Requirements of Activity Management

Recent years have witnessed the development of several theordtical models. of cooperative group working based on the concept of role playing within stnlCtured activities. This paper proposes that the widespread implementation and adoption of products based on these models is critically' dependent on a framework for managing and integrating activities within working environments. The tenn activity management is introduced to refer to the process of planning, administrating and executing activities according to the various management policies defined within local environments. The requirements of activity management are then discussed with particular emphasis on two key concepts: the use of a high-level notation for expressing management requirements and the need for an activitY management ar~t'jtecture suppcrti~g the m'anagemerit of activities within. distributed computer systems. The overall goal of this paper is therefore to define a program of research to progress activity based models of group workingtowards viable and useful implementations.