Chapter 1: Groupware - The Changing Environment

By David Coleman

ISBN# 0-13-727728-8, Copyright 1997, 720 pp.
Now available through Prentice Hall

1.14 Using Groupware to Learn About Groupware: The Business Transformation Game

As we can see, groupware provides a number of technologies that support collaboration, communication and coordination in the enterprise, department, or work group. But how can companies evaluate whether groupware can solve their particular business needs? Much of the business community's education about groupware has come from vendors like IBM/Lotus, Microsoft, and Novell. They believe, and wisely so, that an informed customer is more likely to buy than an uninformed one. However, vendor-developed education is often limited to the vendor's product, and the potential groupware user must look at what product(s) will best solve their business problem(s) in an unbiased manner.

Consulting firms and integrators, like Collaborative Strategies, GroupWorX, Strategic Decisions Group, and PRC, provide one-stop-shopping groupware services where customers can evaluate the offerings of many vendors and determine what will work best in their organization. However, choosing the right business process and the right product is really the easy part of the much larger goal; improving the bottom line. The hard part is teaching the behaviors which are necessary for these products and processes to be effective. To that end, Collaborative Strategies and PRC jointly developed a groupware business simulation, The Business Transformation Game (BTG) which uses groupware to teach about group behavior and collaboration. The goal of the game is twofold. First, to introduce collaborative technologies in a non-threatening situation where experimentation and making mistakes will not compromise careers, and second, to teach collaborative behaviors.

Again, the easy part is working through the 'how do I get this thing to work' process. The game is fully facilitated. Participants work with leading collaborative products to experience the business processes of prioritizing issues, group decision making, assigning and following through on action items, and, ultimately, resolution of the project. These are processes with which we are familiar in traditional business settings and transferring them to an electronic environment is not particularly difficult.

The hard part is the, "how do I get us to work together" part. Realistically speaking, this should not be a surprise, since our educational and professional experiences rarely encourage collaboration. That's not to say that teams aren't the newest hot organizational theory or that we didn't participate in group projects in school. Rather, recognizing these attempts at creating collaborative environments, the reality is that when it comes time to recognize one's achievement, whether in an academic or business setting, the emphasis is put on the individual's contribution. For example, remember the science projects we did in high school and college? These projects were presented to us as 'team efforts' where we were instructed to 'work together' and 'share ideas.' However, when it came time for assigning grades, each participant was graded on at least two criteria and one of them was certainly his/her individual contribution to the project. It certainly seems peculiar to grant each member of the group the same grade when the instructor and participants are aware that some people contributed more and better material than others. In fact, we would object at the 'unfairness' of such a grading system. The problem this example illustrates, which I believe can be applied in form to many business and academic situations, is the mixed message. First we're told to work together, but ultimately, our reward is based on our individual contribution.

Recognizing that we really don't have adequate training in collaborative behaviors, the Business Transformation Game expressly teaches participants how to collaborate while providing the opportunity to experience the benefits of working this way. In the BTG professionals work with groupware technology and go through the process of solving a particular business problem--COLLABORATIVELY. This experience allows them to see, first hand, how groupware products and the collaborative behaviors they foster, will help their organization.

Unfortunately, traditional training about groupware does not address the unique nature of using groupware and therefore, fails to demonstrate in any meaningful manner, the powerful impact collaborative behaviors and products can have on an organization. For example, what's wrong with the following scenario?

Nancy needs a new car. She does her homework, checking out web sites and calling car dealers to get an idea of product features, availability and pricing. Next, she goes to her favorite automobile dealership which has a well deserved reputation for top quality inventory and service. She walks into the showroom where the salesperson engages her in a discussion about what kind of car she wants, what her driving habits are, how many miles she puts on a car each year, whether she wants all the bells and whistles, and a long list of other issues designed to identify which product in his inventory will best suit her needs. Next, Nancy is shown a video all about the car, including segments on its design and construction as well as how it handles on the road. The video even includes testimonials from established customers, all expressing their initial satisfaction with the product or explanations about how the dealership solved any problems which did surface. The salesperson answers all her questions and finally, based on this information, Nancy makes a well thought out decision to purchase the car and negotiates her deal.

What's missing? The test drive. When was the last time you bought a car without taking it on the road to experience for yourself, the feel of its drive, its acceleration, its handling on a tight curve, the atmosphere inside the car, the leg and roof room, how cramped the back seats will be when car pools involve growing teenagers, whether the radio buttons are easy to access without distracting you from the road, and most importantly, whether this car will hold the entire family, pets and camping gear for those long-weekend, summer camping trips?

The point is this, the more experience we have with a product, the better prepared we are to understand how it will fit into and impact our lives. We take cars for test drives to experience these things without risking our time, money and mental energy. The same is true for groupware and collaborative behaviors. Participating the in the BTG provides direct, hands-on experience of the collaborative environment and behaviors without consuming time and money resources or disrupting day-to-day business operations.

1.14.1 The Business Transformation Game

In general, people resist changes to how they work. In order to overcome this resistance we had to make it fun! Following the Murder Mystery game format, each person in the BTG is assigned a role, usually a business role such as VP of Sales, CEO, CFO, etc. and the only thing murdered is a business process.

Each BTG participant has a laptop computer connected to a network. We identify a broken business process to be fixed with groupware. First, everyone reviews the public and private information about his/her role. Then we begin to repair the process without groupware. As usual, pandemonium ensues. After we discuss the shortcomings of traditional approaches to solving the problem, we move on to a facilitated electronic meeting. Using EMS application is GroupSystems for Windows by Ventana, or McCall-Szerdy's Facilitate.com, the problem is discussed in a facilitated manner. Brainstorming generates viable solutions and anonymous voting takes place. When a solution is reached we proceed to the next phase.

The next step uses Lotus Notes to create a variety of discussion databases. The participants enter ideas about requests for more information, the impact of the decision and other issues, essentially creating a virtual forum or discussion around this problem. The discussion is available to all meeting participants and can be accessed locally or remotely.

Finally, we move into the solution phase where the broken process is fixed using Workflow Analyst and Workflow Builder, both workflow tools from Action Technologies, Inc. (Alameda, CA). Participants cooperate in an interactive process demonstration, adding information as needed in the workflow. Discussion continues throughout the exercise until the participants are familiar with how it feels to collaborate using groupware, what business problems groupware can be applied to, and what an "automated" vs. "re-engineered" solution will look like.

14.1.2 Benefits of Experience Over Information