Understanding and evaluating collaborative work in multi-site software projects - a framework proposal and preliminary results

Global enterprises have met challenges in managing and leading multi-site projects, working in virtual teams, sharing knowledge and utilizing new communication technology. Several claims stress that conventional face-to-face practices form an essential part of successful project co-working, but this is often impossible in globally dispersed projects. New information and communication technology solutions are needed for converting collaborative actions into virtual ones. We introduce a framework for analyzing and developing work activities in multi-site projects. Four areas of work are distinguished: personal work, work with people, project/team work, and knowledge work. The framework is used for studying the interaction between an individual and his/her work environment. Our interest is to help multi-site projects to successfully collaborate in distributed circumstances. The framework was tested by analyzing two case projects at Nokia. This paper presents our findings of the framework´s usefulness to guide organizational and team development and characterizes R&D work in multi-site circumstances at Nokia.