Supporting Distributed Teams: Managing Shared Understandings

1. Supporting Distributed Teams:Managing Shared Understandings Paul DourishInformation & Computer ScienceUC Irvine

2. disclaimer • “I do not even call this a talk, because it is impossible to give a good talk when you just wrote the slides the day before.” -- Daniel Schneider

3. why distributed teams? • why use distributed teams? • problems of scale • outsourcing and organizational collaboration • project-based work • but • greater problems of coordination • lower performance • why study distributed teams? • to gain insight into all forms of collaborative work • it’s already happening • small improvements can yield large benefits

4. what is “distributed” anyway? “distributed”

5. what is “distributed” anyway? temporally dispersed spatially dispersed culturally dispersed “distributed” practically dispersed organizationally dispersed

6. what do we know? • collaboration is a subtle, nuanced activity • the fine-grained detail of coordination • the emergence of action within specific settings • the problem with formalisms • making formalisms work • the formalisable work isn’t the problem • the overhead of coordination • workflow “relieves the burden of coordination” • but often, coordination is the important stuff • Harper

7. awareness • non-task-focused understandings of action • the basis of further coordination • the London Underground example • building technical support

8. portholes

9. trade-offs in portholes • from passive awareness to engaged interaction • access and privacy • granularity • history • scalability • follow-on work (e.g. DEC, Nynex, etc) • graphical presentation • e.g. tiered groups in the “theatre” • image blurring • incorporating other information

10. common information space • early CSCW focused on “shared workspaces” • computationally shared spaces • collaborative editors and whiteboards • document repositories • studies of work pointed out problems • information is not shared unproblematically • to share information, I need to make it available to you • I need to make it available in a way that you’ll understand • you need to recognise the relevance of the information • you need to apply it to your needs • problems of decontextualisaton and recontextualisation

11. context and information • what does it mean to say that info is shared? • does it mean we both see the same thing • does it mean we share an understanding • does it mean we will use it in the same way • true even in collaborative interfaces • morten: “do people have common understandings?” • the answer is no… • the architect, the client, the building engineer, the designer • … but this has nothing to do with the technology • repeating myself – information, meaning & practice

12. common information spaces • a common information space is • a shared information repository • the practices by which that information is used • again, the interrelation of practice and meaning • consider classification • a contextualisation that identifies the meaning of information • concerned with: • “the dialectical nature of these spaces, the frequent need for additional effort in order to put, or use, information ‘in common’, the need for both closure and openness in representations, [and] their simultaneous portability and immutability, etc.”

13. common information spaces • the role of physical copresence • making activities visible • accessibility of actors • but physical copresence is not sufficient • the case of the SICU • the SICU’s solution

14. representing action • information sharing is not sufficient • in fact, it can be detrimental • the case of the British government office… • again, context – in this case, releasing information • instead, we need to consider • different perspectives on work • how the information will be incorporated into work • the work involved in making information usable • how work practice evolves • challenges for distribution

15. outstanding issues • understanding colocated work • e.g. JPL’s “Team X” • balancing access and distance • e.g. RMJM • the problems of common culture • e.g. Boeing

16. this is bad… isn’t it? • the bad news • no silver bullet • no easy technical solution • no off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all solutions • the good news • we understand the issues • we have ways of observing them at work • we know that they change!