Instrucciones de operatividad Temperaturas extremas:

Virtual working affects the way that teams are able to collaborate with a po- tential impact on socio-cognitive processes. Virtual team collaboration generally occurs either synchronously or asynchronously depending on a number of factors such as time difference (larger time differences tend to be resolved by increased reliance on asynchronous communication tools) and type of work being addressed (more complex or urgent work tends to demand more immediate feedback from synchronous communication tools).

In this thesis I am interested in how virtual teams collaborate together on complex creative projects e.g., design or problem-solving teams. Such teams are unlikely to have worked together before, being formed either on the spur of the moment based on availability of team members (in the case of a problem solving team), or often from multiple departments in an organisation (for design teams). I am assuming that such a team communicates synchronously using video conferencing, at least during the early stages of a project. During this time the team will be constantly adjusting, seeking to understand both the problem and each-other.

Figure 2.6 provides an illustration of the individual creativity process. In this figure the individual encounters a situation that requires understanding and they begin to develop a Schema; this is their current model of understanding.

This schema is constantly in flux, it is constantly being revised as the individual encounters new information, perhaps by testing their current schema, or by re- searching information, or through interactions with others. Almost anything can prompt a revision of the schema. Some things will prompt it consciously e.g., searching for information, whilst others prompt a revision unconsciously e.g., re- calling a previously forgotten experience. The individual is shown within their own work system [138], with new sources of information and triggers from the external environment affecting the creative process. The concept of a work sys- tem [138] helps to describe the interactions that occur between individuals and (often) computing systems. It provides a useful way of illustrating how creativity can occur in isolation of the external environment (if left to do so), but also helps demonstrate how any interaction with the external environment may affect the creative process.

Figure 2.6: Individual creativity

This is a very simplistic representation of how an individual identifies, inter- prets and responds to a trigger. As soon as the individual is placed within a team then this process becomes far more complex (see figure 2.7).

Figure 2.7: Co-located creativity

A team is often used in situations where the phenomenon, or task in question is sufficiently complex such that no single individual has absolute information sufficient to resolve the situation. Figure 2.7 shows how the system has evolved; there are now three individuals each with their own schema. On top of this, there is a collective schema being developed. This relationship between the individual and collective schema is what makes team creativity complex.

In Figure 2.6, the Individual’s schema is revised by any new source of infor- mation e.g., a conversation with a colleague; only the Individual’s understanding of the phenomenon has changed. However, in a Team (as in figure 2.7) each individual is trying to respond to the phenomenon by themselves, aided by in- teractions with the other team members (within the work system). On top of this the team is attempting to come to an agreement of how best to describe the

phenomenon and its characteristics (and possibly respond). This is represented by the Collective Schema. Ultimately the creativity of the team is affected by the ability of team members to explain to each other their own current schema. Through these interactions the individuals schemas develop slowly, increasing in similarity as the collective schema develops. Further to this there are factors of politics and power at play; it may be that one of the individuals in the team has the capacity to make a decision that overrules the others, even if they do not have a fully informed understanding.

Team creativity is further complicated by the introduction of a virtual team context (see figure 2.8). Virtual teams collaborate using a mixture of synchronous (e.g., video conferencing) and asynchronous (e.g., email) communication tools. The richness and immediacy of feedback afforded by these tools ultimately im- pacts upon the creative processes of the team.

The extent to which a virtual team is distributed also affects its creativity. It is possible in a fully distributed team for all of the team members to work from separate locations (see figure 2.9). Such teams may never physically meet if they are working across vast geographic distances. Or, by contrast they might work from separate locations for much of their work but actually meet physically for certain tasks e.g., monthly catch-up sessions. Figure 2.8 demonstrates the flexibility of virtual working, showing both an individual working separately and then sub-groups of a team who happen to be co-located. This sort of working occurs when an organisation forms a team across multiple sites. The sites are physically distributed and consequently the team has to work virtually for all of the team members to collaborate. Such teams can sub-divide tasks based by site, such that team members who are co-located address specific sub-tasks and report their findings back to the wider virtual team. It is this flexibility that makes virtual teams so appealing to organisations. It also demonstrates the complexity of exploring the creativity within such a team. The team in figure 2.8 is creative at an individual level, with all team members developing their own schemas of understanding. There is then the overall Team Collective Schema which enables the sharing and refinement of information leading to action. At this point the model is quite similar to that in figure 2.7, however this model is

Figure 2.8: Distributed creativity

further complicated by the potential for sub-teams to have their own additional collective schema e.g., The group of team members in Location 3 in figure 2.8.

Many organisations will adopt a flexible form of virtual working, as demon- strated in Figure 2.8. However, as previously discussed, some organisations will operate fully distributed teams (see Figure 2.9) in which all team members work from separate locations. This represents the most extreme form of virtual work- ing and it is these teams that my research will be exploring because their work environment and practises are so different to traditional co-located teams.