Computer Support for Collaborative Reflection on Captured Teamwork Data

© MIRROR Project - Co-Funded by EU IST FP7 – www.mirror-project.eu

Computer Support for Collaborative Reflection on Captured Teamwork Data

Michael Prilla1, Kristin Knipfer2, Martin Degeling1, Ulrike Cress2, Thomas Herrmann1 1Information and Technology Management, University of Bochum, Germany2Knowledge Media Research Center, Tuebingen


The collaborative dimension of reflection at the workplace

▪ What do we mean by collaborative reflection?▪ It‘s two: At least two people reflecting about their work▪ It‘s similar: Same or comparable context▪ It‘s on work: Informal learning, real/raw data▪ It‘s both: Individual or shared outcomes (knowledge, ...)

▪ Which are typical situations of collaborative reflection (Daudelin, 1996)? ▪ Meetings (debriefing, reviews, ...)▪ Informal and feedback discussions


Slowly approaching collaborative reflectionIndicators, taken from van Woerkom and Croon, 2008

(Collaborative)Reflection

Asking for feedback

Critical opinion sharing

Challenging groupthink

“the core processes in reflection (…) only

can be realised in processes of interaction” (Hoyrup 2004)


No sufficient insights into processes of collaborative reflection and potential support by data and other means

▪ Which are the characteristics and needs of collaborative reflection in practice?

▪ In which situations / modes does collaborative reflection happen in practice?

▪ How can collaborative reflection be supported in practice?


Case Interviews Methods

Case 1: IT consulting company

3 (9) consultants: Job and environment description, learning on the job, individual and collaborative reflection practice

Observation of work: 2 consultants, 2 days each

Case 2: Care home

4 (7) carers: Job and environment description, learning on the job, individual and collaborative reflection practice

Observation of meetings: Handover, “Reflective meeting”

Case 3: Hospital

2 nurses, 1 physician and 1 therapist: Job and environment description, learning on the job, individual and collaborative reflection practice

Observation of work: 1 nurse, 1 physician; 2 days each

Getting to know collaborative reflection: Our Studies


Type of occurrence /Relation to reflected work

planned spontaneous

Reflection with distance / separated from reflected work (reflection on / after action)

Scheduled meetings in which reflection is main task or may occur (e.g. status meetings for consulting projects)

Breaks, talks between tasks or at the beginning and end of work (e.g. experience exchange after call to customer)

Reflection occurring concurrently to work: integrated reflection (reflection in / during action)

Handover sessions as part of daily work, in which reflection may occur (e.g. telling the late shift about a service user’s day)

Continuous experience exchange during work on work (e.g. on a patient while caring for her)

WP 6 User Studies on Collaborative ReflectionModes and Processes of Collaborative Reflection


Modes of collaborative reflection: Examples

▪ Planned, with distance: At the care home a senior carer gathers other carers to what is called a „reflective meeting‟, asking them to talk about current / problematic topics. In one meeting, all carers reflected about avoiding emotional stress when dealing with difficult patients by sharing their experiences on such situations.

▪ Plannend, during action: At a care home, a nurse uses a list of service users to hand over work between shifts. In one meeting, they talk about a resident‘s complaints. Carers shortly reflect on past interaction with the resident and how to avoid this issue in the future.



▪ Spontaneous, with distance: At the IT company, 20 minutes after a call about an on-going sales process talk one consultant visited a colleague in his office and wanted to discuss and re-think possible next steps as they had had different views on them before.

▪ Spontaneous, during work: At the hospital, two nurses gathered around the patient documentation, iterate through care given and compare it to other patient care in order to re-assure the work done by the nurse in charge of the patient.


Dimensions of collaborative reflection

▪ The Social Dimension▪ reflection on tasks to be done (individually or in teams)▪ reflection on coordination in teams▪ sharing and intertwining experiences can enhance learning on both

levels

▪ The Data Dimension (data representing work practice)▪ enhance team's awareness on work practice ▪ make problems or good practice visible ▪ needs: gathering and interacting with data▪ intended cycle: interpreting data, sense making and sharing

individual understandings


Towards the support of collaborative reflection?

