Electronic Group Calendaring: Experiences and Expectations

1. Electronic Group Calendaring:Experiences and Expectations Beth Marcia Lange Center for Strategic Technology Research Andersen Consulting Presentation by David Brooks dbrooks@cs.brandeis.edu

2. Findings (Claims) “We found that there are two highly-related elements to the use of groupware: the set of features and capabilities these products provide, and the integration of these products into the corporate environment.”

3. Meeting Maker’s Features Individuals: • Propose meetings • Maintain personal calendars (Accept/Decline Proposals) • Access the calendars of shared resources • Overlap/Conflicts allowed Resources: • Automatically accept on first come first serve basis • No overlap allowed

4. Acceptence of Features • User Responses: • “can schedule room simultaneously” • “easy to change meetings” • “ease of scheduling meetings with standardized protocol” • Requested Features: • More views (week, month, etc.) • Meeting proposal status (who has confirmed) • Improved notification of conflicts • Wait list of resources • Interface to e-mail capabilities (non-user notification) • Printing capabilities

5. Keys to Successful Integration • Provide a list of expected uses • Generate guidelines (expected social protocols) • Select key users (Lead by example) • Modify procedures (adjust to new system) • Support different users styles of adoption

6. Expected Uses Goal: to replace paper scheduling of conference rooms with a more efficient and decentralized process. Decentralized  Yes More Efficient: • More timely  Possibly (depending on user acceptance) • More information  Possibly (depending on acceptance of guidelines)

7. Generate Guidelines Goal: To have a consistent format for reserving rooms. • Documentation including: • Steps for viewing a Resource’s Calendar • Steps for proposing a meeting • Remind users that resources don’t accept conflicts • Asked to negotiate conflicts externally (phone, email,etc.) • Define terminology

8. Select Key Users • Chose 18 initial users who most frequently reserved the meeting room and included all managers. • Everyone else was asked to reserve rooms through executive secretaries • Currently 63 users and 7 resources

9. Modify Procedures (Adjust) • Goal: • Eliminate paper calendars altogether • Result: • Users showed apprehension but as the process showed more efficient they became accepting of the change • “save time and energy arranging a meeting – it does the work for you”

10. Support Different Styles of Use • Four Styles of use: • As-needed: not a regular basis user • Proxy: schedule for someone else • Indirect: use a proxy • Advocates: use on a daily basis All groups found using system for scheduling meetings (following new procedures and guidelines)

11. Drawbacks • Less than 100% adoption rate: • decreases effectiveness • causes missed meetings • requires more time scheduling meetings (must contact non users)

12. Review • Identify communication problems • Match computer solution to existing problem • Educate on positive impact • Step by Step training (Guidelines) • Encourage top management use (Key Users) • Modify Procedures • Troubleshoot quickly to avoid rejection

13. Current Systems • Netscape Calendar • Brandeis Campus • Microsoft Outlook (Exchange Server)