Susanne Hupfer, Li-Te Cheng, Steven Ross, John Patterson, (2005) Reinventing Team Spaces for a Collaborative Development Environment

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Comments by ElizabethWindram

I definitely agree that the tools you create to help software developers should be applicable to many other groups of non-co-located teams. The idea of contextual collaboration seems to be a key point though and you would probably have to investigate appropriate ways to provide other types of teams with the same contextual cues that you propose with software developers and source code.

One point you bring up that I think is extremely important in attempting to recreate or redefine face-to-face communication is the idea of focus and periphery. Obviously these software developers spend a significant amount of their time focusing on their task at hand. But it is the awareness of what else is what going on with their teammates that allows Joe to peak his head over the cubicle and say hey, Belinda, I think I know something that might help with you that bug.

This idea ties into your concept of “easy monitoring of what’s new in multiple spaces.” It seems again this use of periphery can be used not only in team awareness, but also in awareness of “conversations” and changes, additions to things going on in several projects, without becoming the focus of their work (or screen).

I also think your idea of transient activity-centric spaces is a very sensitive, important one and truly aids in making these team spaces more fluid and emulative of face-to-face collaboration between team members.

ElizabethWindram

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