6150 Management of Information Systems and Technology Class 3 Systems Support to Work Groups Asper School of Business Information Age Organizations Part-Time MBA, April 2002 Instructor: Bob Travica Asper School of Business - MBA Program 6150 Management of Information Systems & Technology April-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 2 of 10

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) 3 of 10 Key aspects: - 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 ) 4 of 10 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 , el. bulletin boards; slides 6 & 7) 2. File Sharing, Application Sharing (Boeing-Rocketdyne, Open Source)File SharingApplication Sharing 3. Workflow Support (e.g., procurement process; slide 6, Boeing-Rocketdyne)Workflow Support 4. Decision Making (group brainstorming and selection via GDSS; CFFI case, Burr-Brown) 5. Project support (most of the above; Boeing-Rocketdyne) 5 of 10

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”, GSS for Workflow Support 6 of 10

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”, of 10

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) 8 of 10 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 ) 9 of 10

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)