TITLE : TEAMS AND TECHNOLOGY: FULFILLING THE PROMISE OF THE NEW ORGANIZATION.

PREFACE

Any project that has to deal with collective information has to make sure that all information can be spread out and used equally. It doesn't have to be music, it can be just whatever information.

-Ornette Coleman, jazz musician, explaining his theory of "harmolodics."

TEAMS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY are two of the most important developments in organizations today. Vast amounts of time, money, and effort are spent with the expectation that their impact on the bottom line will eventuall! justify their costs. But many organizations are disappointed in the results. Few are getting the bang from the many bucks they spend each year to create teams and to develop new information systems. The challenge facing these organizations is how to fulfill the potential of these two promising and complex developments.

The premise of this book is that each is necessary to take full advantage of the possibilities created by the other-that is, information technology can make teams more effective, and teams can help fulfill the promise of new information technology. Together, teams and new in- formation technology can catalyze dramatic improvements in organizational performance. How to make this happen is the subject of this book.

Like many collaborative efforts, this book grew out of the serendipi- tous convergence of ideas and people. Two of us-Don Mankin and Tora K. Bikson-had worked together on several research projects at the RAND Corporation in the early to mid-1980s. The projects dealt with the implementation of information systems in work settings, particularly on the role of the user in the development and implementation process. By the mid- to late 1980s the focus of this work began to shift, reflecting the dramatic developments in technology that were beginning to emerge at the time, especially the evolution from large, centralized, mainframe computer systems to client-sefver, networked architectures. Like many of our colleagues, we realized that to understand the impact of new technology on work and organizations we needed to shift our attention from individual users to, collaborating users. The appropriate level of analysis for our work was now the team.

Chance, the Zeitgeist, serendipity, divine intervention-take you,; pick-then took over. Our social/professional network stepped in to help us understand the impacts of technology networks on organizations. Increasingly, we crossed paths at professional meetings and other events with Susan Cohen from the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California. We talked and liked one another well enough to continue talking past the niceties of casual conversations. We discovered a common interest in teams and information technology. Susan, however, came to this interest from the other side, from her research on team effectiveness and self-management. For the last several years she had focused on knowledge work teams and the design of team-based organizations. She recognized the potential of teams to improve performance and the elements needed to fulfill this potential-information technology, in particular.

The three of us had similar experiences in our research and consulting. We saw many organizations struggling with teams and new information technology. While they strongly believed that each offered great promise, fulfilling that promise was another story. What was needed, we felt, was a sound, pragmatic perspective on how to do just that- how to change organizations by integrating the dfsign and implementation of teams and new technologies. True, there are a number of excellent books on creating effective teams-most notably J. Richard Hackman's Groups That Work (And Those That Don't) (1989) and Sue Mohrman, Susan Cohen, and Allan Mohrman's Designing Team-Based Organizations (1995)-and a few on implementing information systems-Richard Walton's Up and Running (1989), for example. But there is no book that pulls these two topics together. Furthermore, while the literature on groupware, new technologies that support co-operative work, is growing by leaps and bounds, the focus is primarily on the technology. The organizational change processes required to introduce the technology into work settings has been largely over-looked.

So we decided to write this book, primarily to help practitioners deal with the details of team-technology change as well as to help them think more conceptually and strategically about its longer-term implications. The book isK specifically aimed at functional-area managers in all manner of organizations-large ahd sSnall, public and private, not-for-profit, etc.-who are now engaging in these efforts or thinking about initiating them in the near future. It is also designed for the consultants and staff professionals and m, anagers who may be called on to help them in this effort. Information technology professionals should find this book of particular interest. We also hope that it will inspire human resource professionals to seek out new opportunities at the leaciLg edge of the technological frontier. Finally, while we did not write this book for an academic audience, we believe that teachers and scholars in organiza- tional behavior, MIS, and other areas will find this book of interest as well.

PLAN OF THE BOOK

The book is organized into four parts. Part I describes the basic themes, terms, and concepts to be used throughout the book.

* Chapter 1 introduces the subject of the book-how to develop and integrate teams, information technology, and high-level policies and structures to create more effective organizations. Much of the chapter previews the mutual design and implementation (MDI) framework, the perspective we use to understand and address many of the key issues facing organizations today.

* Chapter 2 provides basic background information on the focus of the MDI effort-teams, tecthnology, and organizations. This chapter lays the groundwork for later chapters by defining our terms and presenting critical concepts. Much of the chapter is devoted to a description of the different team types-work teams, project and development teams, parallel teams, management teams, and ad hoc networks-and a preview of the design approach to team effectiveness.