▪ How can data be used to support collaborative reflection?

▪ How can tools support collaborative reflection?


Using data to complement and support (collaborative) reflection

Example: Reflecting client interactions on a trade fair among sales consultants

Type of data Instance Reflection purpose

Sensor data Mood level measures Spontaneous assessments of stress and interesting talks

Workflow data Duration of conversations Analyze communication with clients

Pictures and videos Pictures from the fair Recall / compare setting and customer interest

Application content Shared library or bookmarks Rebuild context of topics discussed

Explicit notes Notes from individual reflection

Explicate personal learning and topics discussed

Work documentation Meeting / talk minutes Review conversations


Means of support for collaborative reflection

Articulation: Explicating and sharing experiences / reflection results / learnings, including rationales, ...

Scaffolding / Guidance: Supporting collaborative reflection before, after and while it happens, connect people, roles and material

Synergizing: Producing a common understanding from material and shared experiences


Applying support for collaborative reflectionOrganizational and technical means of support

Scheduled Concurrent Spontaneous All

Articulation Articulation of own results / experience: stories, annotations, …

Articulation integrated into / taken from workflows

On-the-fly documentation

Culture of documentation; accepted as valuable; enable sharing

Scaffolding / guidance

Sustainment of learnings, including context and rebuilding; next steps

Keeping up the process and preserving a shared context, sharing results from wf docs

Recognizing recurring topics, finding data, topic tags for sustaining

Producing a big picture, accessing right context, rebuilding of context

Synergizing Visualization Linking / Tagging work documentation

Tagging topics Visualizing, Linking, Tagging


Applying collaborative reflection support

Exchanging experience and reflection outcomes:

articulation and guidance

This one client asked me whether we do cloud stuff.

Example: Reflecting on client talks during a fair about cloud computing.

We did not have any statement on our cloud activities on our stand!

That happened to me, too. I told him we do it. Wait, I wrote down what we talked about.

Cloud.We do it.


We did not have any statement on our cloud activities on our stand!

Cloud.We do it.

Applying collaborative reflection support

Exchanging experience and reflection outcomes:

articulation

This one client asked me whether we do cloud stuff.

That happened to me, too. I told him we do it. Wait, I wrote down what we talked about.

Example: Reflecting on client talks during a fair about cloud computing.

Outcome: Include explicit statements on cloud

computing on the next fair to trig

ger talks and

train consultants to present cloud solutions.


How it could be: Learning from collaborative reflection

▪ Articulate▪ experiences of

different actors▪ individual reflection

results

▪ Guide the process of reflection, e.g.▪ tell stories▪ relate to other material

▪ Find synergies


Wrap-Up / discussion: Support for collaborative reflection

▪ Interaction with and making sense of data representing work practice can enhance collaborative reflection

▪ Articulation before, after and during collaborative reflection and guidance for these phases are necessary elements of support and need to be adapted to different modes

▪ Proposal: Understanding collaborative reflection as a network of communication (articulation) and artefacts (data)

▪ Challenge: Enable support by data and other means without being obtrusive and imposing extra efforts


Thanks for listening. Any questions?

Michael PrillaMartin DegelingThomas HerrmannIMTM/IAWRuhr University of [email protected]://www.imtm-iaw.rub.de

Kristin KnipferUlrike Cress

KMRC, Tuebingen

[email protected] http://iwm-kmrc.de

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.imtm-iaw.rub.de/




http://iwm-kmrc.de/


Thanks for listening. Any questions?

Michael PrillaIMTM/IAWRuhr University of [email protected]://www.imtm-iaw.rub.de


http://www.imtm-iaw.rub.de/



▪ Scheduled: At the care home a senior carer gathers other carers to what is called a „reflective meeting‟, asking them to talk about current / problematic topics. In one meeting, all carers reflected about avoiding emotional stress when dealing with difficult patients by sharing their experiences on such situations.

