shea@edson.East.Sun.COM (Tim Shea - Sun BOS Software) (07/25/90)
How essential is it for people to be able to see
inside (or manipulate) others' calendars? I would
argue "not very".
In my (informal) observations of people scheduling
meetings the biggest problem seems to be obvious:
finding the set of times when all (or most)
members are free to participate. People typically
don't care WHY others are busy so much as THAT they
are busy. So I don't need access to the possibly
sensitive information inside your calendar to schedule
a meeting with you; I only need to know when you are
free.
Suppose I can overlay my calendar (with busy times
blocked out in gray) over yours, which is marked in
the same way. I can easily identify when we are both
free (by looking for the "white space") without having
to know all the details of your life. I believe some
people at Apple presented this as a scenario at CHI
in Austin a couple of years ago. This successfully
skirts some of the privacy issues while providing most
of what people want in ordinary situations.
Another factor which seems very important, and
which those of us who spend much of our day at computers
tend to forget, is portability. One of the primary
times that people tend to schedule meetings is after
other meetings. So a solution which was portable would
have a significant advantage. We're seeing more of
solutions of this type in the form of pocket computers.
At Sun we have a group calendar system called "Calendar
Manager" which my group has been using for the last few
months. It allows you to control who may view your calendar,
who may add appointments, and who may delete appointments,
all along UNIX user/group/all permission lines. But my
experience has been that people tend not to modify
(or even read) other's calendars. Even when
they do look at another person's calendar, it's mostly
to see when they might be free (more than what they
are doing). So a simple graphical depiction of "busy"
times would provide most of what people needed without
having to worry about the privacy issues.
If you have a secretary who manages your calendar,
then more sophisticated/subtle permissions schemes such as
those being discussed in comp.groupware would seem more
appropriate. But how common is that scenario? Does
anyone have a feel for this?
Is this too simplistic a view? Do people have experience
with commercial group scheduling products which supports
or contradicts these suggestions? If so, I would appreciate
hearing about them.
--
Tim Shea Sun Microsystems (508) 671-0430
Boston Development Center shea@East.Sun.COM
Two Federal Street
Billerica, MA 01821mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) (07/25/90)
I thinkIn article <SHEA.90Jul24181213@edson.East.Sun.COM>, shea@edson.East.Sun.COM (Tim Shea - Sun BOS Software) writes: > How essential is it for people to be able to see > inside (or manipulate) others' calendars? I would > argue "not very". This depends upon the local office culture. Reasons why it might be important are the following: 1) announcements of events are come from multiple locations. Is the reason this time period is already blocked out because you are already scheduling yourself for the event in question? 2) reprioritizing. In some office cultures, ones superiors reserve the right to re-prioritize which meetings you go to. Examples might range from a manager deciding you should attend a customer meeting instead of his normal staff meeting, to a VP deciding that a meeting announcing upcoming layoffs should take precedence over ALL other meetings on site. In the latter case, they might well want to reschedule your time if you were going to go to a staff meeting, but might not override your schedule if you were going off-site to a Dr. appointment. In some environments re-prioritizing of your time by a superior without your permission is strongly looked down upon, in other office cultures it is everyday life. Note that this might mean that a variety of scheduling tools might be more successful in the market than one that tries to please everyone with compromises. The question is whether each market segment is large and profitable enough to support such differentiation. > In my (informal) observations of people scheduling > meetings the biggest problem seems to be obvious: > finding the set of times when all (or most) > members are free to participate. I believe that this IS the largest obvious problem. Another large unobvious problem is that HOW you handle the scheduling/acknowldegment process is very different for different individuals and office cultures. Even in the case where there are grey bars and you don't know what the time is scheduled for, what happens when you find an open area. Can YOU the scheduler reserve that part? Or can you merely request of the calendar owner that they reserve that part? What sort of acknowledgment will you get if the owner does or does not accept the proposed meeting? How will people feel about this? Will they feel someone else has too much control over their life? Will they feel that their employees have too much autonomy? Will they feel that the methods are uncertain and inefficient? All these sorts of questions affect acceptance of groupware products. I believe that the biggest problem for scheduling systems is not the privacy issue mentioned above, but rather one related to the portability version mentioned below. > Another factor which seems very important, and > which those of us who spend much of our day at computers > tend to forget, is portability. One of the primary > times that