Application Sharing Is Not Enough

John Alpine, CoCreate Software Inc.   Today’s Top Stories   or  Other Development Stories  

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April 23, 2004 (Computerworld) -- Project teams exist to create great products, but the odds are stacked against success. A recent study of 40,000 projects found that 66% of them completely failed or were late, over budget or missing critical features. The cost overruns averaged an alarming 43%, according to The Standish Group International Inc.
One factor that can contribute to these failures is geographical distance among project team members. Project teams now rarely have the luxury of working together in a single location. And they often lack even the assurance of having a stable team for the life of the project. Thus, as companies outsource more design and manufacturing services, their teams must find ways to work together across geographical -- and often company -- boundaries.
As a result, project-team collaboration is a popular catchphrase for decision-makers at many companies today. For instance, nearly 60% of participants in a recent Forrester Research Inc. survey said that technologies promoting project-team collaboration were their top concern.
Missing the Mark
It's no surprise that plenty of products have jumped on the collaboration bandwagon. But most only partially address the comprehensive needs of project collaboration. Companies that ask an incomplete system to carry the entire burden of project-team collaboration are setting their projects up to fail.
A recent advertisement that appeared in a leading IT magazine invited businesses to enable collaboration with a powerful electronic communication device. This device, it promised, ties multiple parties together in real time, performs outstandingly and offers a "low cost, easy deployment" method to cross company boundaries.
If your business has geographically dispersed project teams, this advertisement might intrigue you. However, it in fact referred to something that you likely already have: the speakerphone. This tool actually does all of the things that the advertisement promises. But obviously, while it's a useful tool for project collaboration, it's only a partial system -- necessary, but insufficient.
The same is true for desktop or application-sharing software. Like the speakerphone, application sharing is relatively low cost, easy to use and simple to deploy, and it enables real-time collaboration. And like the speakerphone, it's necessary, but insufficient, for supporting communication across dispersed project teams.
Application sharing does play a part in the success of many projects. Some 60% of companies already use it as a collaborative tool, according to the Delphi Group. But application sharing falls far short of being the integrated, comprehensive system to project-team collaboration needs.
How Project Teams Work Today
Twenty years ago, establishing a project team and enabling effective interaction was fairly straightforward: You opened an office and put everyone in it. The team needed little more support than desks, chairs and a

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