“Paper is here to stay”. Are you curious to know why? And do you want to know what lessons can be learned from the use of paper - for example, to improve digital systems for document management? In this presentation, Olha Bondarenko (currently working as a Productivity Professional at Philips) summarizes the results of seven years of research into this subject, carried out at the Eindhoven University of Technology, Océ, and Novay.
Archive for the ‘research results’ Category
Paper is here to stay
Monday, June 7th, 2010Distributed Agile: communication and common ground
Friday, January 29th, 2010Cross-posted from Mathemagenic
With the holidays I somewhat took a break from blogging on our work on the distributed Agile case, but there are still quite a few things there that I wanted to share to hear what do you think. This one is a bit scary since I picked up some ideas from linguistics without having a proper reading of the work behind it, but at times this is the price to pay* for sitting between research and practice.
So, the picture on the right is a simplified version of the work of Herbert H. Clark:
According to Clark, in order for one person to understand another, there must be a “common ground” of knowledge between them. He shows how people infer this “common ground” from their past conversations, their immediate surroundings, and their shared cultural background. [This is from a back of Clark's book "Arenas of language use"]
In my terms: communication is enabled by the common ground between the participants and, in turn, contributes to building more common ground over time. Taking it a bit further, it is useful to distinguish between two components of the common ground:
- information that the participants share (not necessarily explicitly, as it is often assumed that others know about X because of shared cultural, educational or work background) – I talk about shared knowledge and awareness of the bigger picture here
- relationships between the participants – knowledge about each other and trust
Now to the distributed Agile teams. At a starting point there is a big distance between the team members:
- different locations that make it difficult to rely on team-building and ad-hoc interaction that naturally happens in a co-located team;
- time differences that in some cases provide only a small window of opportunity for interactions;
- different cultures, organisations and levels of technical expertise create difficulties of getting a team “on one page” needed for seamless work.
Distance between team members across different locations creates a vicious circle:
- lack of common ground, the need for using technology and addressing time issues make communication challenging
- challenges in communication make it difficult to overcome initial differences between teams, to build relationships and shared understanding of the bigger picture behind work
This picture is not that far from what you can learn by reading about the challenges of distributed Agile and solutions to address them, but hopefully it can help to address the problems in a more systematic way: spending time on establishing shared understanding and relationships in the team (especially in the beginning) and finding ways to shape communication processes and tools that not only allow to get things done, but also contribute to growing awareness and relationships over time.
My personal “hobby horse” is around the last point. From what we have seen, the communication in distributed teams often shrinks to purely functional and, compared to face-to-face settings, there is much less unstructured informal interactions – this works for getting the work done (at some level), but seriously limits the opportunities to build awareness of the bigger picture and relationships. Most of the solutions in respect to building the common ground in distributed Agile teams still rely on making sure that there are opportunities to visit each other, while there is a lot of space for a technology-mediated ways to do so next to the f2f.
* The ideas behind this post are grounded in insights coming from research on computer-mediated communication and distributed teams, but I need more time to read papers and to integrate research ideas in a systematic way. Hope to blog about it soon.
Shrunken communication in distributed teams (the egg of communication :)
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009Cross-posted from Mathemagenic
As promised – more thinking from our project looking at the challenges in distributed Agile teams. One of the first things we have observed was a heavy focus on goal-oriented communication between people in different locations: they would talk (this includes ‘type’ 
about solving particular problems around work, but hardly anything else. I drew a picture to explain what happens in this case that others found useful and quickly nicknamed “the egg” – so, here it is.
You can look at communication in a team across two axes. The first one (horizontal) is about what triggers it. I find it useful to distinguish between goal-oriented and opportunity-driven communication:
- Goal-oriented communication is about work-related problem solving and coordination. It’s the task at hand that forces you to approach others to sort out things with them. This is the case where you wouldn’t hesitate to plan a meeting, send an email or pick up the phone to call.
- Opportunity-driven communication is about things not 100% necessary, but potentially useful, or, even, not very useful, but just said at the moment (“good morning everyone!”). Think of the cases where you wonder if your email is ’spamming’, add “by the way, do you also know…” or most of the conversations at the coffee corner. In this case communication is triggered by an opportunity – bumping into people, interesting things happening, ideas floating by or just an awkward silence that forces you to look for a topic to continue. This type of communication is piggybacking on something else: either happening around goal-oriented communication (e.g. side conversations at a meeting), other activities (having a coffee together) or observing others (e.g. seeing a colleague and remembering to ask them about something).
Vertical axis is about the ‘pre-arrangeness’ of communication (I’m not sure with the terms here, so any suggestions are welcome):
- Structured communication is expected and, to an extend, formalised. Planned meetings, promised memos and status reports are here. In this case there is time, space and resources needed to communicate (or, at least, nobody questions that they should be there).
