Distance, dependencies, and delay in a global collaboration

TLDR

Collaborations over distance lose rich, subtle interactions, leading to longer cross‑site work than comparable single‑site teams. The study discusses implications of these findings for collaboration technology in distributed organizations. The authors measured delay using survey data and change‑management logs, assessed site interdependence and communication patterns, and analyzed how these variables relate to delay. The study found that delay in cross‑site work is significantly linked to perceptions that remote colleagues help more during heavy workloads, despite workers believing they help remote and local colleagues equally.

Abstract

Collaborations over distance must contend with the loss of the rich, subtle interactions that co-located teams use to coordinate their work. Previous research has suggested that one consequence of this loss is that cross-site work will take longer than comparable single-site work. We use both survey data and data from the change management system to measure the extent of delay in a multi-site software development organization. We also measure site interdependence, differences in same-site and cross-site communication patterns, and analyze the relationship of these variables to delay. Our results show a significant relationship between delay in cross-site work and the degree to which remote colleagues are perceived to help out when workloads are heavy. This result is particularly troubling in light of the finding that workers generally believed they were as helpful to their remote colleagues as to their local colleagues. We discuss implications of our findings for collaboration technology for distributed organizations.