Over the last 10 years or so, the concept of workgroups has gained an increasing amount of credence. Traditional companies have been seen as having a hierarchical structure: the boss at the top, holding the strings and gathering information through layers of management, until at the bottom of the pyramid sit the workers. Non-hierarchical, or networked, or workgroup-orientated companies, by contrast have small, motivated teams working towards specific goals who share information and responsibility; working towards the common good and profit. The hierarchy, so the argument goes, is a hang-over from the days when it was the only viable means of management control. While it is efficient in situations where the market is stable, in fast changing commercial environments, the large layers of middle management make it unwieldy. The workgroup-based organisation, by contrast is swift-moving, people can swap ideas, be creative and react to change. It is a method of working that is made possible by new technology, it conjures up pictures of high-tech high motivation, and furthermore it is a model that seems pleasingly egalitarian. But in a new report, Improving the Performance of Workgroups Through Information Technology, Professor Clive Holtham of the City University business school warns that many of the theoretical advantages are not being implemented in full. We have found that many organisations, even those that have espoused the terminology of networking and empowerment in annual reports and mission statements still have relatively strong ‘pyramidal tendencies’. Our preliminary conclusion is that this is partly driven by the pressures of accountability generated my ownership mechanisms in both public and private sectors. Nonetheless, he is obviously impressed with the changes that a carefully planned groupware strategy can make to an organisation (either hierarchical or networked). The report is peppered with a selection of case-studies chosen to show how groupware can help in different parts of the business. Want to implement a workgroup information technology strategy?
Cultural problems
Well it may not be easy. There are factors pushing the movement of course: the increase in networking; the new generation of high-powered desktop machines with graphical user interfaces; the growth of mobile and wireless networks; and teleworking. Ranged against these technological drivers are mainly cultural problems. Perhaps the most unexpected difficulty that the professor identifies is that veteran electronic mail users have problems when they begin using conferencing systems. Apparently they like sending things to specific people and aren’t to happy with the idea of posting a message and hoping that the right person reads it. Implementing a groupware system will also uncover that not everyone actually wants to share their knowledge: What incentives are appropriate and effective for motivating experts to explicate their knowledge so that it can be used without their future involvement? queries the report at one point.
