DESIGN PHILOSOPHY:

Helping Mobile Workers Stay In Sync and In Touch

Jennifer S. Curtis

Novay
Enschede, the Netherlands

User-System Interaction
Eindhoven University of Technology
Eindhoven, the Netherlands

July, 2009
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Background

The incidence of geographically distributed project teams is on the rise. As a consequence,

individuals working within these teams must embrace the notion of mobility in order to adapt.
Mobility, according to Kakihara & Sorensen (2002), “is not just a matter of people traveling, but,
far more importantly, related to the [types of] interactions they perform.” In other words,
working within the context of a geographically distributed team forces individuals who are
separated by distance, time, and context to collaborate. Knowledge workers who are embedded
in such teams – particularly those working for large companies – are forced to adapt on two
levels.

1. First, they must find a way to stay up-to-date (i.e., in sync) and connected (i.e., in touch)
with their occasionally geographically removed project-level colleagues.
o Based on interviews with a subset of mobile workers, it is possible to define this
goal as a primary need; Some examples:

One woman I interviewed said that she drove each Wednesday to work
with her project team in a distant city. Her reason for doing so was that she
felt things did not “go as well” as when she failed to spend time this time
with her team, face-to-face.

Another individual that I interviewed said that each evening, on his way
home, he called his team to get updates on the end-of-the day activities and
to see if any issues had arisen. He was in phone contact with his
geographically distant team several times a day, and claimed to rarely use
email.
2. Secondly, they must find a way to stay up-to-date (i.e., in sync) and connected (i.e., in
touch) with their oftentimes geographically removed departmental colleagues.
o Based on interviews with a subset of mobile workers, it is possible to define this
goal as a secondary need; Some examples:

One mobile worker that I interviewed said that she “had no idea” what
some of the people were working on within her department.

She also said that one major problem was that despite the fact that her
department scheduled periodic (e.g., monthly) meetings and events in the
evenings, attendance was inconsistent because her colleagues were
working on projects in different areas of the country – thus making it
difficult to return to the home office at times.

I began to characterize most of the knowledge workers who I initially interviewed as

Traditionalists because – although they were mobile workers – their use of communication tools
and practices more closely resembled traditional, co-located office workers. That is to say, most
co-located colleagues prefer face-to-face and email methods of interaction with their colleagues (Kraut
et al, 1990) -- and, so did these individuals, as well1. Moreover, they were comparatively more
conservative in their practices and attitudes towards staying in sync and in touch with their
professional contacts than a second group of knowledge workers that I interviewed.

Problem

In their characteristic use of communication tools and practices, the Traditionalists expressed
satisfaction in their ability to stay in sync and in touch with those in their project teams [first
level, as described in the previous section]. However, they complained of an inability to stay in
sync and in touch with their departmental colleagues [second level].

1
Many of these individuals (6 of the 10 interviewed) said that they would also use a contact’s chat client status
prior to phoning him or her.
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Problem analysis:

• First, in doing primarily off-site project work, the number of opportunities to interact
face-to-face with their departmental/organizational colleagues are few.
• Secondly, their primary needs deal principally with the activities that support their
current project work and team -- thus making anything that falls outside (including
interactions at the departmental or organizational level) of this narrow focus secondary.
• The favored tools for staying in sync and in touch at the project level include the phone,
face-to-face meetings, and email (and occasionally chat clients, which are primarily to
check availability).
• Finally, breakdowns occur when the preferred tools for staying in sync and in touch at
the project level are also used for interactions at the more highly-distributed
departmental level (and, in the context of the organization, beyond).

Problem Implications

Stated differently, the problem for the Traditionalists occurs when they try to use the same tools
and practices for staying in sync and in touch with their project-level colleagues to stay in sync
and in touch with colleagues at the departmental-level. The consequences which arise out of
this problem include:

- Direct implications: The direct effects of having a breakdown in one’s ability to stay in
sync and in touch with one’s departmental colleagues are:
o Difficulty making new contacts within the department
o Not knowing what departmental colleagues are either currently working on or
have worked on in the past

On the flip side, a lack of personal visibility to one’s departmental
colleagues; An example:
• Several individuals that I spoke to said that they made a pointed
effort to work in the main office when they could. They felt this
approach was necessary to nurture relationships with colleagues
and maintain good rapport with support staff. The problem with
this tactic, however, was that departmental colleagues were also
oftentimes away, working on their own projects and they could not
count on particular individuals to also be in on any given day.

It is noteworthy to mention that all of these above factors are symptomatic of

professional isolation (e.g., Cooper & Kurland, 2002; Golden, 2006).

- Indirect implications: The indirect effects of having a breakdown in one’s ability to stay
in sync and in touch with one’s departmental colleagues are:
o Increased risk of not receiving information – either in a timely manner or at all –
that has implications for one’s project work (e.g., pertinent developments in
related projects, the outcome of budget decisions, etc.); For example:

One man that I interviewed tried to piece together a network of individuals
who would keep him informed of potentially pertinent developments that
might impact his main project. Oftentimes, however, he found himself in
situations in which he learned of an issue only once it was “too late”. In
these cases, he would track down someone in the information loop and ask
them to keep him informed of any new developments in the future. He
conceded that this was not most effective system, but the best strategy he
could come up with, given the circumstances. He said there was no system
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within the organization to widely distribute brief updates and news flashes,
and that such information tended to pass from person-to-person.

