Toward supporting group dynamics

Abstract

The complexity of group dynamics occurring in small group interactions often hinders the performance of teams. The availability of rich multimodal information about what is going on in meetings makes it possible to explore ways of providing support to dysfunctional teams from facilitation to training sessions, addressing both the individuals and the group as a whole. A necessary step in this direction is that of capturing and understanding group dynamics. In this paper, we discuss a particular scenario, in which meeting participants receive a multimedia feedback on their relational behavior, as a first step towards increasing self-awareness. We describe the background and the motivation for a coding scheme partially inspired by the Bales' Interaction Process Analysis aimed at identifying suitable observable behavioral sequences and an experimental investigation on the acceptability of such a service. © 2006 International Federation for Information Processing.