Hatem, W A H (2012) Comparing the effectiveness of face to face and computer mediated collaboration in design. PhD thesis, Cardiff University, UK.
Abstract
Construction projects are complex and organisationally characterised by a high degree of fragmentation. This results in a need for clear communication and collaboration between the project participants in order to ensure the success of a project. Advances in communication technologies have enabled construction project members to supplement face to face (FTF) communication with methods based on computer mediated communication (CMC). The latter has reduced the need for travelling and hence results in savings in aspects, such as cost and time. One aspect of this CMC based communication is the emergence of modern design software which, together with other communication tools enables designers to undertake collaborative design while being geographically remote from one another. The research in this thesis compares the effectiveness of FTF and CMC based collaboration for teams of two people at the design stage of a construction project. The comparison deals with many points that have been not addressed in previous studies and the analysis leads to the conclusion that CMC results in a more effective process than FTF in many aspects. For productivity, the results of this research reveal that team productivity for CMC is higher than for FTF and intriguingly further results show that the productivity score of two people collaborating is higher than for a single designer. Better time management has been found to occur with CMC than FTF. This research found a method of measuring degree of collaboration between users in a team, as well as the results prove that the degree of collaboration in CMC better than FTF. In terms of design quality, the results show that the design quality for FTF is nearly equal to that for CMC. Other aspects of this research examine the relationship between non-verbal and verbal communication as well as between non-verbal communication and team productivity plus the impact of emotional factors on productivity and quality is also examined.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | collaboration; communication; computer-mediated communication; design; experiment; fragmentation; productivity |
| Index terms: | design quality, face, fragmentation, experiment, construction project, collaboration, design stage, collaborative design, emergence, time management, computer-mediated communication, productivity, savings, designer, effectiveness |
| Subjects: | systems engineering, project controls, management, communication studies, performance management, design methods, profession, data collection methods, business, production management, professional practice, economic analysis, psychology |
| Topics: | Engineering Principles, Project Management, Quality Management, Roles and Professions, Information Management, Research Practice, Business Strategy, Time Control, Organizational Design, Design Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here