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(II D) Workgroups --- RichardGabriel 1 Dec 2001 . . . No Man is an Island, but even a well-designed and well-equipped textual electronic communications system is perhaps not adequate for all the needs of a person working in a group . . . * * * People work in groups all the time: in companies and other organizations, in meeting rooms, in the workshop, and in teams. Working in groups does not require working in physical proximity, because they will use their existing textual electronic communications systems to communicate with each other. The programming language Common Lisp was designed by a committee of about 300 people beginning in 1981 almost entirely over email using an ad hoc mailing list maintained at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Since then, numerous working groups, program committees, and software development collaborations have taken place over the Internet, and a number of companies provide real-time collaboration tools for the Net. People will find a way to work together, and the advantages of the asynchronous nature of email-style of communications makes it ideal for very widely distributed (global) collaborations Therefore, Make the textual electronic communications system amenable to workgroups by such things as making it easy to create ad hoc workgroups, threading discussions, providing archiving facilities, and enable easy on- and off-ramps to workgroups. * * * Be aware that SmallWorkGroupsComeAndGo (II A) (see also EasyToUnsubscribe (V C)); provide ConversationsThreading (IV A 1), KeepArchives , AnnotatedMessages (IV B 1), and FlaggedMessages (IV B 2); pay attention to AwarenessOfPresence (III A 3) and be careful about AwayMessages (III A 4 a); make it possible to work alone (GoAway (III A 6 a)) when necessary; be sure to account for people moving from place to place while still working in the workgroup (OnePersonManyMachines (III A 2)); be aware that come workgroups require a moderator (QualityControl (II C)); consider that some people will want to take some conversations in a workgroup to the side (PrivateConversation (I C)); and finally, make sure that each person is sure that the communication is working (ReturnReceipt (III B 5)). |
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(II D) Workgroups --- RichardGabriel 1 Dec 2001 . . . No Man is an Island, but even a well-designed and well-equipped textual electronic communications system is perhaps not adequate for all the needs of a person working in a group . . . * * * People work in groups all the time: in companies and other organizations, in meeting rooms, in the workshop, and in teams. Working in groups does not require working in physical proximity, because they will use their existing textual electronic communications systems to communicate with each other. The programming language Common Lisp was designed by a committee of about 300 people beginning in 1981 almost entirely over email using an ad hoc mailing list maintained at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Since then, numerous working groups, program committees, and software development collaborations have taken place over the Internet, and a number of companies provide real-time collaboration tools for the Net. People will find a way to work together, and the advantages of the asynchronous nature of email-style of communications makes it ideal for very widely distributed (global) collaborations Therefore, Make the textual electronic communications system amenable to workgroups by such things as making it easy to create ad hoc workgroups, threading discussions, providing archiving facilities, and enable easy on- and off-ramps to workgroups. * * * Be aware that SmallWorkGroupsComeAndGo (II A) (see also EasyToUnsubscribe (V C)); provide ConversationsThreading (IV A 1), KeepArchives , AnnotatedMessages (IV B 1), and FlaggedMessages (IV B 2); pay attention to AwarenessOfPresence (III A 3) and be careful about AwayMessages (III A 4 a); make it possible to work alone (GoAway (III A 6 a)) when necessary; be sure to account for people moving from place to place while still working in the workgroup (OnePersonManyMachines (III A 2)); be aware that come workgroups require a moderator (QualityControl (II C)); consider that some people will want to take some conversations in a workgroup to the side (PrivateConversation (I C)); and finally, make sure that each person is sure that the communication is working (ReturnReceipt (III B 5)). |