Issues and Concerns About Computer-Supported Meetings: The Facilitator's Perspective

In an effort to boost meeting productivity and success, managers may employ trained group facilitators. They may also implement group Introduction Face-to-face meetings serve as a venue to bring together organizational eaders for decision making, issue tracking, policy setting, and a variety of activities aimed at adding reliability and flexibility in response to the ever-changing business environment. Although managers are known to spend a great deal of their time in meetings (cf., Ives and Olson, 1981; Mintzberg, 1973; Panko, 1992), there is a high level of dissatisfaction with meeting productivity (Kayser, 1990; Monge, et al., 1989). ~ Group support systems (GSS) technologies are intended to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of group meetings by providing a ricl~ variety of tools to aid the group in handling data, MIS Quarter/y/March 1996 1 Computer-Supported Meetings modelling decisions, structuring activities, and enhancing communication channels (DeSanctis, 1988). Laboratory and field studies have shown that under some conditions GSS can stimulate positive effects in group work. 1 Although in some circumstances GSS might aid a group to overcome group process difficulties, in general, adding technology to the meeting is best done in combination with other beneficial meeting practices. Good meetings require significant management or organization (3M, 1987). Where little planned management occurs, meetings tend to be chaotic, and much time can be wasted. " One strategy for managing meetings involves delegating a variety of tasks to a meeting manager or facilitator. Facilitation is a set of functions or activities carried out before, during, and after a meeting to help the group achieve its own outcomes (Bostrom, et al., 1991). In practice, facilitation of face-to-face meetings i a difficult, multi-faceted task. The facilitator must consider individual personalities, emerging group norms, and political realities in each action. GSS technology, although intended to aid the facilitator, may at the same time interact with these other group dimensions to increase the complexity of the domain in which the facilitator acts.