Chapter 2: Collaboration Information Systems

-Collaboration occurs when two or more people work together to achieve a common goal, result, or work product
-feedback enables a group to produce something greater than any single person could accomplish working independently
-effectiveness of collaboration’s three critical factors: communication, content management, workflow control
-communication two key elements:
    - Communication skills and abilities of the group members
    -availability of effective communication systems
-Content management is when multiple users are contributing and changing documents, schedules, task lists, assignments
-workflow control is a process or procedure by which content is created, edited, used, and disposed
-client hardware consists of computers and other communication decides that users employ to participate in collaboration activities
-server hardware consists of computers that are installed and operated by IT professionals that support the collaboration system
-Software collaboration computer programs:
    E.g. Google Docs, Microsoft Groove and SharePoint
-Collaboration data consist of documents, discussions, tasks list, and other types of team data
-Two types of procedures important to collaboration
    -procedures for using the collaboration software
    -procedures for conducting the collaborative project
5 Phases:
-purpose of starting phase is to set ground rules for the collaboration
-planning phase is to determine “who will do what and by when”
-Task are completed during the doing phase
-finishing up whatever we are doing (wrapping-up phase)
-Finally iteration and feedback
-Collaboration improves team communication
-synchronous communication is when all team members meet at the same time
-asynchronous communication is when team members do not meet at the same time
-shared content with no control
    -e.g. Email attachments, shared file servers
-shared content with version management (track changes to documents and provide features and function to accommodate concurrent work)
    -e.g. Wikis, Google Docs, Microsoft Office Groove,
-shared content with version control (limit actions that can be taken by particular user, control over the changes to documents to particular users)
    -e.g. Microsoft SharePoint
-Controlling workflow using collaborative systems
    -sequential workflow means activities occur in sequence
    -reviews occur simultaneously in parallel workflow
-Using collaboration systems for decision making
    -operational decisions concern day to day activities
-transaction processing systems (TPS) are information systems that support operational decision making
    -managerial decisions concern the allocation and utilization of resources
    -strategic decisions concern broader-scope, organizational issues
-structured decision is when there is an understood and accepted method for making the decision
-unstructured is when there is no agreed on decision making method