Improvisational Change Management: New Work Forms with Groupware

Abstract

In Sweden, an increasing number of the municipal administrations are introducing groupware for case and document management. During 1996, the municipal administration in this study began the introduction of a platform for case and document management based on Lotus Notes Domino. This system supports planning and collaboration of common work tasks based on an integrated system for e-mail and shared databases with information. It is obvious that this platform has a potential to change the work and work situations for the employees. More specifically, this platform provides a possibility to introduce more process- and collaborative-oriented work forms. In this chapter, we present experiences from this process of groupware introduction. In the organizational plan, one of the formulated objectives of this change process is to achieve new process and collaborative ways of work (ADB-kontoret, 1997). Therefore, a first focus in this chapter is on to what extent the introduction and use of the information technology has resulted in new work forms.