Self-Sustainability of Effective Team Performance in a Collaborative Design Environment

A number of studies have contributed to the design and development of effective collaborative design environments. They have focused on the communication of interrelated team members, the creation of shared understanding and vision, and shared discovery of design solutions. However, only few studies have focused on the design or the development of collaborative design environments that would allow all the members of the design team to plan their processes, enact according to their plan, monitor and influence their performance in following the planned processes, and prevent them from deviating unconsciously from their desired performance. This paper introduces the constructs of a distributed process management environment (DPME) which was designed to stimulate self-sustainability of effective team performance in an collaborative design environment by supporting: (a) the shared creation of a process plan, (b) the enactment of a process according to its plan, (c) the monitoring of the outcome and process of the team, and (d) the control of the team performance. It presents the findings of a study conducted for evaluating the effectiveness of the DPME in meeting the conditions required for collaborative building design