Cultural Dimensions – How people from different countries and cultures are…different

This is part of my “Working with Global Teams” series.

cultural differences

I’ve been reading Malcom Gladwell’s book “Outliers“. In part of it, he delves into a study that a dutchman had done into different cultures.

I found this fascinating and looked into it further. The dutchman was Geert Hofstede and he had built a model that described different cultures using six different dimensions.

Now – ever since moving to a foreign country, and then starting work for an international company, I have been trying to find a way that would help me understand, and to describe, the differences in the cultures of the people I live with, and work with.

And, it seems that Hofstede’s model certainly helped with that.

The six dimensions are:

  • Power distance index (PDI): This dimension refers to how people perceive those with power. For example – is the head of the country honoured and revered, or seen as “no different than us”.
  • Individualism (IDV) vs. collectivism: – “The degree to which individuals are integrated into groups”.
  • Uncertainty avoidance index (UAI):  – Best summed up as “how many rules and regulations are in place to ensure that things happen as they should.”
  • Masculinity (MAS), vs. femininity: Is there a big difference between what are perceived as the “male” role, and the “female” role.
  • Long term orientation (LTO), vs. short term orientation: – This dimension measures how much importance a culture puts on “the future”, as opposed to how important they hold onto traditions, and the past.
  • Indulgence, vs. restraint: Hedonistic behaviour, or not.

This made it so clear for me – looking at the different cultures I have lived in, as well as the different cultures I have worked with, I was able to finally get some clarity on how the cultures differed. To be able to categorize behaviours I had seen.

Hofstede’s work is still widely use, and very relevant. In fact, here is a quote from wikipedia:

Why is it important to be aware of cultural differences?

“Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster.”

Despite the evidence that groups are different from each other, we tend to believe that deep inside all people are the same. In fact, as we are generally not aware of other countries’ cultures, we tend to minimize cultural differences. This leads to misunderstandings and misinterpretations between people from different countries.

Instead of the convergence phenomena we expected with information technologies availability (the “global village culture”), cultural differences are still significant today and diversity tends to increase. So, in order to be able to have cross-cultural relations, we have to be aware of these cultural differences.

With his five (the Indulgence dimension was added recently) dimensions model, Geert Hofstede has lighted on these differences. Therefore, it is a great tool to use in order to have a general overview and an approximate understanding of other cultures and, to know how to behave towards individuals from other countries. Because, we still need to cooperate with members of other cultures, and maybe more than ever with the new problems which have arisen for several decades like environmental issues. Therefore cross-cultural understanding is indispensable.

Geert Hofstede has a site where you can compare two cultures against each other, as well as learn more. Go and see how much difference there is between the cultures. (http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_dimensions.php?culture1=&culture2=7#compare)

Other great references:

  • Wikipedia’s description of Malcom Gladwell’s book “Outliers” 
  • Malcolm Gladwell on his book “Outliers”
  • Geert Hostede’s site
  • Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory (Wikipedia)
  • An overview of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions on Mindtools.com
  • Culturalism and Understanding of Culture
  • How to Develop Cultural Intelligence? Intercultural Dimensions
  • Culturalism and Understanding of Culture
  • How to Develop Cultural Intelligence? Intercultural Dimensions
  • Beyond your borders: Overcoming cultural differences that so often cause conflict (globaleduc.wordpress.com)
  • Redefining the U.S. Hispanic Consumer (jakebeniflah.wordpress.com)
  • Outliers: Malcolm Gladwell’s Success Story (time.com)

What if St Peter knew your Klout Score?

 

Klout Score in Social Media

The inaugural Innovation Excellence chat

Innovation #ixchat

Recently Braden Kelley moderated the first Innovation Excellence tweetjam.

