The Challenge

Dedicated project space enhances team productivity and collaboration
however, at Carnegie Mellon, physical space is at a premium. Despite the
constraint, interdisciplinary team meetings are happening ad hoc, 24x7-- in
conference rooms, open spaces and even hallways. Unstructured by nature,
student groups are managing their workload under-equipped with the
assistive tools and technologies that could enhance their effectiveness as
a team.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the problems collaborating teams face:

At the end of a meeting, various artifacts ? including notes, post-its,
action lists, timelines, digital files, paper sketches and collaborative
whiteboard annotation ? have been produced. Typically, each team member
takes a piece of the puzzle, the white board gets erased, and no one person
can resurrect the meeting to make it all fit together again. Since student
teams have no inherent hierarchy, it is unusual to have the infrastructure
to organize their activities and artifacts. To add to this dilemma, meeting
scheduling and attendance among overextended people is a time-sapper. So,
the need for mobility and flexibility is great for the demands of
individual and collaborative work at, and between, meetings.