Electronic Meeting Systems to Support Group Work

1
Electronic Meeting Systems to Support Group Work

• J.F. Nunamaker
• Alan R. Dennis
• Joseph S. Valacich
• Douglas R. Vogel
• Joey F. George

Communications of the ACM, 34.7, July 1991
2
Authors

• Jay Nunamaker
• then head of MIS Dept at Arizona Prof. of CS
• now Still at Ariz. Dir. of Center for Management
  of Information
• Alan Dennis
• then Ph.D. student in MIS
• now Chair of MIS at U. Indiana
• Joseph Valacich
• then Assistant Prof. of IS at U. Indiana
• now MIS Prof at. Wash. U.
• Doug Vogel
• then Assistant Prof. of MIS at Arizona
• now Chair of IS at City University of Hong Kong
• Joey George
• then assistant Prof. of MIS at Arizona
• now name Prof at Florida State

3
What its all about?

• People at U. Arizona worked on making meetings
  and decision making better.
• They chose the term EMS (Electronic Meeting
  System) for meeting environments with computers
  in them.
• Many groups and corporations have installed sites
  in conjunction with these researchers, much
  research has been produced. This papers a
  summary.
• The short and pithy summary they found that
  managers and participants liked EMS better, that
  88 of participants found them more effective,
  that 100 of objectives were met.
• Computers in the meeting room the bees knees.

4
The Four Mechanisms

• Process Support
• infrastructure that facilitates member
  communications
• Process Structure
• rules that direct the pattern, timing, or content
  of communications
• Task Structure
• techniques, rules, or models for analyzing
  task-related information
• Task Support
• information and computing infrastructure for
  task-related activities

5
Process Support most important

• Other three also have benefits, listed in
  article.
• Various Group Process Gains and Losses listed in
  Table 1.
• Group Memory
• comments recorded
• if participant takes a breather can catch up
  easily
• can be filtered/sorted to reduce information
  overload
• Anonymity
• reduce pressure to conform and evaluation
  apprehension
• may also increase free ridership but not so
  much of a problem in same-place
• Parallel Communications
• reduction in air-time fragmentation
• Domination may be reduced
• May increase information overload but may be
  offset by synergy and further stimulation

6
U. Arizonas GroupSystems EMS

• Deal with larger groups than most research (10-20
  people) because larger groups have greater need
  for process structure support
• General system design
• EMS Meeting Room
• Meeting Facilitation
• Software Toolkit
• Process involves a meeting leader/facilitator
  (may not be part of team itself)
• Rather than specific task orientation, set of
  tools created for generic group activities mix
  and match.
• GroupSystems tools developed organically and not
  through software lifecycle model or rapid
  prototyping.
• concept from earlier theory
• developed and tested within research group
• initial version incomplete tested to find
  additional functions

7
Tools

• Session Manager (SM)
• questionnaire (pre-session)
• agenda tool for agenda development
• during meeting control menu, starts all tools
• also during meeting facilitator can assign tasks
  to individuals
• post-session storage of organization memory
• Group Interaction 3 styles of process support
• chauffeured only one person uses EMS (public
  display screen)
• supported each member has computer. Parallel,
  anonymous communication. Mix of verbal and
  electronic interaction
• interactive electronic communication over
  parallel, anonymous medium used almost
  exclusively.

8
Tools for Idea formation/organization

• Electronic Brainstorming (EBS)
• enter separate discussions across random
  file/topics
• Electronic Discussion System (EDS)
• like EBS but can allow central file of comments
• Topic Commenter (TC)
• interactive style, high task structure, comments
  collected from individuals like cards
• Group Outliner (GO)
• hierarchically structured cards but otherwise
  like TC
• Idea Organizer (IO) / Issue Analyzer (IA)
• create list of ideas sent to group
• Alternative Evaluator (AE) / Group Questionnaire
  / Group Matrix
• voting systems, consensus-building tools
• Also tools for organizational memory and so on
  and so on and so on and so on

9
Lessons from Practice 1/2

• Anonymity more critical responses (particularly
  if non-proximal), also enhanced performance,
  larger groups may be somewhat anonymous in and of
  themselves.
• Group Size without EMS processes get inefficient
  with size. Interactive style may not be best
  unless large group. Chauffeured better than
  non-EMS. More interactivity enhances experience.

10
Lessons 2/2

• Type of Activity ambiguity (no info, no way to
  interpret it), uncertainty (framework for
  interpreting, but no data), equivocality
  (multiple interpretations). Ability of group to
  get consensus important, interactive best for
  uncertainty (idea generation)
• Group Member Proximity presence of others
  affects performance. Proximate groups more
  satisfied even when producing same number of
  results. More humor and fun when proximal, less
  task-focused.
• Evaluative Tone non-judgmental atmosphere good
  for idea exchange. Anonymous critical tone best
  and highest quatlity, but less satisfied.