In part II we begin to explore the details ofthe MDI framework. The chapters in part II focus on the core of the framework-the MDI team, the name we use to describe the project team(s) of stakeholder representatives responsible for carrying out the MDI effort.

* Chapter 3 explains howv to identify an MII opportunity and get the project started. After describing and illustrating the various kinds of projects that can benefit from an MDI approach, the chapter reviews how the stakeholden and others can initiate an MDI project and create an oNerall structure to help them integrate and manage the project.

* Chapters 4 and 5 discuss the different stakeholders in detail. In these chapters we describe who they are, how to select individuals to represent their interests, what roles these representatives should play, and how they can be most effectively involved in the MDI process. These stakeholder representatives comprise the MDI team.

* Chapter 6 addresses the design of the MDI team. This chipter will cover such topics as training, leadership, information resources, and linkages with the stakeholder groups they represent as well as with the rest of the organization.

The chapters in part III describe the process by which the MDI team designs and implements new technologies and the teams that will use them (user teams). The process can be roughly divided into three stages.

* Chapter 7 describes the first stage of the process, in which the project is defined, objectives are identified, and various design altematives explored until one is chosen.

* Chapter 8 addresses the steps and activities irwvolved in executing the technology portion of the design strategy chosen in stage 1. Much of this work involves the actual "building" of the systems the teams will eventually use. The chapter begins by describing the criteria and principles that should guide the design and build process; it then applies these criteria to evaluate one of the most promising and controversial technological developments of recent years, groupware. The chapter concludes by comparing traditional approaches to systems development with contempo rary approaches more in tune with the MDI framework and the underlying themes of this book.

* Chapter 9 is devoted io the design of the user teams-the other part of stage 2. During this phasc which can precede, follow, or run parallel to the building of the system-user-team designs take the form of proposals on paper rather than actual functioning work arrangements. It is not until they are implemented in the final stage of the project (chapter 10) that they become a reality. Chapter 9 reviews the design factors critical to each of the team types described in chapter 2, including the different kinds of information and information tools they require.

* Chapter 10 deals with the implementation of the technology and user-team designs developed in the previous stage of the MDI process. The implementation process includes all of those activities concerned with how the systems and teams designed in the preceding stage are incorporated into the ongoing work flow of the organization.

These team and technology designs have implications for the overall organization, particularly for its structure and human-resource policies and practices. Organizations must adapt to their teams and technologies, just as these teams and technologies adapt to each other and to the constraints and culture of their organization. The two chapters in part IV focus on these higher-level issues of organizational change.

* Chapter 11 describes the ornization-wide changes that need to be made to support user teams and new technologies. Topics covered include human-resource policies for team-based organizations and the changing role of HR, corporate information technology, and senior management.

* After briefly summarizing the preceding chapters, chapter 12 presents a speculative look at the team-based, technology-enabled organization of the future. Integrating themes from recent work on emerging organizational forms with the themes of this book, we present a vision of work unbounded by such traditional constraints as time, place, authority, function, and formal organizational boundaries.

ABOUT OUR USES OF CASES AND EXAMPLES

The recommendations presented in this book are based on our research and consulting experience involving more than 100 organizations of all kinds-large and small, public and private, manufacturers and service providers, low tech and high tech. A partial, representative list includes Aid Association for Lutherans, ARCO, Aspect Telecommunications, Boston Edison, Digital Equipment Corporation, Encore Computers, Harris Computer Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, IBM, the Los Angeles Times, the Office of Economic Cooperation and Development, Princess Cruises, Pacific Bell, the Public Service Company of Colorado, Scott Paper, the Seattle Water Department, Steelcase, the United Nations, the U.S. Forest Service, and the World Bank.

The cases and examples we use to illustrate our recommendations are drawn from the many organizations we have worked with in our research and consulting over the years. The cases and examples take two forms. The first is a continuing story (soap opera might be a better descriptor) about a team-technology project in a nonexistent organization. The story and the company are composites based on actual situations and organizations. We open each chapter with an installment of the story to dramatize the principal issues to be addressed, and we close each chapter by illustrating how the project team dealt with these issues. Within each chapter we also use brief examples drawn from actual organizations and situations to illustrate specific points. We have changed the names of the companies and identifying details to protect the confidentiality of the organizations and the individuals involved.