Multicriteria Decision Analysis in Group Decision Processes

Abstract

Collaboration is a critical process in modern organizations. Many organizations would benefit from access to advanced collaboration technologies (see chapters by Ackermann and Eden and Lewis and Garcia, this volume) and collaboration professionals, such as facilitators (see the chapter by Ackermann and Eden, this volume). However, these technologies are often too complex to effectively use without professional support and collaboration professionals are often too expensive to use on a frequent basis. Collaboration Engineering is an approach to designing collaborative work practices for high-value recurring tasks, and deploying those designs for practitioners to execute for themselves without ongoing support from professional facilitators. Collaboration engineers design collaborative work practices using a facilitation pattern language consisting of thinkLets – facilitation best practices that predictably create patterns of collaboration (see for example chapter by Vogel and Coombes, this volume). Experiences demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the approach. This chapter describes and illustrates the Collaboration Engineering approach and thinkLet concept in detail using an illustrative case in a governmental organization