Collaborative design: what is it? Thomas Kvan

Automation in Construction 9 Ž2000. 409–415
www.elsevier.comrlocaterautcon
Collaborative design: what is it?
Thomas Kvan
)
Department of Architecture, UniÕersity of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China
Abstract
Collaborative activities are an important application of computer technology now that telecommunications infrastructure
has been established to support it. There are many students in schools of architecture who are undertaking collaborative
projects using the Internet and many practices who work together exchanging files and interacting on shared digital models.
Software vendors are developing tools to support such collaboration. But what are we doing? What is the nature of
collaboration and what are the implications for tools that support this work? q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights
reserved.
Keywords: Collaboration; CSCW; Computer-supported collaborative design
1. Introduction
It has become accepted practice to use the term
‘‘collaborative systems’’ to describe the computer
systems which support distal communication between designers. In the field of design, we are
beginning to see the term computer-supported collaboratiÕe design used increasingly often. Although
the term normally used is computer-supported collaborative work, a similar word, ‘‘co-operation’’,
appears to be used interchangeably with ‘‘collaboration’’, as seen in the journal name ComputerSupported CooperatiÕe Work or the paper title
Exploring communication in collaboratiÕe design:
co-operatiÕe architectural modelling w19x.
In discussions about computer systems for collaborative design, their behaviours, specifications and
implementation, the most fundamental arguments appear to be encountered on the issues of interaction
w16,23x. What is the interaction to be provided, both
)
E-mail: [email protected]
interaction with the systems and interactions between
participants? Not only do the participants need to
share data but, how are they going to communicate
with one another? To illustrate the issues and confusions, look at the discussions about the role of video
— how important is it, how does it contribute to the
interaction between participants and how wide does
bandwidth have to be to support it. These issues are
raised when considering other aspects of collaborative systems — data exchange; participant interactions with digital models; audio links; among others.
Cuff w5x has observed that participants in collaborative design ‘‘did not necessarily participate equally
or collaboratively.’’ From our own experience, we
can observe that simply working together or talking
about the same subjects does not make the act
collaborative w25x. What specifically makes these
acts of collaboration or not? Is there any importance
in the name applied to this field of study ŽCSCW.,
which is sometimes rendered ‘computer-supported
collaborative work’ and at others, ‘computer-supported co-operative work’?
0926-5805r00r$ - see front matter q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 6 - 5 8 0 5 Ž 9 9 . 0 0 0 2 5 - 4
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T. KÕanr Automation in Construction 9 (2000) 409–415
2. What’s in a word?
What do we mean by ‘collaboration’? Let us
consider a variety of situations to explore the realm
of activities that fall within our understanding of
collaboration. We team together in design settings to
take advantage of what Steiner w24x calls process
gain. Collaborative success can therefore be said to
be achieved when we have accomplished something
in a group which could not be accomplished by an
individual. Shea and Guzzo w22x identify three facets
of a task which determine the success of group
effectiveness: task interdependence Žhow closely
group members work together., outcome interdependence Žwhether, and how, group performance is rewarded., and potency Žmembers’ belief that the group
can be effective.. To be successful, a collaborative
project must establish a definition of the team, identify their outcomes, ensure there is a purpose of the
collaboration and clarify the interdependencies of the
members.
If this is to be possible, are there limits to collaboration, either in time, place or size? Can we collaborate if we have too many or too few participants?
While Steiner’s work suggests strongly that the maximum number of participants in an effective working
group is four, others have found successful collaboration extending to many more. Sudweeks and Rafaeli
w26x took part in an extensive and prolonged exchange with over one hundred scientists and concluded that collaboration was possible with large
numbers. As noted by Abarbanel et al. w1x, the many
thousands of Boeing engineers who worked on the
777 consider themselves collaborators. From these
examples, it appears that there are no numerical
limits to collaboration, nor physical, when taking
place in computer-supported environments.
2.1. Collaboration and co-operation
Part of the problem with the term ‘‘collaborative
act’’ is that the activities that are undertaken in such
acts may vary in intent and degrees of participation,
yet be called the same thing. Is the crew of a ship
w10x guiding it into port collaborating with the pilot
who has come on board as it enters the harbour? Is
their working together not one of co-operation? The
pilot points out the hazards, the captain issues commands to the crew. Are they collaborating?
The roots of the words are, of course, frustratingly similar but they do carry distinctions worth
pursuing. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary defines collaborate as ‘‘to co-operate, especially in
literary, artistic or scientific work’’, deriving from
the Latin words col labore, to work along side one
another. Collaboration can be thought of as joint
problem solving. It means working with others with
shared goals for which the team attempt to find
solutions that are satisfying to all concerned.
Co-operation, as the Oxford English Dictionary
tells us, is ‘‘to work together, act in conjunction
Ž . . . . to co-operate for Ž . . . . mutual benefit’’ from
the Latin co operari, to work with or along side. The
dictionary also tells us that co-operation is an older
concept Žthe first instance dates from 1616. while
collaboration appears in the English language only in
1860, perhaps suggesting that co-operation is a simpler concept than collaboration.
