Experiments in problem solving

How we physically locate people in an organization for effective problem solving requires experiments to find out how people communicate in problem solving. Currently in large organizations there is much decentralization in location. The issue is: Given all our new communication/computing equipment, what activities can be accomplished effectively remotely?

In one experiment, two groups in separate rooms were tested in the speed at which they could solve simple problems:

i. Assembly of a trash can carrier when one group had the parts and the other the instructions

ii. Find all the citations relevant to an article when one group has the article and the other the index.

iii. Find the closest physician when one group has the address and the map while the other group has the list of physicians.

The two groups could communicate:

i. Communication rich: voice and video

ii. Voice

iii. Hand written messages

iv. Typing: inexperienced

v. Typing: experienced.

The results indicated that to solve problems:

Message_____Rich___Voice___Hand___Type
Ave Time______29______33______53______69
No. Mess______230_____163_______16_____32

Some business research indicates that effective interactions can take place with a meeting and subsequent phone conversations. This raises the issue of what type of human interactions need to be face to face in institutions for effective institutional performance.

Recently, researchers have been investigating how groups solve problems in computer networks when the identity of messenger is not revealed. This totally changes the behavior from a face to face meeting where everyone knows who is speaking. In a face to face meeting the hierarchy of status determines who speaks and how much. A network problem solving session is much more democratic with much greater interaction.