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Integrated Solution Support System - Aquastress          

Factsheet: Group Support Systems

 

Definition

"Group Support Systems (GSS) are information systems that aim to make group meetings more productive by offering electronic support for a variety of meeting activities." (de Vreede and Muller, 1997).

An example is the Group Decision Room (GDR), which “is a meeting environment in which electronic meeting support is used to help groups address complex problems collaboratively. The GDR consists of a normal meeting room in which every work space is equipped with a computer, these enable meeting participants to work together using an electronic meeting system.

GSS session

An electronic meeting system or Group Support System (GSS) helps people to generate new ideas (brainstorming), to define concepts, to organize ideas into categories, and to evaluate ideas using various criteria and voting techniques. Groups can use a GSS to perform activities such as project evaluations, strategic planning, work process analysis and design, crisis management, budgeting, and group training.
The added value of this meeting technology is its ability to make group meetings more productive and more effective. Information from various work stations can be easily integrated and presented using various presentation facilities. This enables the fast and effective execution of brainstorming, organization, and evaluation activities. In addition, experience shows that participants feel satisfied with the form and process of electronic meetings.

  

Application objectives

More productive and effective meetings.

Pertinent participation process phase(s)

1- Starting organization

2- Actors analysis, context

3- Diagnostic of the current situation

4- Search of solutions

5- Implementation, evaluation

Application method

The advantages of having a meeting in a GDR are:

  • Anonymity (the origin of a comment is not shown);
  • Parallel communication (saving time);
  • Information availability (no information is lost);
  • Structuring discussions (depends not only on the tool, but also on the facilitator).

Limitations are:

  • The quality of the facilitator;
  • Computer network required

Application example(s)

  • "Policy Network study"; developing meeting guidelines for inter-organizational policy making meetings.
  • Collaborative Simulation Modelling study; developing collaborative tools and meeting design guidelines to support group conceptualisation and specification at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
  • Asynchronous Brainstorming study; developing meeting design guidelines for asynchronous brainstorming in very large design groups.” (www.tbm.tudelft.nl, September 2003)

Example tools

AquaStress contact(s)

Contact: None specified.

Reference

Vreede, GJ. de, “Why some GSS meetings just don’t work: exploring success factors of electronic meetings’. Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), vol. III (1997), p. 1266-1285.