Organizational Learning Strategies: Groupware

Groupware is a technology used to facilitate a group's communication, problemsolving, and decisionmaking processes. Groupware technologies can be either synchronous (real time) or asynchronous (different times). In addition, users can either work together in the same place (co-located) or in different places (non co-located). One of the most widely used Groupware applications consists of a meeting that allows participants to be in the same room inputting information simultaneously. Participants provide ideas, comments, and decisions at individual networked workstations. A projected computer screen displays the anonymous input of all participants. Information can be weighted, prioritized, and voted on.

	To facilitate communication by making it faster and clearer.
	To bring together multiple perspectives and expertise.
	To facilitate and accelerate group problem solving and decisionmaking.
	To encourage collective learning.
	To bring together geographically dispersed team members or stakeholders whose input is needed for decisionmaking and/or problem solving.

	Develop or lease a Groupware meeting setting that includes individual networked stations and a computer projection screen.
	Determine the goals and objectives of the Groupware meeting.
	Prioritize issues to work on during the meeting.
	Use a facilitator to manage the process of the meeting.
	Use an operator to run the computer system tabulations.

As described below, learning strategies are often used in combination with one another or may be closely linked to one another.

Distance Conferencing: Distance Conferencing is simply a forum for communicating, learning, and exchanging ideas. Groupware technology allows for a large group of people to provide input and receive immediate feedback that has been processed and analyzed.

Inova Health System

This major health care system in Northern Virginia used Groupware with focus groups to determine leadership competency areas, skills, and performance behaviors required for managers to be successful. The data were used to build a leadership competency model.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

The EPA uses Groupware for many of its internal and interagency projects. An example is a project that involved a labor-management partnership to create training that would help build strong management-union relationships. By using Groupware, labor and management representatives identified examples of successful relationships. Groupware also facilitated the designing of training materials.

Web Resources

Groupware and Organizational Learning Online Article

Groupware Web Site

An Introduction to Groupware

Supporting Teams with Collaborative Technology

Following are links to the other Organizational Learning Strategies:

	Meetings
	Action Learning
	Cross-Functional Teams
	Work-Outs
	Strategic Planning
	Parallel Learning Structures
	Corporate Scorecard
	Benchmarking
	Distance Conferencing