The important distinction between the two words
is in the creative aspect of working together. In this
way, collaboration in design is a substantially different activity than the collaboration shown by ants.
Design collaboration requires a higher sense of
working together in order to achieve a holistic creative result. It is a far more demanding activity, more
difficult to establish and sustain, than simply completing a project as a team. I suspect that we collaborate far less often than we pretend to.
From their survey of literature in collaboration,
Mattessich and Monsey w15x have defined the words
more thoroughly and have drawn a third distinction,
that of coordination.
Ø Cooperation is characterized by informal relationships that exist without a commonly defined
mission, structure or effort. Information is shared as
needed and authority is retained by each organization
so there is virtually no risk. Resources are separate
as are rewards.
Ø Coordination is characterized by more formal
relationships and understanding of compatible missions. Some planning and division of roles are required, and communication channels are established.
Authority still rests with the individual organization,
but there is some increased risk to all participants.
T. KÕanr Automation in Construction 9 (2000) 409–415
411
Resources are available to participants and rewards
are mutually acknowledged.
Ø Collaboration connotes a more durable and
pervasive relationship. Collaborations being . . . Ža.
full commitment to a common mission . . . Authority
is determined by the collaborative structure. Risk is
much greater . . .
As Mattessich and Monsey emphasize, collaboration requires a greater commitment to a common
goal than co-operation with an attendant increase in
risk. For this to occur, the level of trust must be
higher.
3. Designing
The act of designing is, to many, an act that
involves others. Many practitioners cannot imagine
completing an architectural design and saying ‘‘That
is mine, and mine alone.’’ For most, the process of
designing includes other members of their profession
and members of other professions. To some, this is
an ideological position — for example, those who
hold the belief that the only good design is participatory design. Work such as that by Christopher
Alexander w2x has attempted to formalise this approach into a design methodology. On the other
ideological side, the Howard Roark image persists
w20x. The brazen hero, working in defiance of society
or preconceived notions of design delivers to a client
a design that should be accepted must be accepted if
the client is to be saved from branded an ignominious ignoramus.
Discounting the extremes of these two positions
as being positions that seldom occur and, if they do,
are beyond the realm of normal collaborative pro-
Fig. 2. Loosely coupled design process.
cess, let us ask ‘‘Is design collaborative or co-operative?’’ What criteria could we use to distinguish
between the two? Typically, we think of design as a
continuous close-coupled process ŽFig. 1. in which
the participants work closely to realise a design.
Here, the participants work intensely with one another, observing and understanding each other’s
moves, the reasoning behind them and the intentions.
At any stage of the design, the observer cannot
identify a discrete contribution to the design product
from one participant or the other.
Experience tells us that much design is in fact
loose-coupled ŽFig. 2., with each participant contributing what they can in different domains of expertise at moments when they have the knowledge
appropriate to the situation. The participants have
been engaged to work together because each has a
particular expertise that can be contributed to the
solution process. In this situation, we see two or
more experts operating in their own domains on a
shared problem. The design moves in discrete steps,
perhaps not a linearly as set out in the very simplified diagram below, but still in ways that we can see
a step and identify what has happened during that
step.
3.1. Some attributes of design actiÕities
Fig. 1. Close coupled design process.
During the design process itself, what is happening? Loose-coupled or close-coupled, how are the
participants working together. Design is often thought
of as a process that occupies a continuous space of
time. If you ask a design team what they were doing,
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T. KÕanr Automation in Construction 9 (2000) 409–415
the participants typically will not think of a time
when they are not designing. They will describe a
complex series of decisions, threads which were
picked up and dropped, tasks and events which
occurred. Typically, they will describe intense and
extended periods of time when they worked intensively together to solve the design problem. Challenged to identify discrete tasks, they may tell you
about tasks that took hours, days, or weeks.
Gero and McNeill w7x have shown that design is in
fact a process that consists of a series of distinct
events that occupy discrete and measurable periods
of time. Most significantly, they have shown that the
temporal span of these design events is remarkably
short. In one design analysis, they recorded the
majority of events taking less than 30 s; another in
which the participants were more expert in their
field, most event lengths were less than 15 s Žsee
Fig. 3.. As the authors note: ‘‘These differences may
reflect differences in expertise with the experts moving quickly through the design task or they may
reflect differences . . . between the designers.’’
In their paper, Gero and McNeill have shown that
design can be seen as a series of discrete activities
and that the level of expertise affects the way work
is done, being discernible in the temporal pattern of
their work. As collaborators come together in design,
we can assume that the nature of their activity does
not change since collaboration still requires a designer to attend to design as an individual as well as
collaborate. Collaboration is probably episodic and
cyclical too. This means that design remains a series
of discrete steps. Collaborators work together for
Fig. 4. A model of design collaboration.
moments, then divide up and go their separate ways
w11x. The participants act as individual experts addressing design issues from their perspectives. Their
expertise may change during a design session as
their understanding is supplemented and they learn
from their involvement.