Braden and Rowan Gibson both host the Innovation Excellence site for the Global Innovation Community. This is a seemingly endless store of tips, articles, presentations, etc, etc to inspire innovation. Definitely worth a visit. (http://www.innovationexcellence.com/)
Anyway, there was some interesting discussion in the tweetjam. And there was an amazing amount of retweets as the participants shared the innovation wisdom that was appearing on their screen.
Below I have captured the main flow of tweets.
(To get to the raw stream, scroll to the bottom of the page).
Getting set to kick off inaugural Innovation Excellence Office Hours over on #ixchat – I’ll be doing #innovation Q&A – Questions to #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Welcome everyone to #ixchat ! I am the author of ‘Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire’ and co-founder of http://t.co/QmGa6KO #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Q1: What is one of the most overlooked parts of creating #innovation success? – #ixchat
IXchat
August 16, 2011
Internal and external communications are central to successful #innovation and too often they are left for the end #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Successful #Innovation = Value Creation * Value Access * Value Translation /// and value translation takes time and focus to do well #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Value Translation is about taking the value that you’ve created with your new #innovation and evangelizing it in a way people get #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Value Translation occurs along a continuum between explanation for more incremental #innovation to education for true disruptions #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Successful companies focus on Value Translation from the beginning, testing messages internally and adapting for external audiences #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Even a great company like #apple underestimated the importance of value translation in launching the iPad and suffered ridicule #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
But within three months, Apple came up with brilliant OOH advertising that translated the iPad’s value perfectly in a single image #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Backlash against iPad’s launch statement should serve as cautionary tale of why investments in #innovation value translation matter #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
#innovation value translation should also not be expected to happen over night or to be the need of a single audience… #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
What things are you seeing done in cultures to create the environment to foster fun and safety to lead to innovative risk? #ixchat
Niskir
August 16, 2011
Take Segway example. Incredible #invention – game changer. Failing so far because regulatory, political, etc hurdles underestimated #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Because #innovation value translation can take time, often you must begin effort at the same time you begin creating the solution #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Other necessary #innovation communications investments include defining innovation and creating a common language of innovation #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Every context and culture is different, so every organization needs its own customized common #innovation language #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Without common language of #innovation, organization will struggle to embed innovation into culture or to unlock employee passion #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
I started to have a bit of connectivity issues. I hope the time was useful. We will bring you office hours from others in future 🙂 #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Q2: What things are u seeing done in cultures to create environment to foster fun and safety to lead to innovative risk? #ixchat via @niskir
IXchat
August 16, 2011
Introducing greater flexibility into the organization and its environment can help to foster more fun and #innovation connectedness #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Many organizations are redesigning their work space to increase likelihood of chance encounters and side #innovation conversations #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
@innovate Education is caused by starting at the wrong place. Start at value, then you don’t have to translate to value. #innovation #ixchat
DavidWLocke
August 16, 2011
Work space design should always link to how work is done & integrate connectivity in a way that doesn’t interrupt creativity #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
But workspace is a small part – the ability to take innovative risk in an organization is much more cultural and measurement focused #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
@innovate…organizations will struggle to embed innovation in culture or unlock employee passion #ixchat http://t.co/GbcpHS1
GowerPublishing
August 16, 2011
Organizations committed to #innovation give employees flexibility & capability to experiment & to shift some time to this activity #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Some organizations even allocate part of management’s measurement and compensation to how they foster and create #innovation #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Budgets must also become more flexible to allow 4 execution of day-2-day while also allowing 4 experiments – some of which can fail #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
One way culture can shift to support more innovative risk taking is by working to instill a culture of learning from outcomes #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
Quietly checking the 1st Q & A session of #ixchat w/ @innovate this wk. Excellent Qs about how to create a culture for #innovation > #ixchat
CreativeSage
August 16, 2011
Engaging people in learning not just from failures but also successes, & providing the space and support for the learning to happen #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
.@Gwen_Ishmael @bpluskowski & I wrote on #innovation #culture > Guide to #OpenInnovation & #Crowdsourcing http://t.co/NJNp3yd #ixchat
CreativeSage
August 16, 2011
Thank you all for attending our inaugural Innovation Excellence Office Hours – Sorry that things slowed down there at the end #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
@berkshire_ideas – #ixchat was 1st Innovation Excellence Office Hours giving people chance to tune in and ask #innovation questions #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011
@berkshire_ideas – We will begin listing future volunteer moderators here soon – http://ht.ly/64L3q – #innovation #ixchat
innovate
August 16, 2011

For a look at the raw #ixchat stream (along with a few interesting statistics about the tweetjam) click here.

My Diigo bookmarks for the week

  • tags: linkedin guide

  • tags: sharepoint template

  • tags: funny european Europe maps stereotypes

  • tags: pharma drugs licence

  • tags: organization hofstede CULTURE powerdistance behaviour

  • tags: sharepoint

  • tags: ReverendFun.com cartoon

  • is the circle crumbling?

    tags: Google+ socialmedia people

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Post-move SharePoint site Comparison

Comparison sites SharePoint migration

Recently I’ve been involved with a client project that included moving some SharePoint sites from one web application to another as well, as moving document libraries from a top site to a sub-site.

