ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the user needs within cooperation processes, and describes the requirements for a Computer Supported Cooperative Work environment. The cooperation process necessary to fulfill the request is standardizes and routinized, so that the negotiation and verification phases can be considers merely as an intiating and concluding it. In these cases too breakdowns may occur, and new cooperation processes can be initiates to solve them. The synchronization needs of a participant in managing coordination therefore require a communication support capable, on the one hand, of supporting various communication channels in an efficient and effective way, and, on the other, of supporting a conversation, no matter what channel it is carries on. A computer–based work environment must therefore be able to support both characteristics, transparency and visibility, of the organizational structures. As the structure of an organizational unit may undergo continuous changes, updating the computer-based work-environment can be a rather heavy task.
