Intelligent workflow techniques for distributed group facilitation

Distributed group facilitation techniques are becoming a necessity because many of the face-to-face facilitation techniques are no longer suitable in a distributed environment. Although the concept of distributed group facilitation was proposed a decade ago, few distributed facilitation techniques have been successfully employed in the real world. We propose a new method of automating distributed facilitation functions that is built on the workflow management paradigm and intelligent agent techniques. Our research goal is to develop an open and flexible environment that allows easy configuration of facilitation techniques to fit various business contexts. In this paper, we develop the concepts of process monitoring and control for distributed group facilitation, establish the basic principles of distributed facilitation support, and illustrate the design of a prototype system in the context of the EasyWinWin requirements negotiation method.