The short development cycle of technology, communication and collaborative technologies included, leaves little time for testing and less for understanding the impact of new technology. This research proposes a framework to assist organisations in selecting the appropriate level of technology with the work required. The framework is tested using a low resource configuration, with selected work task types generally found in software development. All activities are evaluated according to selected measure components of success. A collection of research methods known as ethnography is used to examine and test the framework.
Methods employed include questionnaires, interviews, interaction analysis and ethnomethodology.
The results indicate that even at a low resource level, given selected criteria, collaborative technology successfully supports certain collaborative work activities. Findings also indicate that softer people issues require much more attention in order for technology to support natural collaborative work. Finally, user defined parameter testing has indicated that the framework functions as expected and designed.