- Informal communication is about everything else. It’s also expected, but in a more fuzzy sense (“let me know if there is a problem”). It’s not likely to be known in advance when and how it will happen, so it’s more difficult to allocate the resources for it.
In a co-located team all types of communication have place (the whole egg . There are enough triggers for an opportunity-based communication and being in front of someone makes negotiating about time, space and channels for informal communication easy (you rather make a minute to talk about the thing, say “no” or make an arrangement about communicating later on).
In a distributed team communication shrinks to the basics (egg yellow . From one side, when there is no “easyness” of face-to-face settings, we are likely to rely on structured communication, since negotiating time and resources for informal communication is more challenging (e.g. email might be not read for a while, phone is interruptive and costly, etc.). Informal communication is still happens, especially in the goal-oriented space, but the chances for it are lower, because it’s extra taxing (e.g. questions that would be asked in a meeting may not get get asked in email or IM chat). For opportunity-driven communication it’s even worse: lack of shared physical space results in far less triggers that might turn into a conversation: there are not many non-essential activities (no drinking coffee online , it’s more difficult to observe others and even goal-oriented communication mediated by technology tends to be more “on topic” (from my experience “social talk” at a face-to-face meeting happens much easier than in a phone conference or email exchange).
There are quite a few more things to add here (in particularly about the negative effects of shrunken communication and ways to extend it), but nobody likes very long blogposts
Keeping Mobile Workers In Sync and In Touch: Big Challenges, Modest Solutions
Thursday, September 24th, 2009Within Future Workspaces, Jennifer Curtis conducted a study of mobile workers in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Professional Doctorate in Engineering in the area of User-System Interaction from Eindhoven University of Technology. Her findings are summarized in this post. The complete project report can be found here, and corresponding presentation here.
The two main goals of Jennifer’s project were to: (1) Identify the consequences and challenges of mobile work – particularly with respect one’s ability to stay up-to-date (i.e., in sync) and connected (i.e., in touch) with his or her distant colleagues; and, (2) come up with potential design solutions to address these challenges.
Project Buzz Tracker
Monday, August 17th, 2009
Steven Haveman, Industrial Design Student at the University of Twente completed his master’s graduation assignment within FWS on a study towards new ways of working for system architects. This post is a roundup of the results obtained in this research project. It shows the general findings and the findings regarding the concepts that were developed.
Steven’s research project has been a study towards new ways of working for system architects. System architects are responsible for the architecture of complex systems, like printers, MRI-scanners or radar systems. A series of interviews has been conducted with system architects at Océ, Philips and Thales to discuss concepts and obtain insights. This resulted in Project Buzz Tracker, a tool that couples activity information to project and workflow planning. Persons frequently give an update on their actions, thus showing the Buzz in a project. By observing this overview, the system architect can see concentrations or a lack of Buzz. These can be indications of problematic issues. Project Buzz Tracker will further strengthen team cohesion, especially if distant workers are involved.
(more…)
Results: Learning from paper to improve digital technology
Thursday, October 16th, 2008For decades, the paperless office seems to be just around the corner. However, even with the advent of laptops, smartphones, and mobile working styles, the reality today is that in most offices paper is still everywhere. Apparently, paper is fulfilling an important role for knowledge workers that digital technology still doesn’t. (more…)
Challenges for the nomadic worker: Part 3: In Flow
Sunday, September 21st, 2008In the series of posts on the main challenges for the nomadic worker, this part focusses on the challenge to get work done for which concentration is needed. The constantly lurking distractions in an always connected world (combined with our information addiction) often prevent us from getting such tasks done. According to research by Csíkszentmihályi (1990), concentrated work requires a person to be “in flow“.
What is being “In Flow”?
Flow is a mental state in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990). (more…)
Challenges for the nomadic worker: Part 2: In Touch
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008In the series of posts on the main challenges for the nomadic worker, this part focusses on the challenge to stay in touch with the people that are important to you in your personal and professional network.
What is being “In Touch”?
Being in touch is the affective version of being in sync. It is the sense of “being connected” both with people you know well (your strong relational ties) as well as with people you are acquinted with (your weak ties). Important aspects are reassurance of the well-being of significant others, and the ability to let someone else know you are thinking of him or her. (more…)
Challenges for the nomadic worker: Part 1: In Sync
Monday, September 1st, 2008In the series of posts on the main challenges for the nomadic worker, this part focusses on the challenge to be up-to-date with the people you are collaborating with: being in sync.
What is being “In Sync”?
For an individual, being in sync refers to a mental state characterized by the ability to easily put information and activities in their proper context. In sync is situational, i.e., one is typically in sync with a group of people, a project or an activity. (more…)
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