Learning+from+Notes+-+Organizational+Issues+in+Groupware+Implementation

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Learning from Notes: Organizational Issues in Groupware Implementation by Wanda J. Orlikowski The experience that I have had with Lotus Notes in particular was relatively poor. I worked for a small company of 15 engineers as a summer internship. The owner of the company used Lotus Notes for everything, including website editing, journal entries, email, contact database, quote review, order processing, Sametime instant messaging, etc. The problem was that the rest of the organization had not adopted Lotus Notes at all. Therefore the collaborative nature of the technology was not being used to its maximum potential. One way to improve the situation at the company I worked for would have been to show each employee how Lotus Notes could improve their job. It is important for each employee to understand how it will impact them and their job in particular. Otherwise, employees will believe that it is a waste of time and money. They also believe that the programs they are using for particular task are most efficient because the time taken to learn Lotus Notes could have been spent actually doing the work.

Is anyone familiar with groupware? Was the implementation effective? Did the company use it effectively? How do you think companies should introduce groupware to hesitant employees?


 * An easy way to introduce it would be to show the ease of use of certain operations that would otherwise not be possible without the application, for example manipulating documents live by various users through a groupware program. The ease of modification by various users would seem like a cool introduction to me, as well as quick training or something. - Cezar Cazan