Collaborative and Workflow Tools

Collaborative and Workflow Tools

A paper presented to the
Department of Information Systems
University of Cape Town

By
Ntombenhle Mngomezulu
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the course
Systems Development (INF4004W)
Seminar #10

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction 3
2. Collaboration 3
3. E-Collaboration and virtual teams 5
3.1. Challenges of virtual teams 6
3.1.1. Virtual Environment: 6
3.1.2. Trust: 7
3.1.3. Communication 7
3.1.4. Cultural differences 7
3.1.5. Team Cohesion 7
3.1.6. Software Collaboration 7
4. Drivers of e-collaboration 8
4.1. Increase in internet technology 9
4.2. Pressure to constantly innovate 9
4.3. Globalisation and Liberalisation of markets 9
4.4. Emergence of virtual organisations 10
5. Collaborative ICT tools 10
Unified communication and collaboration 11
Text 11
Media 11
6. Advantages and Disadvantages of collaboration 12
7. Issues and Challenges in effective collaboration 13
7.1. Trust and cohesion 13
7.2. Cultural Differences 13
7.3. Collaboration 14
8. Management of collaboration 15
9. Workflow 16
10. Workflow Management 16
11. Key benefits of workflow management 17
12. Workflow vendors 20
12.1 Metaphase Technology- metaphase 2.0 20
12.2. Metastorm 20
12.3. Memetex, Inc. 20
13. Relevance to Information Systems 21
14. Conclusion 21
15. References 22

1. INTRODUCTION
Collaboration and workflow are processes used within organisations to help facilitate the flow and quality of work produced by employees and teams which may be in different time zones due to their geographical location. The purpose of this paper is to explore what is meant by collaboration, its role within an organisation and to establish the benefits for an organisation and individuals using collaboration as a work tool. The benefits and disadvantages of collaboration are then explored and discussed closing off with a summary of the management of collaboration; how it’s done

References: 2. COLLABORATION Collaboration is defined as being the sharing of ideas and information among a group of individuals (Li, Du, & Wong, 2007; Riemer, Steinfield, & Vogel, 2009) • Schedule slippages • Budget Overrun (Riemer, Steinfield, & Vogel, 2009) In order to create a virtual environment where collaboration can take place, collaboration is done through some form of ICT (Li et al, 2007; Reimer et al, 2009). ICT based collaboration is known as eCollaboration (Reimer et al, 2009). 3.1.1. VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT: By virtue of working in a virtual space, existing through a computer and technology facilitated environment, virtual teams are faced with a challenge (Riemer, Steinfield, & Vogel, 2009) 3.1.2. TRUST: Establishing trust in any team is crucial and plays an invaluable role in the success of any team (Carmel et al., 2010; LaBrosse, 2008) 3.1.5. TEAM COHESION Team cohesion is the extent to which members of a group unite or find staying together to be of mutual interest (Johnston & Rosin, 2011) 3.1.6. SOFTWARE COLLABORATION Software collaboration is software that is designed to help virtual teams in their goals (Lanubile et al., 2010) 4. DRIVERS OF E-COLLABORATION E-collaboration encompasses technology that has been built on the infrastructure provided by the internet, which has undoubtedly revolutionized the business world (DeRosa, 2011; Riemer, Steinfield, & Vogel, 2009) 4.4. EMERGENCE OF VIRTUAL ORGANISATIONS A virtual organisation consists of a group of companies, acting as one company which collaborate, share skills, information and services to meet the goal of customer satisfaction (Beranek & Clairborne, 2012) TEXT Instant messaging is a convenient internet application and form of communication technology (Lu, Zhou, & Wang, 2009; Nitsckie & Parker, 2009) Email is used as a communication tool used to facilitate communication within an e-collaboration environment (Nitsckie & Parker, 2009). MEDIA Wikis and blogs are fully editable websites that allow users to read, add or edit content (Augar, Raitman, & Zhou, 2011; Majchrzak, 2009) Table 1: Advantages and disadvantages of collaboration (DeRosa, 2011) Table 1 lists some of the major benefits of collaboration within an organisation, and some of the challenges that are associated with collaboration. 7.2. CULTURAL DIFFERENCES Information sharing within organisations which take part in (DeRosa, 2011; Montoya, Massey, Hung, & Crisp, 2009) collaboration constitutes of individuals with different cultural backgrounds (DeRosa, 2011; Montoya et al., 2009)