While I work at the Business level (business systems analyst role), the move itself was done by client’s IT Infrastructure people. Fortunately they were smart enough to copy the content, instead of moving it. This was a brilliant idea, as it gave us the ability to have the original content still available.

Once the content had been moved the next step was to check that no documents had been missed. Now, the site owner (at the business level) had the best idea of what content would be stored in the doclibs, but as there were 64 of them, (some with 100 documents, many with documents in the thousands), doing a direct comparison was not easy. There was also the fact that the new locations had been “unfrozen” and people were uploading documents.

We investigated various ways to do a comparison. This involved creating special views for the docbases that would include only documents created before the “unfreeze” date, and then doing a screen by screen comparison. This was quickly deemed as not practical, and not handy, and bloody tiring.SharePoint comparison content doclibs sites

Then we tried exporting out the lists from the original location to spreadsheet, and then doing the same with the new location so that each list was in columns next to each other. And then doing a side-by-side comparison. This was definitely more practical, and we thought that it was a plausible solution. Until we discovered that for one of the doclibs there were 900 documents in the old location that were not in the new location.

Fortunately we came across a tool from MetaVis. The application suite of this product included a “Live Compare” feature. With this we were able to easily select one particular site in the left part of the screen, another site in the right screen, and then select the docbases that we wanted to compare. And then after clicking on the “Go and check the differences” button (it was actually titled “Compare Now”), we could see which documents were in the old location, and were not in the new location, and vice versa. This was great! And compared to manually comparing lists, was sooo much easier.

Meta Vis site comparison SharePoint

As well as any differences in content in the doclibs, we were also able to see small differences in other configurations. This was very handy.

Now – I know that the main functionality of the MetaVis tool is to do with migration, and architecting, but this “Live Compare” functionality certainly saved us a lot of time and frustration.  

#ECMJam 3 – SharePoint & ECM

Yesterday, the third #ECMJam was held. A lot of people were involved and it was a very interesting discussion about

the place of SharePoint in the world of ECM.

Bryant Duhon was the Jam facilitator. Check out his “Introductory” post here (http://www.aiim.org/community/blogs/expert/ECMjam-SharePoint-and-ECM).

There were a number of Questions that formed the basis of the discussion. These were:

Q1: Is there problem with #sharepoint expectations, marketing, or the product itself?
bduhon
August 11, 2011
Q2: #SharePoint / #governance — how to do it for real (in 140 characters or less!)
bduhon
August 11, 2011
Q3: Is there/has there been a backlash vs. #SharePoint? http://ow.ly/60GnJ
bduhon
August 11, 2011
Q4: What does #SharePoint do well ootb? What doesn’t it do?
bduhon
August 11, 2011
Q5 Can #SharePoint solve #collab and DM problems for larger companies, as well as smaller? Can/does it really scale?
bduhon
August 11, 2011

Each question raised some interesting responses.

With regards Question 1, there was a feeling that SharePoint was not quite an ECM application:

#ECMjam A>Q1 Sharepoint is no #ECM system when you take the #AIIM definition as reference
PROJECTCONSULT_
August 11, 2011
#ECMjam A>Q1 Sharepoint claims to be #ECM, but a lot of ECM vendors make money enriching SPS2010 with ECM functionality
PROJECTCONSULT_
August 11, 2011
Q1: There’s a problem with expectations! #SharePoint isn’t the be-all/end-all too many folks seem to believe.
steveweissman
August 11, 2011

Others pointed out that the problem isn’t with what the product, itself, can do, but with the “misunderstanding” of what SharePoint actually is.

