ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the broad classes of collaborative work support systems discussed in the literature and the ontological primitives they incorporate. Computer-based systems that support managerial work have implicit to them a set of assumptions about those aspects of work being supported that are important, and those that are incidental. The project described in this chapter is a fairly typical type of project involving work group collaboration. The organization in which the system was developed is a large insurance company specializing in “group” benefits. The company is divided into two major functional divisions: insurance and pensions. Most project management systems are based on the Critical Path Method model. The primitives provided by such systems are activities, resources that can be used to carry out the activities, and precedence relationships among the activities. The chapter argues that designers’ ontological assumptions about collaboration influence the primitives of computer-based tools that are designed to support work groups.
