mdarling@warren.med.harvard.edu wrote:
> Can anyone share their experiences of how their groupware got designed?
> Whose questions ultimately guided development? What assumptions were
> embedded in the design?
I can shed some light on these questions, as the last three years of my
life has been spent helping large companies, from all over the globe,
design GroupWare systems.
The major problems are:
* IS&T do not adequately take into account the nature of the
organization.
* IS&T rarely understands the technology as deeply as they should.
* The project begins with a very poor needs analysis.
* Senior managers fail to define expectations and requirements.
These are just a few of the problems. Political issues become very
heated when companies begin to design and implement a GroupWare product.
The best thing a company can do when designing a GroupWare solution is
create a cross-functional team that includes IS&T, managers, and
workers. And, IS&T needs to design the technology to fit the
organization and the work done within the organization.
I can provide additional information if anyone is interested.
--Ben Compton bcompton@geocities.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>