Computational Indicators to Assist Meeting Facilitation

• Published in: Group decision and negotiation 2011-09, Vol.20 (5), p.667-684
• Main Authors: Vivacqua, Adriana S., Marques, Leandro Carreira, Ferreira, Marcos S., de Souza, Jano M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological and Physical Anthropology; Business and Management; Computational methods; Decision analysis; Decision making; Decision support systems; Facilitated communication; Group dynamics; Information systems; Investigations; Leadership; Management techniques; Meetings; Studies; Work environment
• ISSN: 0926-2644; 1572-9907
• DOI: 10.1007/s10726-011-9235-9

In many group work settings, meetings take up a reasonable amount of time and often do not achieve satisfactory outcomes. One of the techniques that has been introduced to ensure meetings run smoothly and reach their goals places an individual in the role of meeting facilitator. Facilitation involves putting together the meeting agenda, designing meeting dynamics and overseeing the meeting at run time, to ensure goals are met. This may involve intervening or adjusting meeting structure to produce desired results. Thus, a facilitator should be able to act according to perceived group dynamics or problems. In this paper, we investigate information needs during facilitation activities. Based on initial investigations, we describe a meeting support system constructed to aid the facilitator in assessing meeting dynamics and a preliminary evaluation. Our goal is to provide information to the facilitator so he or she can better decide when to act and what to do.