Ground Rules in Team Projects: Findings from a Prototype System to Support Students

Student team project work in higher education is one of the best ways to develop team working skills at the same time as learning about the subject matter. As today’s students require the freedom to learn at times and places that better match their lifestyles, there is a need for any support for team project work to be also available online. Team working requires that the task roles as well as the maintenance roles are taken into consideration, in that social interactions are just as important as carrying out the tasks of the project. The literature indicates that groupware, whilst effective in supporting the task roles, provides limited support for the maintenance roles of team working in the work place. As groupware was not specifically designed for student team working, it provides limited support for maintenance roles in student team projects. Virtual learning environments similarly provide support for completing the task roles. Many researchers have found that students experience difficulties with their team project work that reduce the perceived benefits of working in a team. It is proposed that helping students to agree on ground rules at the start of a project will improve team cohesion. This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of a prototype system to help students to agree on ground rules as they start their team projects. The system was tested with teams of students carrying out information systems team projects, using an interpretive case study research approach. In this case the teams had the additional problem of being composed of students from across three years of their undergraduate degree programmes, so they did not always have prior knowledge of each other’s preferences. We were trying to establish how useful this software tool would be to these student teams, in starting their project work. The findings showed that some of the student teams did find the ground rules function useful, but the team leaders were the ones who most appreciated its potential. The students may use the outputs in very different ways, but even just looking at the ground rules appeared to get team members thinking about their expectations for team working. Student teams do not often start by thinking about norms, but this study shows a positive benefit of encouraging teams to agree on ground rules at the start of their projects

Towards the realisation of an integratated decision support environment for organisational decision making

Traditional decision support systems are based on the paradigm of a single decision maker working at a stand‐alone computer or terminal who has a specific decision to make with a specific goal in mind. Organizational decision support systems aim to support decision makers at all levels of an organization (from executive, middle management managers to operators), who have a variety of decisions to make, with different priorities, often in a distributed and dynamic environment. Such systems need to be designed and developed with extra functionality to meet the challenges such as collaborative working. This paper proposes an Integrated Decision Support Environment (IDSE) for organizational decision making. The IDSE distinguishes itself from traditional decision support systems in that it can flexibly configure and re‐configure its functions to support various decision applications. IDSE is an open software platform which allows its users to define their own decision processes and choose their own exiting decision tools to be integrated into the platform. The IDSE is designed and developed based on distributed client/server networking, with a multi‐tier integration framework for consistent information exchange and sharing, seamless process co‐ordination and synchronisation, and quick access to packaged and legacy systems. The prototype of the IDSE demonstrates good performance in agile response to fast changing decision situations

Collaborative knowledge management - A construction case study

Due to the new threats and challenges faced by the construction industry today, construction companies must seek new solutions in order to remain ahead of the competition. Knowledge has been identified to be a significant organisational resource, which if used effectively can provide competitive advantage. A lot of emphasis is being put on how to identify, capture and share knowledge in today's organisations. It has been argued over the years that due to the fragmented nature of the construction industry and ad-hoc nature of the construction projects, capture and reuse of valuable knowledge gathered during a construction project pose a challenge. As a result critical mistakes are repeated on projects and construction professionals have to kee

Necessary skills and practices required for effective participation in high bandwidth design team activities

Technology is continually changing, and evolving, throughout the entire construction industry; and particularly in the design process. One of the principal manifestations of this is a move away from team working in a shared work space to team working in a virtual space, using increasingly sophisticated electronic media. Due to the significant operating differences when working in shared and virtual spaces adjustments to generic skills utilised by members is a necessity when moving between the two conditions. This paper reports an aspect of a CRC-CI research project based on research of ‘generic skills’ used by individuals and teams when engaging with high bandwidth information and communication technologies (ICT). It aligns with the project’s other two aspects of collaboration in virtual environments: ‘processes’ and ‘models’. The entire project focuses on the early stages of a project (i.e. design) in which models for the project are being developed and revised. The paper summarises the first stage of the research project which reviews literature to identify factors of virtual teaming which may affect team member skills. It concludes that design team participants require ‘appropriate skills’ to function efficiently and effectively, and that the introduction of high band-width technologies reinforces the need for skills mapping and measurement

Virtual Environments for Training: From Individual Learning to Collaboration with Humanoids

The next generation of virtual environments for training is oriented towards collaborative aspects. Therefore, we have decided to enhance our platform for virtual training environments, adding collaboration opportunities and integrating humanoids. In this paper we put forward a model of humanoid that suits both virtual humans and representations of real users, according to collaborative training activities. We suggest adaptations to the scenario model of our platform making it possible to write collaborative procedures. We introduce a mechanism of action selection made up of a global repartition and an individual choice. These models are currently being integrated and validated in GVT, a virtual training tool for maintenance of military equipments, developed in collaboration with the French company NEXTER-Group

Can procurement affect design performance?

