Understanding the Collaborative Workspaces

Despite the concept of working collaboratively being very popular, its implications on the organisational structures and on the human requirements are not completely understood. As a result, the advanced technologies used to enhance collaborative work have often had a limited or even a negative impact on the work efficiency. Common issues often involve human factors, such as the acceptance of the new product by the users, the lack of communication between users and the working culture. As a consequence, a better understanding of the human needs would facilitate the development of better tools to support group work as well as more efficient organisations. Therefore, this paper compares the organisation and the human perspectives on collaboration in order to identify the barriers to implementing it. In particular, it focuses on issues related to the life cycles, organisation structure, information flow and human motivation. It also introduces the case of virtual organisations and their difficulty to generate efficient collaboration.