Facilitation Methods for Collaborative Modeling Tools

This paper presents results of an ongoing research effort to support effective user involvement during modeling and analysis meetings. Productivity and user participation of traditional group meetings have been limitations imposed by chauffeured facilitation and single-user tools. These tools have been designed for analysts rather than for direct use by non-analyst users. Recently, electronic meeting systems (EMS) modeling tools that allow users to work in parallel to contribute directly during meetings have been developed. Such tools allow more domain experts to participate directly and productively during model development meetings than is possible using the traditional approach. Although previous research has demonstrated that EMS modeling tools may be used to develop some model content, little research had been done on collaborative facilitation methods that employ these tools. This paper presents a comparison of modeling approaches for use with EMS modeling tools and proposes an approach that overcomes significant problems inherent in other approaches. It leverages the productivity enhancement afforded by direct group access and still results in production of complete, integrated, high quality models. This approach allows models to be developed two to four times faster than with traditional modeling support and yet avoids model ambiguities and inconsistencies.     

Souveränität und Verantwortung im Mehrebenensystem: Subsidiarität als Leitmotiv?

Wirtschaftsdienst - Der Subsidiaritätsgedanke sollte von den politischen Entscheidungstragenden sowie von im europäischen Mehrebenensystem mitwirkenden Akteur:innen beachtet werden. Dazu...     

Software to support business teams

Organizations are increasingly using the business team concept to gain competitive advantage. Collaboration support software is gaining acceptance as a viable tool among both researchers and practitioners, and an opportunity exists to investigate the specific needs of teams: users working in longitudinal time frames on a variety of tasks. In this article, team software requirements are first derived from a theoretical perspective: office automation and task literature are used to identify a set of domain-independent individual tasks. Group process literature is then used to develop a set of collaborative tasks composed of these individual task components. These individual and collaborative tasks are aggregated with team task and communication support requirements to develop requirements for an integrated software environment that effectively supports business teams. Design considerations for a comprehensive team support system are outlined, a prototype implementation is described, and project contributions and key future research considerations are summarized.     

Using Statistics and Statistical Thinking to Improve Organisational Performance

A systematic approach to measuring organisational performance is fundamental to the pursuit of business excellence. As such, the area of organisational performance measurement, and its use of data and analysis to inform business decisions, affords statisticians a potentially high value-adding opportunity. To be effective in this area, statisticians need to appreciate the differing requirements for statistical information in various management zones of an enterprise.
This paper describes a strategy that seeks to link measurement to all facets of organisational performance, particularly to desired business outcomes, and also to mesh measurement with process improvement in a natural way. The use of statistics and statistical thinking is then discussed in this context, with particular focus on the opportunity for statisticians to have a key role at the top decision-making level of the organisation. We argue that the role requires skills in both advanced technical statistical modelling and analysis, and in statistical thinking. It also requires a preparedness to form an appreciation of the business and management imperatives faced by the leaders of an enterprise, and a willingness to work from this basis.