Q1: IMO, SharePoint “problem” is not with product as much as with misunderstanding of what, why, where, how it can/should be used.
lehawes
August 11, 2011
Q1 Agree that SP does a lot and what it does, it does well. TCM is the big gap. #ECMjam
inoldland
August 11, 2011
Q1: #sharepoint is a platform, but was sold as a product. Leaves users spending $$$ to get what they were promised #ecmjam
danieloleary
August 11, 2011
Others expanded on this, and discussed what ECM should actually be, as well as pointing out that after the “purchase” of SharePoint, extra costs.
Q1 you can not achieve ECM with 1 product or a platform, SP still does not provide scanning OOTB #ecmjam + you need PM consulting & techserv
shadrachwhite
August 11, 2011
Q1 Saw recent data from a SP conf that for every $1 of SP license it sells, partners sell $6 of services. Underscore OOTB issue. #ECMjam
inoldland
August 11, 2011
Q1: So expectations are over-hyped and fueled by microsoft to make #SharePoint out as more than it is. #ECM #ecmjam
bduhon
August 11, 2011
Q1. As follow up to my previous comment, from my standpoint, people just seem to buy software as a panacea. Why not more plan 1st #ecmjam
bduhon
August 11, 2011
Q1. My theory, it’s from Microsoft, so folks believe it’s just going to be out of the box #ECM. #ecmjam
bduhon
August 11, 2011
And not just by Microsoft RT @bduhon: Q1: So expectations are over-hyped and fueled by microsoft #ECM #ecmjam
steveweissman
August 11, 2011
Too hard, too long, too obvious! RT @bduhon: Q1. people just seem to buy software as a panacea. Why not more plan 1st #ecmjam
steveweissman
August 11, 2011

Question 2 (SharePoint and Governance) was met with a unaimous response – PLANNING & CONTROL

#ECMjam A>Q2 #Sharepoint governance needs good planning and administration esp. in distributed environments
PROJECTCONSULT_
August 11, 2011
4 characters: P-L-A-N. 5 characters: T-H-I-N-K RT @bduhon: Q2: #SharePoint/#governance: how to do it (in 140 characters) #ECM #ecmjam
steveweissman
August 11, 2011
#ECMjam Q2-You can define segments of SP with different technical restrictions to assist in governance (e.g. size quotas for team sites)
DerekPunaro
August 11, 2011
Q2: #sharepoint governance must be both centralized and distributed. Policies set by org, solution design by business units. #ecmjam
lehawes
August 11, 2011
#ECMjam A>Q2 Viral, uncontrolled installation and usage of #Sharepoint is the death of every information management governance!
PROJECTCONSULT_
August 11, 2011
One of the advantages of SharePoint is that is puts the administration, and “growth” of a site into the hands of the end-users (empowers). But this is also a disadvantage. Sites can expand and spread “virally”. The discussion touched upon this.
Q2: Governace requires planning up front and RIM on the back. Can’t be done with a full featured ECM #ECMJAM
incontextmag
August 11, 2011
Q2 @piewords “Viral w governance can work.” Sort of like a organizational social media policy? #ECMjam
inoldland
August 11, 2011
More involved but yes RT @inoldland: Q2 @piewords “Viral w governance can work.” Sort of like a organizational social media policy? #ECMjam
piewords
August 11, 2011
Q2 so how do you explain governance to an end user and get them involved? Easy to say, hard to do #ecmjam
danieloleary
August 11, 2011
There, and in CIO office (and in Redmond?) RT @bduhon: Q2. So #governance is where a hammer is needed? #ECM #SharePoint #ecmjam
steveweissman
August 11, 2011
Q2. So, @danieloleary @jessewilkins: #governance is where a hammer is needed? #ECM #SharePoint #ecmjam
bduhon
August 11, 2011
The discussion surrounding this question ended with a few good points that summed up the use of governance in a SP environment. It is useful, but needs to be applied sensibly.
So what kills #SharePoint? RT @incontextmag: Q2: SP doesnt kill governance. People kill governance. #ecmjam
steveweissman
August 11, 2011
Q2: SP doesn’t kill governance. People kill governance. #ECMJAM
incontextmag
August 11, 2011
(Answer) So what kills #SharePoint? Governance! (sometimes) RT @incontextmag: Q2: SP doesnt kill governance. People kill governance. #ecmjam
steveweissman
August 11, 2011
Question 3 (Is there/will there be a backlash against SharePoint) was very much related to expectations.
Only against over-inflated expectations. RT @bduhon: Q3. Is there/will there be a backlash against #SharePoint? #ECM #AIIM #ecmjam
lptacek
August 11, 2011
#ECMjam A>Q3 #Sharepoint is already outdated compared to mobile and apps
PROJECTCONSULT_
August 11, 2011
After 10 yrs? Seems to me we should have seen one already. #ECM #AIIM #ecmjam
steveweissman
August 11, 2011
#ECMjam A>Q3 #Sharepoint is too complex in relation to consumerisation of #collaboration & #ECM
PROJECTCONSULT_
August 11, 2011
Q3: There surely is a @sharepoint backlash, but it’s misguided, because it’s based on the misunderstandings we discussed re: Q1. #ecmjam
lehawes
August 11, 2011
Q3 Backlash will come only if SP doesn’t deliver value. Same reason there’s backlash against anything. (Apologies to Susan Faludi.). #ECMjam
inoldland
August 11, 2011
Q3: SharePoint has a place, but it’s not a mass market tool. It won’t ever be the Facebook of ECM #ecmjam
danieloleary
August 11, 2011
In the end, this comment was made:
Q3: The problem is that they market it as ECM but ECM is a category and no one product is all ECM. #ECMJAM
incontextmag
August 11, 2011

