Belated Readings: Week 2

Distance Matters

What are the major differences between co-located and distant work? Why does "distance matter"?

When trying to bridge co-located and distance located workgroups, it is necessary to realize the key characteristics of co-located teams. These are:

1. Rapid Feedback
2. Multiple Channels
3. Personal information
4. Nuanced information
5. Shared local context
6. Informal “hall” time before and after
7. Co-reference
8. Individual control
9. Implicit cues
10. Spatiality of reference

Groupware in the market currently only supports characteristics 2, 3, 4 and 6 of the above list, and even then, it is supported poorly. Future groupware would at least be able to provide most of these characteristics; however the following factors will continue to provide resistance

1. Lack of common ground, context and trust
2. Different time zones
3. Culture differences


What do you think: will it be possible to make distributed teams as efficient as collocated ones in the future?

Within the global environment today, it is necessary to work across countries and time zones. Unfortunately, we are forced to accept the current solutions. In my opinion, distributed teams will never become as efficient as the co-located teams. It would rather be necessary to look at the added value provided by distributed teams, which will force the work environment to accept these collaborative solutions.