Sher, W., Sherratt, S., Williams, A., & Gameson, R. (2009). Heading into new virtual environments: what skills do design team members need? ITcon: Special Issue Technology Strategies for Collaborative Working 14, 17-29 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Heading into new virtual environments: what skills do design team members need
Journal of Information …, 2009
and management of construction projects. Not only are sophisticated electronic tools being widely used to help construction professionals design and manage buildings -ICT is assisting these people to work in virtual, collaborative electronic environments. As a result there is a trend to move from co-located to virtual team collaboration. The operational differences inherent in these environments and their impact on the generic skills of design professionals are the basis of the research reported here. We developed a generic skills coding framework for the activities of designers working in virtual teams. We then audio and video recorded designers working in teams designing different buildings and analysed the resulting data using our generic skills framework. We identified changes in the skills profiles of design team members between different operational states (low bandwidth-high bandwidth). The major conclusion of our analysis is that there are significant differences between the operational conditions: face-to-face, whiteboard and 3D virtual world, for the generic skills profiles.
2005
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is becoming more comprehensive and more integrated into the design and management phases of the construction industry. Not only are increasingly sophisticated electronic tools being widely used to assist construction professionals design and manage buildings -ICT is making significant contributions by assisting these people to work in virtual, electronic environments. As a result of the application of these enhanced ICT tools there is a trend to move away from co-located teams to virtual team collaboration. The operational differences which result from the use of different electronic communication media and its impact on generic skills on design and construction professionals have been the basis for the research reported in this Cooperative Research Centre Construction Innovation (CRC-CI) paper. The outcomes of this research include the development and mapping of generic skills profiles for virtual design teams. The research findings also describe changes in generic skills profiles between different operational states (low bandwidth-high bandwidth). The paper links our research findings with literature relating to design teams and processes, virtual teams and the generic skills required to effectively participate in these teams. The conclusions of our research indicate that design team participants require 'appropriate skills' to function efficiently and effectively, and that the introduction of ICT reinforces the need for ongoing skills mapping and measurement.
COMMUNICATION MODES AND PERFORMANCE OF VIRTUAL DESIGN TEAMS IN AN UNDERGRADUATE BUILDING PROJECT
Effective communication between parties in distributed design teams is essential for successful construction projects. However, there is little consensus and understanding on the factors influencing the distanced communication between these multidisciplinary parties. Many effective practices that are applicable to traditional collocated teams may no longer be relevant and require a thorough examination.
The Impact of Virtual Environments on Design Collaboration
eCAADe proceedings, 2006
With recent developments in communication and information technology there has been increasing research into the role and the impact of computer media in collaborative design. This paper presents a case study that compares two designers collaborating in three different types of virtual environments with face to face (FTF) collaboration. The aim of the study is to identify similarities and differences between remote locations in order to have a better understanding of the impact of different virtual environments on design collaboration. Our results show that the architects had different designing behaviour depending on the type of external representation: they developed more design concepts, and had more design iterations through analysis-synthesis-evaluation while designing FTF and in a remote sketching environment; while the same architects focused on one design concept and making the design when designing in 3D virtual worlds.