But someone pointed out:

Only in our circles; elsewhere they promote other stuff (eg, collab) RT @incontextmag: Q3 The problem is that they market it as #ECM #ecmjam
steveweissman
August 11, 2011

Question 4 discussed what SharePoint did well, and what it did not do well.

While this question didn’t generate the same discussion as others, there were some interesting comments.

The “does well” comments included:

Q4 SP does sharing, collaboration and portals very well OOTB. It does not handle high-volume, transactional stuff well. #ECMjam
inoldland
August 11, 2011
Easy way to share Office docs. Replacement for file shares. RT @bduhon: Q4: What does #SharePoint do well ootb? #ECM #AIIM #SP2010 #ecmjam
lptacek
August 11, 2011
Q4 – Collab & portals are good. Governance, transactional content, capture weak. #ecmjam #ecmjam
mtwessel
August 11, 2011
#ecmjam Q4: Good: Basic document management. Huge improvement over shared drives. Bad: Dependent metadata and field validation.
DerekPunaro
August 11, 2011
Q4 SEARCH! In 2010 they nailed it, wish every platform was as functional #ecmjam
danieloleary
August 11, 2011

Whereas, the “does not do well” included:

Q4 SP doesn’t do BPM well. Managing docs from outside an org’s four walls that need to be processed. #ECMjam
inoldland
August 11, 2011
Q4: Doesn’t physical records management, BPM, transactional content management, scanning & capture, archiving & library services #ECMJAM
incontextmag
August 11, 2011
Q4 – Weakness: Seen many orgs empower depts to make their own teamsites, but result is too many silos and no enterprise governance #ecmjam
mtwessel
August 11, 2011
Q4: SP default is to store as blobs, inflating the DB, but if you do much you need a SP work around. #ECMJAM
incontextmag
August 11, 2011

Question 5 asked “Can SharePoint solve collaboration and DM problems for larger companies as well as for smaller?

Generally it seemed that while SharePoint was useful for a small company, the administration, and maintenance requirements were too high to make it practical.

#ecmjam Q5 SharePoint has always been able to scale the difference is it puts it in the users hands front end, versus other ECM backend
rileybeebs
August 11, 2011
#ecmjam Q5 so scaling requires more planning, but absolutely can scale for large companies
rileybeebs
August 11, 2011
Q5 the time to live and staffing requirements are too much for small business, #sharepoint is a better fit for larger orgs #ecmjam
danieloleary
August 11, 2011
#ECMjam A>Q5 #Sharepoint can solve DM problems in smaller orgs but is some overkill in regard to admin
PROJECTCONSULT_
August 11, 2011
Q5 no 4 SMB’s. lack time and IT resources. rely on specific OOTB and references to their biz/problems that dont exist #ecmjam
SteveatFB
August 11, 2011
Q5: Technically (performance, scaling) Yes, but for the features and manageability No. #ecmjam
Tomkan
August 11, 2011
The discussion also touched upon the scalability of SharePoint, as well as its use in the Cloud.
Short ans: yes. Better ans: yes, but, with “but” = may require 3rd pty apps RT @bduhon: Q5 Can #SharePoint really scale? #ECM #AIIM #ecmjam
steveweissman
August 11, 2011
Q5 the best way to scale sharepoint is to run in the cloud #ecmjam
shadrachwhite
August 11, 2011
What kind of cloud? Cloud cloud or VM? [email protected] : Q5 the best way to scale sharepoint is to run in the cloud #ECMJAM
juliecolgan
August 11, 2011
#ECMjam A>Q5 #Sharepoint as Office365 SaaS might be the solution for SMEs
PROJECTCONSULT_
August 11, 2011
@bduhon q5 Not yet. There is promise for the future for SP for SMBs with Azure and the future cloud platformed SP in dev. #ecmjam #AIIM
nickinglis
August 11, 2011
Q5 Wondering if performance is an issue as SP scales (when it does). #ECMjam
inoldland
August 11, 2011
#ECMjam Q5: We’re 26,000 people. SP scales, but it needs careful focus and planning.
DerekPunaro
August 11, 2011
Q5: hmmm. Scale in what way? functionality … no. of users … geography … ? #ecmjam
steveweissman
August 11, 2011
So it was  a very interesting discussion with a lot of interesting comments.

