Successes and Failures in Groupware Adoption: Case Studies

Jonathan Grudin

Information & Computer Science Department
University of California,
Irvine, CA 92697-3425 USA

Technology that supports communication, information sharing, and coordination within groups is being successfully introduced. Of course, the challenges that hindered groupware adoption for two decades have not entirely disappeared, and success is likely to remain more the exception than the rule for some time. I have been examining successful cases of groupware introduction, identifying the adoption trajectory, how obstacles were overcome, and the resulting effects on work practice. Specific technologies have ranged from seemingly simple shared calendars on networked PCs to complex software enabling engineers on high-end workstations hundreds of miles apart to navigate simultaneously through huge 3-D CAD models.

Shared calendars, suddenly widespread in some environments, provide insights into success factors, but also demonstrate the emergence of novel behaviors around a new technology, and the significance of seemingly simple features in determining those behaviors. They also illustrate that software that we consider a single application is used so differently when used by people with different activity structures--even people within a single part of an organization--that it is more appropriately considered a set of applications. This is highly significant to design, acquisition, introduction, and support.

Virtual collocation technologies, supporting synchronous activity, is so useful to some distributed groups that it is being used despite substantial challenges in design and adoption. A central obstacle is the difficulty in understanding the context of remote participants; to minimize the inevitable degradation of this understanding is a key challenge.
These technologies often increase efficiency by enabling greater "visibility" across time and space. This lecture will conclude by considering some implications of these changes.