Supporting Creative Group Processes: Design Principles for Appropriate Groupware

Creative work is often conducted in distributed groups. Therefore information exchange is frequentlyfacilitated by groupware systems. However, group work suffers from several losses such asinformation overload, production blocking, free riding, evaluation apprehension and productionmatching and yet has not been tailored to the need of creative work. In order to reduce these lossesand to best support creative group processes (CGP), we propose a framework which combines a) thestages of the creative process, b) the potential losses of creative group processes and c) differentmedia characteristics drawn from the Media Synchronicity Theory to formulate groupware designprinciples. We conclude that idea generation should be supported by asynchronous groupwarefunctionality whilst idea evaluation merits from synchronous functionality

Supporting Creative Group Processes – Groupware for Communication and Coordination

The idea of the creative individualist spawning innovations as a solitude effort is no longer realistic. Huge innovation projects, relying on project teams, have to be permanently conducted by organizations to assure their competitiveness. These projects often take place in distributed teams, making use of groupware to bridge temporal and geographical distances. Research in social psychology on group processes has revealed that group work suffers from several group process losses such as information overload, production blocking, free riding and evaluation apprehension. Moreover, creative group processes have to be coordinated to assure goal orientation and efficiency. In the shade of the Media Synchronicity Theory and Coordination theory we analyze aspects of communication and coordination support of groupware functionality. We conclude that idea generation should be supported by synchronous groupware functionality whilst idea evaluation merits from asynchronous functionality. Moreover both phases do not depend on single outstanding but various groupware functionalities to support coordination

Consulting – a Creativity-Intensive Process? Insights from an Exploratory Case Study

Creativity is an important predecessor of any innovation and a competitive factor in many industries. However, only little is known about the management of business processes that are coined by creativity. The theory of managing creativity-intensive processes provides an analytical perspective for the understanding and management of these processes. Consulting processes, at first sight, seem non-creative but show strong parallels to creativity-intensive processes (CIP). In this paper we confirm the validity of the theory’s core concept and its properties with data from a multi-case study within the consulting industry. We contribute to the qualitative empirical validation of the TMCP and thus support the generalization of the theory. Moreover, the TMPC contains strategies that organizations can employ in order to manage CIPs. In showing that consulting processes are CIPs, these strategies can be transferred, as a practical contribution, to the management of consulting processes

Documentation of Flexible Business Processes - A Healthcare Case Study

In many industries, such as manufacturing and logistics, semi-formal process models have become a common means to reason and communicate about business processes. However, in a dynamic and flexible environment the suitability of semiformal process models as an instrument of process documentation may be challenged. Hospital processes are typical examples of business processes that are characterized by both the existence of well-defined procedures and the need for operational flexibility. This research investigates the current practice of process documentation in healthcare by means of a case study in a German hospital. We aim at getting an understanding of how flexible processes may be documented to give medical staff effective guidance and how this documentation has to be managed in order to provide value in everyday routine. On the basis of our findings we give suggestions on how to effectively implement process documentations in similar settings

CONFIRMING BPM THEORY IN CREATIVE INDUSTRY CONTEXT – A CASE STUDY IN THE GERMAN TV INDUSTRY

Creativity is an important predecessor of any innovation. In the creative industries, innovation is part of the daily business. However, only little is known about the management of business processes that involve creativity. A pioneer contribution in the field of IS is the theory of managing creativity-intensive processes (TMCP) (Seidel 2009). It provides an analytical perspective for the understanding and management of this special kind of business processes. However the theory was developed in a very specific context – the movie post production. With our contribution, we focus on the confirmation and possibly extension of the theory’s core concept of the creativity-intensive process (CIP) and its specifying properties. We conducted a multi-case study in the German TV industry guided by TMCP. The analyzed data resides from the context of the visual production process and the TV format (e.g. TV movie, quiz show, daily soap etc.) as its creative product. Our data supports the TMCP’s core concept and its properties. Moreover we identified the “degree of industrialization” of CIPs as a new emergent property class. The property of the creative potential was refined to product related, as well as process related creativity and the creative impulse. We contribute to the qualitative empirical validation of TMCP and thus broaden its relevance as an analytical device for Business Process Management (BPM) in other creative contexts. Moreover a better understanding for the management challenges in the industry under research is provided

Design Recommendations for Web-based Career Guidance Platforms - Let Young Women Experience IT Careers!

Despite a variety of intervention programs in the western society over the last decades, still too few young women are interested in an information technology (IT) career. While looking for career information and guidance, young women consult family and friends but also the internet. Although there is already a plethora of career information websites, those are seldom tailored to the interests of young women. To address the IT-gender gap with the design of a platform that appeals to the needs of the target group, we firstly analyzed existing German websites for career information and guidance. The analysis was framed by literature on women’s IT career choice barriers. Secondly, we evaluated selected websites with focus groups of female students. Finally, we present design recommendations to enhance web-based career information and guidance platforms for young women to raise their interest in IT-related careers

Understanding the Digital Companions of Our Future Generation

The main protagonist in Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel is Klara, an artificial friend whose existential goal is to be children’s companion. Some aspects of this fictional narrative have begun to gradually enter our daily lives. Products reminiscent of Klara are available abundantly on the market: smart toys, adaptive learning applications, and companion robots. Children can relate to these products and perform activities together with them. Preliminary research has shown fundamental differences between existing technologies and these emerging children’s digital companions. However, we still do not know much about their benefits and risks. This paper explores different and even contradicting perspectives on the phenomenon. We present the discussion from four perspectives - temporality, use, trust and ethics, and sociotechnical design - and conclude the paper with an agenda for interdisciplinary IS research. The agenda points to the needs for a psychological, medical, engineering, and temporal research community to understand this emerging sociotechnical phenomenon and design its future for the better

What is it about humanity that we can't give away to intelligent machines? A European perspective

One of the most significant recent technological developments concerns the development and implementation of ‘intelligent machines’ that draw on recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. However, there are growing tensions between human freedoms and machine controls. This article reports the findings of a workshop that investigated the application of the principles of human freedom throughout intelligent machine develop- ment and use. Forty IS researchers from ten different countries discussed four contemporary AI and humanity issues and the most relevant IS domain challenges. This article summarizes their experiences and opinions regarding four AI and humanity themes: Crime & conflict, Jobs, Attention, and Wellbeing. The outcomes of the workshop discussions identify three attributes of humanity that need preservation: a critique of the design and application of AI, and the intelligent machines it can create; human involvement in the loop of intelligent ma- chine decision-making processes; and the ability to interpret and explain intelligent machine decision-making processes. The article provides an agenda for future AI and humanity researchpublishedVersio

Comprehensive Support for Creativity-Intensive Processes - An Explanatory Information System Design Theory

Creativity is an important precondition of innovation. However, the management of creativity-intensive processes (CIPs) is beyond the scope of standard methodologies for business process standardization and automation because of the contradictory properties of CIPs, which require both process structure and creative freedom. We develop an explanatory design theory based on theoretical constructs from BPM theory, creativity research, and collaboration engineering, with the core component of an integrated IS architecture that facilitates the design of systems providing comprehensive support for CIPs. Automated control of structured processes and support of idea development in groups increase process efficiency and creative performance. Evaluation of a sub-portion of an expository instantiation (CreativeFlow) of the architecture in a laboratory experiment suggests that working with CreativeFlow leads to ideas that are more specific, while working without the tool generates ideas that are more feasible. Further, idea evaluation support of CreativeFlow must be improved in order to increase ideas’ feasibility and relevance. The validity of our theory is derived from a deductive development approach. We indicate limitations and further research