For a read of the actual tweet stream, click here (http://www.hashtracking.com/fast-report/?hashtag=ecmjam)

  • TakingAIIM
  • A meeting of the great ECM minds – the #ECMJam (markjowen.com)
  • AIIM White Paper on SharePoint Deployment (arnoldit.com)
  • A Tip for Adding Muscle to SharePoint (arnoldit.com)

How can I improve this?

@LauraJul posted this tweet the other day:

It really made me stop and think. It was such a great piece of wisdom.

Indeed, if you have finished a project, building something, developing something, creating something, the natural tendency is to ask – “What do you think of/about this?”. However – if you ask “How can I improve this?”, the you are involving the person you have asked. You show that you really want (and value) their input.

Thank you @LauraJul.

Working with Global Teams: Date Formats

Timezones

Image via Wikipedia

This is part of the Working with Global Teams series

 

Previous Post: Working with Global Teams: Pesky Time Zones


OK, I’m going to give you a date, and I want you, without thinking about it, to tell me when it is.

11/7/7

Did you choose the 7th day of the 11th month of 2007? Or did you choose the 11th day of the 7th month of 2007? Or even the 7th day of June 2011?

All three are valid.

I’m sure whatever you choose was based on what is normal where you live. And that’s great when communicating with other people within that area (city, county, country).

But when you working beyond the extend of that area, as part of a global group for example, then you need to be aware of the date formats.

For example, if someone in Japan was asked to do something by 11/10/12, then they would aim at the 12th day of October 2011. While someone in North America would know that, obviously, the date is November 10, 2012.

Real life example – my car was broken into when I was in the United States. The police officer who arrived, asked me for my date of birth. I told him 17-11-73 (17th day of November 1973 – and not my real date of birth). You’d think that, obviously, there is no 17th month, that he would be able to work out what I meant. However, he was so used to MM-DD-YYY that he had to stop and think about it.

While it’s easy to rant and rave about how stupid this is, the fact is that different date formats are one of the things that comes with working with a global team.

ISO 8601 suggests using YYYY-MM-DD (similar to what our Japanese friend in the example would use). I think that this is a brilliant idea, and gives a clear standard. Also it allows a list of dates (in a spreadsheet or similar) to be easily put in order.)

However, I know that unless you were used to it, even this would cause frustration, and possible errors (until it became second nature).

When communicating with people in other parts of the world, using e-mail, fax, or carrier pigeon, I recommend using a  long date form. Something like “10 January 2013”, or “January 10, 2012”. Sure – even there, there are differences in the way that it is written, but at least you know what the month is, you can see what the year is, and (hopefully) you can work out that the rest is the day.

This would certainly prevent issues and miscommunication regarding dates.

For some interesting reading on this subject , check out the following:

  • Date and Time Format (W3C)
  • “A summary of the international standard date and time notation” by Markus Kuhn
  • ISO 8601 (Wikipedia)

The Use of Collaborative Software in Virtual Teams

I was delighted to discover a whitepaper by Eike Grotheer’s on “The Use of Collaborative Software in Virtual Teams”.

I’m interested in how “virtual teams” operate and work together, and so started reading his work. Then I realised that I had actually been part of his research. To gather data for his thesis, Eike had sent out  requests to participate in a survey in May 2010. (Google still has a cached copy of the survey). In November 2010, he sent out the results of his research. And I never looked at it!  (Kicking myself now, though!)

As I read Eike’s work I got even more excited – his research not only involved communication in virtual teams, he had used TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) to determine the effectiveness of the software.

(If you are not familiar with TAM (Technology Acceptance Model please check out my earlier posts: Predicting User Acceptance; and Applying (loosely) the Technology Adoption Model to a Real-Life situation)

Eike had used some pretty advanced statistical techniques to analyze his findings (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient; Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance), and I won’t go into those in detail.

