discussion • It is the leaders in the high VDTs teams that do the summarization. In three of the four high VDTs this was the case. In the fourth team, another team member did the summarization and thus was an emergent leader. • In the low VDTs the leaders did not do any summarization at all. • It is plausible that this simple act of summarizing work, coupled with the not-so-simple act of putting forth more effort, were key aspects of the success of the high VDTs. • Effective teams have effective leaders who actively facilitate the sharing of specific information. • The research supports observations where the leaders of the more effective teams took on the role of monitor and producer • In this study the leaders are organizing the ideas about the functionality and design of the task for the rest of the team. • This summary then becomes the cornerstone of their final report.
Contributions • There are indeed measurable differences (number of messages and message length) between high and low performing virtual teams. • The content of the communication is also different between high and low performing teams. The high performing teams communicate more on the task related issues (functionality, interface, and implementation as well as on summarizing their communications. • This study has shown it is the leaders who do much of the summarization and create the shared intelligence.
