SECOND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON DATA-DRIVEN PROCESS DISCOVERY AND ANALYSIS SIMPDA 2012. Learn more on http://www.aristotele-ip.eu/

1. University of Innsbruck
School of Management
Information Systems
Identifying Collaboration Know-How from
Action Patterns in Distributed Teams
SECOND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON DATA-DRIVEN PROCESS DISCOVERY
AND ANALYSIS
SIMPDA 2012
Campione d‘Italia, Italy
Isabella Seeber, Ronald Maier

2. University of Innsbruck – Isabella Seeber
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source: peaksalesrecruiting.com

3. University of Innsbruck – Isabella Seeber
Driving team performance through collaboration
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source: mosaik.co.at
Know-how describes
knowledge about
procedures (Garud, 1997)
Collaboration know-how
describes how a team
coordinates and integrates its
actions to work with members of
the team (Majchrzak et al. 2005)
how to assign
responsibilities
how to agree
on goals
how to
structure task

4. University of Innsbruck – Isabella Seeber
Understand collaboration know-how from UGC
• It is important to understand how
people actually behave and use
technology in groups (Andriessen,
2002)
• Collaboration software allows
gathering user generated content
• Identify patterns of collaboration
comprising generating ideas,
reducing ideas, clarifying ideas,
organizing concepts, evaluating
concepts, and building shared
understanding (de Vreede and
Briggs 2009)
4
source: telegraph.wisecodes.com

5. University of Innsbruck – Isabella Seeber
How can we identify collaboration patterns with process-
mining techniques from communication logs gathered in
collaborative settings?
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ThinkLet/ActionPattern I Conceptual Model I Case Example I Outlook

6. University of Innsbruck – Isabella Seeber
ThinkLet – OnePage / Action Pattern
Choose this thinkLet…
• … to generate a few (less than 80 or so) comments on one topic
• … when 5 or fewer people will brainstorm together
• … when 6 or more people will brainstorm for fewer than 10 minutes
• … […]
Input: the brainstorming question
Output: a set of comments in response to a brainstorming question or prompt
Steps:
• Make sure the participants understand the brainstorming question or prompt. Say this:
If you have any questions with respect to the brainstorming question or assignment,
please speak up.
• If necessary, facilitate a verbal discussion to address any understanding difficulties. If
necessary, re-formulate the question or prompt.
• Inform the participants of time limits, if any.
• Let the participants contribute comments until they run out of ideas
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7. University of Innsbruck – Isabella Seeber
Coding Schema – Example
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Person Time Content Action
Reese 3:05 How about a wiki-like
approach
proposeOption
Robin 3:05 Yeah, I assume you have to
use a system on top which
then links to the specific
documentation…
supportOption
Skyler 2:51 Good, idea but a wiki takes a
lot of time
supportOption
ChallengeOption
Robin 3:10 How should we go on? AskOption
Reese 3:12 We should discuss all together AnswerOption

8. University of Innsbruck – Isabella Seeber
Conceptual model
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9. University of Innsbruck – Isabella Seeber
Case Example
• Laboratory Experiment investigating collaborative
writing
• 6 teams with 3 members
• Task: write a report on how to improve knowledge
management in a fictional organization
• Treatment group: task description and structured
description how to run through the collaboration
activities
• Control group: task description plus a list of steps to
fulfill the task that is brainstorm, converge, write and
evaluate
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10. University of Innsbruck – Isabella Seeber
Brainstorming in selected teams
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Control groups:
Treatment group:

11. University of Innsbruck – Isabella Seeber
Interpretation & Conclusion
• The treatment group adopted collaboration facilitation
of the OnePage thinkLet
• Further analysis showed that changes in collaboration
patterns can be visualized
• Limits in interpretation: e.g., switch from generate to
converge
• Coordination problems impact team performance
negatively  facilitate teams with collaboration know-
how in the form of action patterns
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12. University of Innsbruck – Isabella Seeber
Outlook
• Using social network analysis to drive understanding of
dynamic role differentiation in teams
• Adapt coding schemes to benefit from automated
process-mining
• From describing collaboration behavior via
understanding collaboration patterns to diagnosing
collaboration know-how and facilitation improving
team performance
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13. University of Innsbruck – Isabella Seeber
Contact
Isabella Seeber
isabella.seeber@uibk.ac.at
University of Innsbruck
School of Management
Information Systems I
Universitätsstraße 15
6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Thank you for your attention!