Survey Results Summarized
  • 265 people responded to the survey,
  • There was also a very large variety of tools in use (Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint, Microsoft Project Server, Lotus Notes, Lotus Sametime, Lotus Quickr, and Google Apps were all listed, along with other collaborative applications).
  • Most of the features that are frequently used can be split into two categories:
      • Tools for sharing and managing information (e.g.  document, content and knowledge management)
      • Tools for direct communication between team members

User Satisfaction and the Use of Collaborative Software in Virtual Teams

OK – this is where it started getting interesting. Eike rightly states that

the use of information systems can only provide a benefit to an organization if users first of all have interest in using them and then actually make use of them.

To try and explain this the Technology Acceptance Model was devised (refer earlier mentioned posts for more detail). It states that the a user’s intention to use a system is influenced by the perceived usefulness and  the perceived ease-of-use.

Eike analyzed these two determinants (perceived usefulness and perceived ease-of-use) to determine their impact on the use of collaborative software. (He points out that, as everyone who responded to the survey is already using collaborative software, the intention is already known, and that the use is measured.) 

Again, I won’t go into too much detail. In the survey there were 4 statements that were related to the perceived usefulness, and 4 statements that were related to perceived ease-of-use.

Performing a bivariate correlation analysis on the data from the survey, Eike was able to show that there was a positive correlation between the perceived usefulness and the actual use. This effectively proves (statistically) that the more users perceive collaborative software to be useful within a virtual team, the more they will use it. (Sounds logical, but then this fact means that the TAM can be verified).

Tackling the other determinant of the TAM, Eike did a bivariate correlation analysis between each perceived ease of use item, and the extent of use of collaborative software.

There was no significant correlation which meant that the ease of use of collaborative software  has only a minor effect on the usage behaviour. However, it wasn’t actually possible to draw a conclusion as the survey participants were all experienced IT users, and the difficulty of the software may not have prevented it being used.

Going further, Eike investigated the impact of TAM factors on project success. Again using statistics he was able to show that there was a positive correlation between perceived usefulness and project success, and between perceived ease-of-use and project success. This confirmed that a relationship between the use of collaborative software and project success does exist.

In other words, the more useful the participants perceived the collaboration software that was used in the virtual team to be, as well as how easy they thought it was to use, had a positive impact on the success of the project in all aspects.

Summing it up

Sometimes it is easy to think “well, that’s already obvious”, but I always find it valuable to be able to scientifically prove (in one way or another) what everyone assumes.

And that is why I found Eike’s research exciting. From a handful of well thought-out survey questions, he was able to scientifically prove that

if software is considered useful by its users, it enables them to become effective and productive in their work, and if it is easy to use, it enables them to make use of it straight away, and leads quickly to desired results. 

Other useful links:

  • Virtual Teams: Key Success Factors – Part 1
  • Virtual Teams: Key Success Factors – Part 2
  • Virtual Teams: Key Success Factors – Part 3
  • The Complexity of Virtual Teams

 

 

SPX Series – A little bit of history

This is part of the SPX Series

Previous post: SPX Series – SharePoint eXperience – (aka SPX) – Series Introduction

First off – I want to explain that I am, in no shape or form, an SPX “expert”. I’m just a guy who has been using SPX since it was first released. I’m not a coder, so can’t tell you all the cool ways that the web parts can be tweaked, or made to dance. I am able to share with you some of the “lessons learned”, and tips . that I have picked up over time. Some of what I write might be incorrect. Please feel free to let me know if that is the case.

And, where possible, if there are other resources that explain something better than I can, I’ll point you to it.

So without further delay I will launch into today’s SPX post…”A little bit of history“.

SharePoint

In 2007 Microsoft introduced SharePoint 2007.

As well as providing the ability to store content in its own repositories (doclibs, lists), it also provided web sites that could be populated with web parts that allowed users to interact with internal content (lists and SharePoint repositories), as well as external content. This included other LOB enterprise systems (such as SAP, Siebel, etc). There was no native way to connect SharePoint and Documentum though.

  • Business Data Catalog: Overview
  • Business Data Catalog: Architecture
  • Interoperability Scenarios and Technologies for SharePoint Server 2007

Wingspan

A company called Wingspan had also developed technology that provided Web Services connectivity to Documentum.  This consists of the Docway Server, and Docway “Portlets”, (and for SharePoint – Webparts), and allowed for single sign-on,  cross-docbase browsing, as well as the ability for users to access, create & update content from a Portal.