This analysis is in sympathy with a model of
collaborative design ŽFig. 4. postulated in by this
Fig. 3. Event lengths during design Žfrom Gero and McNeill w7x..
T. KÕanr Automation in Construction 9 (2000) 409–415
author elsewhere w13,27x, which suggest that collaborative design consists of parallel expert actions, each
of short duration, bracketed by joint activity of negotiation and evaluation. Thus the design activity itself
is discrete, individual and parallel, not intimately
linked. The participants act as individual experts
addressing design issues from their perspectives.
Their expertise may change during a design session
as their understanding is supplemented and they
learn from their involvement.
We suggest that the cycle time in this model is
very small — probably in the realm of seconds,
perhaps not even the 15 s that Gero and McNeill
have found, although we are still exploring this data.
In this model, we can see that the work is in fact
co-operative in nature, and that collaboration occurs
as negotiation and evaluation, activities observed as
essential and present in computer supported collaborative design w17x. This view of the design process is
supported further in the categorisation of design
collaboration identified by Maher et al. w14x in their
experiment in collaborative design, namely:
Ø Mutual collaboration, in which the participants
are ‘‘busy working with the other’’.
Ø Exclusive collaboration, in which the participants
‘‘work on separate parts of the problem, negotiating occasionally by asking advice from the other’’.
Ø Dictator collaboration, where the participants decide who is ‘‘in charge’’ and that person leads the
process.
Indeed, Maher et al. note that the ‘exclusive
collaboration’ model is the most effective and the
one in which they observed most productive results.
Mutual collaboration led to no result at the end of a
very busy exchange between the participants, whereas
dictator collaboration came to a conclusion as soon
as the leader made up her mind.
Design collaboration therefore requires a higher
sense of working together in order to achieve a
creative result than co-operative design. It is a far
more demanding activity, more difficult to establish
and sustain, than simply completing a project as a
team. It should be noted that collaboration does not
imply capitulation by individual members nor does it
imply decisions by consensus Ža common mistaken
assumption, see, for example, Ref. w3x.. But if we
look further at collaboration, we see one more issue
— compromise. Compromising suggests an expedi-
413
ent settlement that only partially satisfies those involved. It does not dig into underlying problems but
rather goes for a superficial arrangement. This indeed is borne out by Dorst w6x with his observation
that designers practice ‘‘satisficing’’ very often. In
Cross and Cross w4x for example, collaborative designers reach design decisions which are not the best
solution but which are adequate. This is not a pejorative to be dismissed, for the basis for the satisfied
solution goes beyond superficiality and is often a
truly innovative solution.
4. Implications for computer systems
Whether we are co-operating or collaborating, we
can be designing, but our expectations for the design
environment changes if we think we are doing one or
the other. A loose-coupled design process requires a
very much different set of tools and conditions to be
successful than a close-coupled one. Collaboration
requires more than machinery and systems to occur.
To what extent the systems are necessary for collaboration has yet to be addressed — many working in
this field have their vision clouded by the issues of
collaboration itself, failing to recognise the broader
and far more important issues of systems for cooperative work. This over-riding desire to support
collaboration leads to high-bandwidth demands to
support close visual linking in order to replicate
co-location w8,9,21x. Now that we have over a decade
of experiential data, it is becoming apparent that
these simulations of co-location do not lead to better
work product outcomes w28x. Experimental data suggests that this conclusion is true w12,18,27x.
To be provocative, I suggest that most of the time
when people think they are working collaboratively
they are actually co-operating and, even more important, compromising. And most of the time that is
exactly what they should do. Collaboration is time
consuming and requires relationship building and is
suited to very particular problems that require such
close coupling of the design process and its participants. It would be inappropriate to collaborate to
accomplish most design tasks, in the strictest meaning of the word. In short, working together, even
effectively, is not necessarily collaboration, nor
should it be.
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T. KÕanr Automation in Construction 9 (2000) 409–415
From this review, we see that collaboration is a
deeper, more personal synergistic process and the
term should be used selectively. Perhaps we should
refer to our field as ‘‘co-operative design’’, recognising that the design process itself is one of negotiation, agreement, compromise, satisficing in order to
achieve success. We might even talk about ‘‘compromised design’’ at the risk it might imply the
wrong thing. I suspect again that we collaborate far
less often than we pretend to. We focus on collaboration, failing to distinguish that act from co-operation,
diminishing the usefulness of this looser coupling.
Most design projects bring teams into a relationship
which fits Mattessich and Monsey’s definition of
co-operation or co-ordination more closely than it
fits their definition of collaboration. Computer systems which support co-operative design can be
loose-coupled components which allow for different
systems and are reliant on a variety of communication channels. In a pursuit of systems for collaborative work, we risk over-emphasising particular
features which may not be needed. For example,
synchronicity may be unnecessary for much co-operative work. In place of striving for closer coupling of
systems and tasks, we should perhaps pay greater
attention to work processes which are needed to
create the environment for successful co-operation or
collaboration. We cannot expect to create such an
environment simply with hardware and software
tools. An over-reliance on tools can only lead to less
than cost effective use of our resources.
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