In other words, a breakdown in one’s ability to stay in sync and in touch with one’s
departmental colleagues certainly has direct implications for the nature of relationships that
exist with those colleagues. In addition, however, such a breakdown can also indirectly affect
one’s project work detrimentally.

Solution Focus

Any design solution should address the following end-goal; that is to:

Support mobile workers in their ability to stay in sync and in touch with colleagues at the
departmental and organizational levels.

Constraints

In order to come up with solutions to adequately address the above mentioned breakdowns that
occur for traditionalists in their interactions with colleagues at the departmental level, it is
important to also take into consideration the following constraints:

- New tool adoption is low among the Traditionalists, for a number of possible reasons:
o Lack of organizational support (e.g., to provide employees with smartphones,
mobile broadband cards, VPN connectivity, etc.)
o New tool adoption is also low among their existing contacts
o Tool fatigue – in other words, they feel as though they manage too many tools
already
o Their current tool set is adequate for satisfying their primary, project level needs
- Willingness to learn new tools and/or maintain their use is limited; For example:
o One man that I spoke to said that the use of Sharepoint was not appreciated or
updated among his departmental colleagues because it was difficult to use.
o Several people that I spoke to said that the databases that had been developed for
the purposes of cataloging the various areas of expertise within an organization
were rarely updated by the knowledge workers themselves.
- Any solution should support either directly – or indirectly (i.e., have the potential to
support) – primary needs in addition to secondary needs. In other words, a solution
should not adversely affect the user’s ability to complete work at the project level.

The first two constraint, regarding tool adoption and use arguably have a lot to do with
(although not entirely) attitudes; this attitude is shaped by a sense of adequate satisfaction
with their current tool sets and a desire not to overburden themselves by adopting new
tools unnecessarily. The second constraint addresses issues related to meeting their higher-
level priorities.

Useful Directions for Solutions

Highly connected professionals tend to make extensive use of a variety of tools in an effort to
stay in sync and in touch with their networks. To that end, some of the tactics that highly
connected professionals employ might be of use when crafting possible solutions for the
traditionalists. In other words, perhaps there are things that the highly connected professionals
do that might inspire supportive solutions for the interactions of less highly networked mobile
workers with their departmental colleagues.
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Here are some tools and practices used by the highly connected professionals I interviewed that
would be useful in the design of a solution:

- The use of filters.

o Filters help cull information so that the most potentially important information
is readily accessible. There are two types of filters that highly connected
professionals use regularly:

Explicit filters – For example, via the use of RSS or other information
aggregator. The defining characteristic of an explicit filter is that funnels
content on requested topics or located on particular websites to the user.

Tacit filters – Tacit filters are driven by one’s social connections. Tacit
filters operate when one’s contacts help call attention to information that
might otherwise be overlooked.
- The use of open communication.
o Highly connected individuals share status updates via the use of one-to-many
methods of communication (such as through LinkedIn, twitter, or forums).

Why were these particular practices chosen as possible solutions, and not others?

The highly connected professionals that I interviewed also displayed other noteworthy
characteristics. Here are just a few:

- They were all bloggers – thus underscoring their willingness to share information, their
viewpoints, and open a dialogue on topics of interest.
- They also had showed an overt willingness to adapt their contacts’ preferred method of
communication.
- Generally speaking, in their view face-to-face communication was clearly beneficial -- but not
always absolutely necessary, not even for collaborative work.

It is important to address why other tools, practices, and strategies used by the highly
professionals are not included as design suggestions. The above examples underscore how the
communication practices of the highly connected professionals in this sample have been shaped
by their attitudes. Whereas designing a system that makes use of filters and/or open
communication is feasible, attempting to encourage the traditionalists to rethink their deeply
held views on the necessity of face-to-face communication, for example, would be pose a
formidable challenge.

Requirements for a Solution

Factoring in the aforementioned constraints and suggested directions for a solution, the
following is a list of design requirements to consider when coming up with viable solutions to
help support mobile workers in their ability to stay in sync and in touch with their departmental
and organizational level colleagues.

1. Maintain the integrity of the Traditionalist’s original tool set (i.e., mobile phone, email,
face-to-face communication, and instant messaging) by
a. Not necessitating the addition of new tools (e.g., smart phones)
b. Integrating any solutions into the existing tool set (e.g., a solution that makes use
of a user’s email as an input/output device)
2. Should require zero-to-low effort in the initial set-up of the system
3. Participation in the system should require minimal effort (e.g., this could be done via the
use of some amount of automatically generated status updates)
4. System elements should be available to the user while he is on-the-go
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5. Push relevant information to the user via the use of filters

6. Support one-to-many or many-to-many communication via the use of status updates
and/or information exchange

References

Cooper, C., & Kurland, N.B. 2002. Telecommuting, Professional Isolation, and
Employee Development in Public and Private Organizations. Journal of Organizational
Behavior, 23(4): 511-532.

Golden, T. D. 2006. The role of relationships in understanding telecommuter satisfaction.

Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27(3): 319 – 340.

Kakihare, M., & Sorensen, C. 2002. “Mobility: an extended perspective”, Proceedings of the 35th
Hawaii International Conference on System Science.

Kraut, R.E., Fish, R.S., Root, R.W., & Chalfonte, B. 1990. Informal Communication in
Organizations: Form, Function, and Technology. Oskamp, I.S., & Spacapan, S. (Eds.). Human
Reactions to Technology: The Claremont Symposium on Applies Social Psychology. Beverly Hills,
CA: Sage Publications.