  • http://www.wingspan.com/products/docway-web-parts/

SPX

CSC’s FirstDoc, provides a layer that sits on top of Documentum, and allows for compliance with many of the Pharmaceutical regulatory requirements imposed by the various regulatory authorities (FDA, EMA,  MHRA, etc.)

Using Wingspans technology, CSC (or, at the time, FCG), were able to create special webparts that allowed users to interact with their FirstDoc system from a SharePoint Portal. These offered about 85% percent of the functionality provided by the native FirstDoc application.

4.3

The first version was released in the 2nd half of 2007, and had the moniker “version 4.3“. This was to keep the version inline with the (then current) version of FirstDoc. It was compatiable with version 5.3 of Documentum.

There were 17 webparts available. These included webparts for browsing cabinets, listing the logged-on users checked-out documents, displaying the Home Cabinet, an inbox webpart, an very handy object-view webpart that could be configured to display one particular folder, or cabinet), an also handy query-view webpart that allowed content to be displayed based on a query, as well as an assortment of other functional webparts, and administration webparts.

Each web part offered a user the ability to further interact with an object via a context menu that showed extra functionality depending on the type of object that was clicked upon.

This first version was an excellent step towards greater flexibility in creating interfaces for users that better matched their daily work style. For the 80% of users who rarely log into FirstDoc, it provided a quick and easy way to get to specific documents. Links to specific documents could be sent via e-mail, and when a user clicked on it, the document would automatically be opened, without having to go through a process of logging into a client and searching for a document.

But there were also several shortcomings. There was the 20% of hard-core users that quickly discovered that there was still a lot of functionality that was not available. Also the SPX interface did not offer the same flexibility that WebTop did. You couldn’t easily change the columns that you wanted displayed, the search functionality when compared to the WebTop search was very limited, and the way of interacting with the documents was different. The context menu was not found in WebTop.  Performance was also a bit sluggish especially when using the webparts over a WAN.

To be fair, CSC were also restrained by the limitations of the underlying Docway technology.
(However, Wingspan have been making continual improvements to their technology and CSC have been able to take advantage of this).

5.0

CSC listened to the concerns that the hard core users (as well as the administrators) were having. Version 5.0 of SPX was released in the middle of 2008, with Product Alias Search functionality, the ability to limit search results, and also the ability to add multiple documents to a workflow. Version 5.0 was also compatible with Documentum 6.0

6.0

Then later that year, version 6.0 was released. This was based on Documentum 6.5, and an upgraded version of Docway(6.1). It had been designed to be backwards compatible (with configuration, it could work with version 4.3 of FirstDoc). This allowed SPX to work over multiple docbases of different versions. As well as this, the Inbox and Query webparts were tweaked so that values could be automatically passed on the URL. Menu selection was made configurable. A quicklink capability was added that allows a link to be configured that will launch FirstDoc functionality, and the ability to View Relationships, and Audit Trail reports was added.

6.1

Then, in the later part of 2009, version 6.1 was released with even more functionality – Virtual Documents could now be viewed, multiple files could be imported, a new :”My Views” webpart was available, as well as the ability to view the Workflow Status report. Importing related documents was now, also possible. A version 6.1.1. was also released but this was a correction to a limitation that was previously believed to be uncorrectable.

6.2

In 2010, version 6.2 and 6.2.1 were released. The only difference was that 6.2.1 was certified for use with SharePoint 2010. Both versions also used Docway 7.0.  And there was a bundle of new features and functionality. These included: the ability to register interest, the availability of the WebTop Search app as a webpart, a single-box search (“Google-like”), Saved Searches, the ability to display custom properties in the web parts, clipboard tools, subscription notifications, as well as other functionality.

Future

CSC are working on the next release of  SPX, and it looks like they’ll be adding even more functionality to close the gap between SPX and WebTop.

FirstDoc doesn’t have its own client application – it extends the functionality of the EMC Documentum native client – “WebTop”. EMC has announced that they will be phasing out this out sometime soon.  As a result CSC are dedicated to ensuring that SPX is ready to be a replacement.

So – that’s the end of my “A little bit of history” post. If have made mistakes anywhere, please feel free to let me know.