Launching the Project: An Exercise for Demonstrating the Impact of Team Communications on Project Success

Research amply demonstrates that communication is an important determinate of project team success. Teaching team communication skills can be difficult, however, as team assignments are typically completed outside the classroom. Team communication education generally focuses on team dynamics or the interpersonal communication among team members, leaving aside some of the most important elements of project management communication in the development of information systems: task definition and assignment, project documentation, and integration of new members into the ongoing communication process. A self-contained learning unit was designed to introduce a class of senior-level information systems students to these group communication issues and show their importance to the successful completion of a project

vManagement: Initial Exploration of Management Practice

For several years, the authors have maintained a simulation (sim) in Second LifeTM, with management responsibility for allocating sim resources across research and instructional projects, some of which involved working with residents. Although not originally anticipated to be a research site in management theory and practice, the project presented an unexpected pattern of difficulty and an unexpectedly rich case study to examine why and how the virtual environment generated norms of power and empowerment for which traditional management practice was not effective. We conducted a theoretical thematic analysis on a body of conversation transcripts, meeting agendas and minutes, email messages and other administrative documents, applying concepts from the literature on presence, copresence, embodiment and social capital, seeking to identify the sociocultural context and structural conditions that shaped meanings and experiences of participants in this project. This exploratory analysis suggests a need for development of management theory and practice based on norms of empowerment shaped by designer-user role hybridization – in short, vManagement

JIT in Services: A Review of Current Practices and Future Directions for Research

Maintains that, although service industries would benefit from research concerning the implementation of just-in-time (JIT) techniques, most research has focused on JIT only in manufacturing firms. A review of applied journals and articles, however, revealed JIT concepts migrating to non-manufacturing environments. These articles describe JIT techniques successfully moving from the factory floor to other environments and suggest a potentially rich research opportunity. Summarizes these articles using Benson\u27s guidelines for applying JIT in service. Illustrates various JIT applications within each of the JIT categories