(PDF, 7 pages, 97KB)
"Teams need recourse to a calendaring and scheduling system that automatically balances personal appointments, enterprise-wide meetings, and project team events. Today's electronic calendaring and scheduling systems enable people within the same enterprise to set up meetings with a minimum of fuss and process wastage. However, these systems do not work well between organizations, eg, using a free-and-busy search to find the next available meeting time for all participants doesn't work across multiple calendaring systems. Neither do they work well within collaborative workspaces, as each individual team member has to manually cross-reference their electronic diary with a team meeting proposed in the calendar in the collaborative workspace."
Knowing where to be at a specific point in time during the day is fairly critical knowledge for everyone, regardless of whether they work at an executive, managerial or professional level. Electronic calendaring and scheduling capabilities built into email systems have fueled a move away from the limitations of paper-based diaries. Personal digital assistants enable users to synchronize their electronic calendar with a carry-around device, and Research In Motion's BlackBerry Enterprise Server goes a step further by proactively pushing revised calendar entries and details to the highly mobile worker. What seems utopian at first glance actually gives way to a feeble facade on deeper reflection. Reflecting deeper--in order to tease out what is really required for enabling productivity by team members today--is the purpose of this paper.
This paper discusses:
- The Situation Today ... how electronic calendar systems are unaware of the work realities facing team members today.
- Negative Effects on Team Productivity ... due to calendar systems that are designed for work realities that no longer exist.
- The Ideal Future Situation ... four key requirements to deliver a team aware calendaring system.
- Positive Effects for Team Productivity ... how teams will benefit once vendors deliver interoperability across calendaring servers.
- Technologies to Consider ... ok, so there are no products on the market today that deliver what teams need, but there are some standards in play and under development.
What's Next
This concludes my initial discussion of the fourth pillar of IT-enabled team productivity--the importance of robust and fully-featured calendaring and scheduling capabilities that are aware of the different places that team members coordinate their work. I am interested in your feedback, and to learn how you have addressed these issues in your organization. Please drop me an email at michael.sampson@shared-spaces.com.
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