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A comparison of the Collaborative Information Retrieval (CIR) behaviors of

two design teams

http://www.ischool.washington.edu

Harry BruceRaya FidelAnnelise Mark PejtersenSusan DumaisJonathan GrudinSteven Poltrock

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Team work

Growing emphasis on team work as an essential part the modern workplace

Assumption a carefully constructed team can focus

attention on a problem with a collective expertise that is (somehow) greater than the sum of it parts

Teamwork is a management challenge but it is also an intriguing information problem

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Information and team work

Identifying the team’s problem Negotiating the shared gap by

applying collective expertise to the shared information problem

A point at which the gap cannot be narrowed by the applied expertise of individual team members

Shared understanding

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Shared information need

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What happens then?

Collaborative Information retrieval? Broadly defined CIR could involve…

Two or more team members working together to find information for a specific problem

Team members looking for information for a specific problem in parallel or sequentially.

Team members looking for information on the advice of other team members who had found the same or similar information earlier

and so on…..

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A group of people trying to find at the same time someinformation needed by the group

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Project Goals

Empirical: To discover manifestations of CIR in the workplace

Conceptual: To extend an existing framework to address CIR

Technological: To suggest developments that might enhance CIR

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Cognitive Work Analysis Framework

A framework designed to help information system designers understand the interaction between:

a) the activities, relationships, and constraints of work domains

b) the user’s cognitive and social activities during task performance

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Data Collection

Interviews Team leadersTeam members

Observed interactions at meetings Reviewed communication diagrams Monitored email Observed team members at work

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Design Team 1: Microsoft

Project goal was to design a web-based Help and Support Center

Project was 1 month into a 1-year schedule when observations began

Team composition a team leader, program coordinator,

product designers (senior and junior), visual designer, two usability engineers

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Microsoft: Information Needs

Content Designing access to existing content

Design Specifications Management

Views and perceptions determined the focus, pace and scale of the project

Knowing who to contact to resolve an issue Users

How customers behave

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Microsoft: Information Seeking

Gathering information from other peopleFormal Meetings

Directed at a specific information gathering purpose

Personal networks and corridor meetings

Requesting feedback giving information to an individual

authorized to release design specifications Reactions become information

Researching books, websites, research reports, or the library

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Design Team 2: Boeing

Project goal design the structural and spatial properties for

all components of an airplane system

Team Composition Team leader, seven engineers, two

technicians Each engineer acts as a “focal” for one or

more components

Observations conducted 1 month into 3-year design project

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Boeing: Information Needs Scheduling of design process

Deadlines Procedures

Appropriate format for delivering information Design specifications

Standards, design drawings, costs of hardware

Context Reasons for design requirements, company’s

vision for the product Activities of other members

Coordinate actions

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Boeing: Information Seeking

Characterized as information generation, sharing and transmission not information seeking and searching

Gathering information from other people Important to ensure good relationships with key

people Information validation or verification

Often begins with the team leader Delegation of information gathering tasks Information flow coordinated by the lead Keeping the lead up to date

Informal “brain dump” or spontaneous exchange

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Boeing: Information Seeking

Formal Meetings Weekly meetings directed at specific

information gathering from people outside the team

Team collectively decided agenda for next meeting

Formulate need through discussion; delegate the task of finding the information to one team member

Proactive information providers – anticipating needs and providing information

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Boeing: Information Seeking

When needs are not well formulated“surfing around” to bring useful

information to the surface Informal conversations with suppliers or

with team members who had recently communicated with a source person

Searching Boeing information systems

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Work Domain Comparison

Microsoft Boeing Short development time Lengthy development time Tolerance for failure No tolerance for failure

Iterative design process Iterative design process

Designing a new service Modification of existing design

Requirements unclear; based on anticipated user need

Specific, known requirements

Workstations in individual offices, not adjacent Roles flexible andSelf defined

Workstations in a shared open area

Defined division of labor in terms of functionality

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Information behaviors

Other people as information sources Design elements as information bearing objects

The design as information query A focus for information generating discourse –

reformulation, amendment, validation or answer Use of weekly meetings

Identification of information needs, seeking strategies and delegation of responsibilities

Collaboration facilitated by well-defined roles and responsibilities relative to an area of expertise Individuals able to identify their role in the team’s information

problem

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Information Behaviors

More use of documents (text, drawings, standards, databases) at Boeing

A clearer structure for information exchanging between the team and outside sources at Boeing

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CIR Challenges

A stable and inclusive definition of CIR Defn: A CIR event occurs when members of a

team call upon an external source of information to resolve an information problem

BUT… How do we define team member Teams in large organizations have extended and

flexible membership Others with a stake in the design process Vendors; stress analysts; production managers;

marketing etc.

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CIR and task

A team is defined by the task Each task defines team

People collaborating on a task The people engaged in CIR are those who will

apply the information to their task CIR is the act of getting information from

external sources by a group of people who will use this information to do a task

Actions by the people connected to a task External sources – information sources apart from

the group who are seeking and will use the information for the task

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CIR findings

CIR may be facilitated by structured support for information exchanges between a team and external sources of information

Designs are used as information queries Not all information behavior takes place

collaboratively even in teams that do CIR Collaboration occurs when defining

information problems and developing strategies for information retrieval

Retrieval is generally carried out by designated individuals