Messy Talk in Virtual Teams: Achieving Knowledge Synthesis through Shared Visualizations

Abstract

Engineering teams collaborating in virtual environments face many technical, social and cultural challenges. In this paper we focus on distributed teams making joint unanticipated discoveries in virtual environments. We operationalize Dossick and Neff's definition of "Messy Talk" as a process in which teams mutually discover issues, critically engage in clarifying and finding solutions to the discovered issues, exchange their knowledge, and resolve the issue. Can globally distributed teams use "Messy Talk" via virtual communication technology? We analyzed the interactions of four distributed student teams collaborating on a complex design and planning project using building information models (BIM) and the CyberGRID, a virtual world specifically developed for collaborative work. Their interactions exhibited all four elements of Messy Talk, even though resolution was the least common. Virtual worlds support real time joint problem solving by 1) providing affordances for talk mediated by shared visualizations, 2) supporting team perceptions of building information models that are mutable and 3) allowing transformations of those models while people were together in real time. Our findings suggest that distributed team collaboration requires technologies that support Messy Talk--and iterative trial-and-error--for complex multidimensional problems.

Trend Analysis on Adoption of Virtual and Augmented Reality in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Industry

“…AR/VR can also improve communication among stakeholders and provide better visualization for engineers, designers, and other stakeholders, enabling one-to-one fully immersive experience [18]. Furthermore, IVEs have the necessary potentials to achieve knowledge synthesis to improve the design process [19].Many industries implemented AR/VR in a successful way. For example, AR/VR has applications in manufacturing [20,21], retail [22,23], mining [24,25], education [26][27][28], and healthcare, especially for simulating surgeries [29][30][31].…”

“…AR/VR can also improve communication among stakeholders and provide better visualization for engineers, designers, and other stakeholders, enabling one-to-one fully immersive experience [18]. Furthermore, IVEs have the necessary potentials to achieve knowledge synthesis to improve the design process [19].…”

Key Success Factors and Guidance for International Collaborative Design Projects

“…discussion in online meetings, exchange of emails, 3D BIM models) may benefit collaborative interaction in the virtual team. Similarly, Dossick et al (2015) identified a gap of knowledge in the distributed design work of the virtual team and how to best support the virtual teams. The following section presents guidance to support international collaborative design projects, which aims to help to lower the perceived risk of collaboration in virtual teams.…”

“…Tucker & Rollo, 2006;Barry et al, 2012;Solnosky et al, 2014), but fewer include collaboration between students from two or more institutions from different geographical locations (such as Fruchter, 1999;Hussein & Peña-Mora, 1999;O'Brien et al, 2003 andBecerik-Gerber et al, 2012;Soetanto et al, 2014). Previous research studies have considered the effectiveness of distributed project teams (Gaudes et al, 2007;Kankanhalli et al, 2007) and the impacts of distance collaboration on the outcome of a design process (Dossick et al, 2015).…”

Conceptual Framework and Roadmap Approach for Integrating BIM into Lifecycle Project Management

“…Moreover, the literature on BIM implementation encompasses standardizations (e.g., Eastman et al 2009;McCuen et al 2011), technical requirements (e.g., Dossick et al 2014;Gu and London 2010;Singh et al 2011), and organizational requirements (e.g., Ahn et al 2015;Son et al 2015;Taylor and Bernstein 2009). These aspects are confirmed in the BIM governance framework by Alreshidi et al (2017).…”