Enhanced e-Collaboration with a Portal Solution

Master's Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Communications - Research, Studies, Enquiries, grade: 5.5, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, course: Mater of Advanced Studies Business Information Technology, language: English, abstract: The collaboration between people has taken another dimension. Current information management systems allow users to save time, to work efficiently in different time zones and at different locations worldwide. E-collaboration strongly contributes to reducing costs and to enhancing coordination and cooperation. The community further needs to collaborate because they are rarely able to solve problems on their own. Projects need to be coordinated so that deadlines can be met. Companies’ branches are decentralized in order to reduce production-costs and to operate on a global market. Communication within a group is crucial to success. A project only succeeds if people exchange a maximum amount of information. Managers should permanently be informed so that they can decide at the right time or react if a project is taking a wrong turn. This flow of information has to be bi-directional: employees ought to be informed in a timely manner on management decisions. Information can be transmitted through different channels. Additionally, people ought to work with standardized documents. A common naming convention helps to find information which is shared on a platform. Systems should be user-friendly and reactive. Communication by E-mail demands clear rules. Documents and templates have to be available to everyone and need regular updating. It is unthinkable to plan an international exercise or a big project without the help of network components and telecommunication systems. Communication and collaboration become difficult if people are geographically separated. Collaboration difficulties are influenced by different cultures, language and work standards. E-mail communication must be clear and brief. E-mailing leads to debates. Some people get frustrated by e-mailing as a means of communication if used to communicate not only information, but is used to task people. Other people feel bothered by the style of email. For e-mailing to be efficient, messages should be answered within 24 hours. Certain people do not like to feel dominated by this technology. Chapter 3 focuses on the basic concepts of e-collaboration and discusses related problems. The result of this research and the experience during the exercise could be summarized in form of a guideline helping an integration of e-collaboration system. This guideline contains at first some questions which should be answered before beginning the project.