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6150 Management of Information Systems and Technology
Class 3
Systems Support to
Work Groups
Asper School of Business9.614 Information Age Organizations
Part-Time MBA, April 2002Instructor: Bob Travica
Asper School of Business - MBA Program6150 Management of
Information Systems & TechnologyApril-June 2009
Instructor: Bob Travica
Updated April 2009
6150 Management of Information Systems and Technology
Outline
• Workgroup Concepts
• Group Support Systems (Types, examples)
• Team-Based Organization, Virtual Team
• Evidence in cases
• Messages for change leadership
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6150 Management of Information Systems and Technology
Workgroup Concepts
• Workgroup:- Collection of people working together on a specific task. An organization in small with shorter life.
- task, goals, division of labor (roles)
- composition, communication, leadership
- synergy vs. losses (free ride, groupthink, extremeness)
- place (collocated vs. distributed teams)
- interdependence (sequential, parallel, reciprocal)
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• K
ey a
spect
s:
- cohesion (rational, emotional factors)
6150 Management of Information Systems and Technology
Workgroups Types (Some)
• Project Teams (R+D, marketing, civil construction, public accounting industry, software developers; disband when project ends; Boeing-Rocketdyne)• Groups embedded in organizational structure (managers at CFFI, cases in slides 6 & 7)
• Communities of practice/learning (informal, peers, knowledge creation/sharing driver; Daimler-Chrysler)
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• Network-like gatherings (Open Source movement)
6150 Management of Information Systems and Technology
Types of Group Support Systems
• Time & Space-based typology of GSS (Fig. 13-1, p. 475)
• Functionality/Purpose based typology of GSS:
1. Communication for collaboration and knowledge sharing (e.g., private email, el. bulletin boards; slides 6 & 7)
2. File Sharing, Application Sharing (Boeing-Rocketdyne, Open Source)
3. Workflow Support (e.g., procurement process; slide 6, Boeing-Rocketdyne)
4. Decision Making (group brainstorming and selection via GDSS; CFFI case, Burr-Brown)
5. Project support (most of the above; Boeing-Rocketdyne)
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6150 Management of Information Systems and Technology
• Organization: Help Desk in a U.S. software firm
• GSS: Incident Tracking Support System using Lotus Notes software (a database of problem solving procedures + communication support).
• Effects: Opportunistic changes in distribution of work (division of work: front-line, back-line, and intermediary staff) Unexpected reluctance of front-end workers to involve back-end Self-motivated learning in free time
W. Orlikowski, “Evolving from Notes: Organizational change around groupware technology”, 1996.
GSS for Workflow Support
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6150 Management of Information Systems and Technology
GSS for Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
• Organization: Hoffman-La Roche, pharmaceuticals, Switzerland
• GSS: Cosis – proprietary, a laptop & Lotus Notes-based database and communication system for maintenance of medical instruments
• Users: Maintenance workers (300, globally) enter daily the content of their visits to a full text database. All can read the database.
• Effects:
Cosis improved practices of sharing experience, war stories…
Keys to success: Compact user group, evolutionary system.
C. Ciborra, “Mission critical: Challenges for groupware in a pharmaceutical company”, 1996.
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6150 Management of Information Systems and Technology
• Basis in project-driven organizations
Team-Based Organization
• Emphasizing teamwork in functional organization (education, cultural change)
• Virtual Team (kind of virtual organization; different or same organization - Boeing-Rocketdyne; learning to work together and to use technology; selective use of functionality, intellectual property)
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• Using technology for team support (management challenge: aligning social & technical)
6150 Management of Information Systems and Technology
Mini-cases
• Daimler-Chrysler
• Burr-Brown
• Boeing-Rocketdyne
• Open Source Movement (programming code is open to any developer complying with ground rules – not proprietary )
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Messages for Change Leadership
• Challenge of predicting outcomes from implementing GSS; groups dynamics hard to predict/control
• Train/cultivate people for teamwork and GSS (facilitate “buy-in”=adoption)
• Be vigilant about outcomes of using GSS, continuous management care needed
• GSS is an enabler to group work not a total solution to an organizational problem
• Define problem clearly and match it with appropriate GSS (if any)
• Eliminate alternative technologies to ensure adoption of the target GSS
• Have complete strategy of implementing GSS, don’t stop at first obstacles (CFFI)