▪ Spontaneous: At the IT company, 20 minutes after a call about an on-going sales process talk one consultant visited a colleague in his office and wanted to discuss and re-think possible next steps as they had had different views on them before.

▪ Concurrent: At the hospital, two nurses gathered around the patient documentation, iterate through care given and compare it to other patient care in order to re-assure the work done by the nurse in charge of the patient.


▪ Reflection is common on episodic and case-based levels, but outcomes are only kept implicit

▪ Barriers: Time pressure, lacking support for instant documentation, no perceived value in explicit documentation of outcomes

▪ Group composition can have an influence on collaborative reflection▪ Preferences for reflection partners (Competence, experience, social proximity, trust in

conversational skills)▪ Range of reflection participants: Narrow (local staff) vs. broad (remote and external)

▪ Support for different roles in collaborative reflection▪ Roles from theory: Reflection {initiator, participant, helper}▪ Roles from user studies: Topic {owner, aggregator}, reflection {sparring partner,

executive}, session preparer▪ Collaborative reflection has a close relation to artefacts

▪ Artefacts guiding collaborative reflection: e.g. guiding handover meetings by a list of residents and notes on their day

▪ Artefacts supporting collaborative reflection: e.g. pointing to patient documentation when reflecting treatment given for re-assurance

WP 6 User Studies on Collaborative ReflectionAdditional Key Findings


Type of occurrence /Relation to reflected work

planned spontaneous

Reflection with distance / separated from reflected work (reflection on / after action)

Scheduled meetings in which reflection is main task or may occur (e.g. status meetings for consulting projects)

Breaks, talks between tasks or at the beginning and end of work (e.g. experience exchange after call to customer)

Reflection occurring concurrently to work: integrated reflection (reflection in / during action)

Handover sessions as part of daily work, in which reflection may occur (e.g. telling the late shift about a service user’s day)

Continuous experience exchange during work on work (e.g. on a patient while caring for her)

Challenge(s):- Context rebuilding: Contextualizing

comprehensive topics- Topic aggregation: Building a rich picture

sustaining perspectives

Challenge(s):- Context rebuilding: Contextualizing

comprehensive topics- Topic aggregation: Building a rich picture

sustaining perspectives

Challenge(s):- Instantaneous access to state of

reflection / available data (informal talk)- Sustaining / aggregating outcomes

Challenge(s):- Instantaneous access to state of

reflection / available data (informal talk)- Sustaining / aggregating outcomes

Challenge(s):- Returning to experience (time)- Following up on measures / tasks- Becoming aware of topics to be

reflected about (casualty)

Challenge(s):- Returning to experience (time)- Following up on measures / tasks- Becoming aware of topics to be

reflected about (casualty)

Challenge(s):- Rebuilding / following up on /

aggregating state of reflection- Instantaneous, casual, low-effort

documentation-

Challenge(s):- Rebuilding / following up on /

aggregating state of reflection- Instantaneous, casual, low-effort

documentation-

WP 6 User Studies on Collaborative ReflectionChallenges for the Support of different Modes


WP 6 User Studies on Collaborative ReflectionImplications for Theory and Tool Development

Theory (Reflection Model) Tool Support for (Collaborative) Reflection

Understand reflection inputs and outcomes as a contextualized network of communication and artefacts Differentiate between processes and topics levels: Intensity of returning to experiences and creation of knowledge varies

Integrate influences of roles (influence) and group composition (expertise, experience, culture)

Support multi-perspective articulation: instant / “on the fly” and unobtrusive, dedicated articulation support and cross-cutting articulation service (integration into tasks and applications)

Support transitions: adopting and withdrawing roles, combining modes and topical levels of reflection, changing participants of collaborative reflection

Provide stimuli for collaborative reflection: Awareness for topics, prompts for action / methods, scripts for sessions, ...

Education

Computer Support for Collaborative Reflection on Captured Teamwork Data