There is an emerging view in the construction industry that better performance or better value for money can be achieved by integrating teamwork for planning, design and construction of building projects. There are though, two opposing perspectives regarding how changes in traditional design practices should occur. Advocates of sustainable construction in North America posit that it is a matter of evolving processes, moving from a sequential to an iterative approach to design, whereas the British government supports the view that a change in how projects are procured is required to transform the context that dictates relationships among the members of the team. The objective of the research is to study the influence of procurement on the performance of integrated design teams. It analyses, through case studies representing these two perspectives, the influence of procurement on the performance of integrated teams. The research is conclusive in that it is the context created by contractual relationship, and not the process set up for conducting integrated design, that most influence team efficiency. It demonstrates that traditional procurement processes reinforce socio-cognitive barriers that hinder team efficiency. It also illustrates how new procurement modes can transform the dynamics of relationships between the client and the members of the supply chain, and have a positive impact on team performance

The influence of a collaborative procurement approach using integrated design in construction on project team performance

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to study the influence of procurement on the performance of integrated design teams. Design/methodology/approach – The research paradigm is based on Russian socio-constructivist approach to activity theory. Activity theory, as opposed to natural or social science, is a design science approach that focuses on the context aspect of project. A triangulation of qualitative research methods is used to investigate the dynamic of integrated teams in two different procurement contexts. Findings – The paper is conclusive regarding the influence of procurement on team efficiency. It demonstrates that traditional procurement processes reinforce socio-cognitive barriers that hinder team efficiency. It also illustrates how new procurement modes can transform the dynamic of relationships between the client and the members of the supply chain, and have a positive impact on teamperformance. Practical implications – The paper demonstrates first that problems with integrated design team efficiency are related to context and not process – they are not technical but socio-cognitive; second that fragmented transactional contracting increases socio-cognitive barriers that hinder integrated design team performance; third that new forms of relational contracting may help to mitigate socio-cognitive barriers and improve integrated design team performance, fourth that changing the context through procurement does not address the problem of obsolete design practices. Originality/value – The paper brings together theories of production in lean construction and social learning as a rival approach to traditional project management theory for demonstrating the importance of context on team performance

Data Envelopment Analysis (Dea) approach In efficiency transport manufacturing industry in Malaysia

The objective of this study was to measure of technical efficiency, transport manufacturing industry in Malaysia score using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) from 2005 to 2010. The efficiency score analysis used only two inputs, i.e., capital and labor and one output i.e., total of sales. The results shown that the average efficiency score of the Banker, Charnes, Cooper - Variable Returns to Scale (BCC-VRS) model is higher than the Charnes, Cooper, Rhodes - Constant Return to Scale (CCR-CRS) model. Based on the BCC-VRS model, the average efficiency score was at a moderate level and only four sub-industry that recorded an average efficiency score more than 0.50 percent during the period study. The implication of this result suggests that the transport manufacturing industry needs to increase investment, especially in human capital such as employee training, increase communication expenses such as ICT and carry out joint ventures as well as research and development activities to enhance industry efficiency

An architecture for organisational decision support

The Decision Support (DS) topic of the Network Enabled Capability for Through Life Systems Engineering (NECTISE) project aims to provide organisational through-life decision support for the products and services that BAE Systems deliver. The topic consists of five streams that cover resource capability management, decision management, collaboration, change prediction and integration. A proposed architecture is presented for an Integrated Decision Support Environment (IDSE) that combines the streams to provide a structured approach to addressing a number of issues that have been identified by BAE Systems business units as being relevant to DS: uncertainty and risk, shared situational awareness, types of decision making, decision tempo, triggering of decisions, and support for autonomous decision making. The proposed architecture will identify how either individuals or groups of decision makers (including autonomous agents) would be utilised on the basis of their capability within the requirements of the scenario to collaboratively solve the decision problem. Features of the scenario such as time criticality, required experience level, the need for justification, and conflict management, will be addressed within the architecture to ensure that the most appropriate decision management support (system/naturalistic/hybrid) is provided. In addition to being reliant on a number of human factors issues, the decision making process is also reliant on a number of information issues: overload, consistency, completeness, uncertainty and evolution, which will be discussed within the context of the architecture