Computer Supported Co - operative Work

Group-ware is about group-work. It is about developing technologies that support the way people communicate and collaborate to accomplish work goals in the context of personal,managerial and organizational imperatives. In contrast to single user applications which support peoples’ tasks, groupware supports peoples’ work. Tasks are often explicit, observable and concrete. Work is often tacit, invisible and amorphous. The challenge in de-veloping a groupware application lies in understanding, explicating and then supporting the invisible work. The chapter provides some insight into the process of developing groupware applications by first describing some new methodologies for generating requirements.It then outlines several themes — communication, awareness, anonymity — which have emerged as common across many groupware applications. The chapter also addresses the technical and social issues that emerge when deploying a groupware application in an or-ganization. Application deployment is one of the most challenging aspects of developing a groupware application. The chapter concludes with a case study of an application designed to support coordination and communication in distributed teams. The case study brings together the topics of Methodology, Design and Deployment in a concrete setting.