people tend to schedule meetings is after > other meetings. So a solution which was portable would > have a significant advantage. We're seeing more of > solutions of this type in the form of pocket computers. But there is another side to this portability problem other than just the technological component. Meeting scheduling is not done equally by all individuals in many organizations. Commonly, managers schedule more meetings, and employees attend them. The convenience of the on line system is for the scheduler. The inconvenience of keeping the on line version up to date is for the attendees. If the inconvenience is sufficiently small enough (as it might be with pocket computers that upload), then the economics of the effort equation might balance sufficiently for acceptance. But if the inconvenience factor is large (copying back and forth from a paper calendar and constantly checking for surprise meetings) then the system is likely to fail. In the latter case, schedulers (managers) might even mandate regular use of the system in order to receive the benefits. People might agree to comply, but unconciously, and unintentionally they'll forget to keep calendars up to date a few times when they are busy. They'll get reminded, they agree to use it, and this will be repeated, without any form of intention disobediance. Eventually, schedulers will conclude that they on-line data isn't accurate enough to meet their needs and that further reminders to keep things up to date don't achieve the goal. At that time the calendar system will fail. Estimated time to recognition of failure will vary from group to group, but 9-15 months would probably be typical. There might not even be a formal closure or recognition of the failure of the computer tool, people would just slowly revert to social tools to get things done. > Is this too simplistic a view? Do people have experience > with commercial group scheduling products which supports > or contradicts these suggestions? If so, I would appreciate > hearing about them. There are several papers (see proceedings from CSCW'88 for instance) that note the importance of economics of benefit and effort being equally distributed. E-mail succeeds best in environments where the people who receive a lot of mail also send a lot of mail. It does worst where large number of people are only supposed to receive mail and not to send mail to anyone other than their own superior. This is another example where effort and benefits being unequal have lead to lower acceptance. Scott McGregor mcgregor@atherton.com
wex@dali.pws.bull.com (Buckaroo Banzai) (07/26/90)
In article <27744@athertn.Atherton.COM> mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) writes: I thinkIn article <SHEA.90Jul24181213@edson.East.Sun.COM>, shea@edson.East.Sun.COM (Tim Shea - Sun BOS Software) writes: > How essential is it for people to be able to see > inside (or manipulate) others' calendars? I would argue "not very". This depends upon the local office culture. [...] I believe that the biggest problem for scheduling systems is not the privacy issue [...], but rather one related to the portability [...] Interesting anecdote time. This was told to me by one of my observation subjects, so take it as a friend-of-a-friend story (i.e. with grain of salt). In one particular office system, users could block out times on their calendar when they were unavailable for meetings. This could be due to other meetings, off-site activities, or just times you didn't want to be disturbed and so masked out on your calendar. People who wanted to schedule things could see when you were not available, but not why. One worker in this office consistently blocked out Noon to 1:30 PM. This became noticeable when the new boss, who liked to schedule lunchtime meetings, remarked on the worker's absence publicly. Well, to make a long story short, the worker was having a lunchtime affair and so was consistently, er, "unavailable" at lunchtime. The subject who related this story pointed out to me that even in a system (like this one) with strict privacy restrictions, having other people look at your calendar can sometimes say more than you want it to say. [For the record, I agree with Scott's assertion that the portability and data-quality problems are significant, probably moreso than privacy.] -- --Alan Wexelblat Bull Worldwide Information Systems internet: wex@pws.bull.com phone: (508) 294-7485 (new #) Usenet: spdcc.com!slug!wex "Zen is the essense of Christianity, of Buddhism, of culture, of all that is good in the daily life of ordinary people. But that does not mean we are not to smash it flat if we get the slightest opportunity."
muru@iris.brown.edu (07/30/90)
I am a newcomer to the interesting calendar/scheduling discussion that I
believe has been going on for some time. Among the important conclusions from
the discussion are:
a) Scheduling meetings differ considerably depending on the office environment.
b) An "agent" may be used to negotiate mutually agreeable meeting times.
c) Scheduling systems are more likely to be accepted widely if participants can
maintain their individual calendar on a portable computer and "dock" them
frequently (possibly once or twice a day) so that it is available online.
d) The issue of "Is it beneficial for one to look behind another's calendar"
still remains an issue.
a) The prominent scenarios for an office scheduling are:
1) Each participant has equal access to anyone's calendar (can R/W on any
calendar).
2) Same as 1 except that s/he can R anyone's calendar but only W his or her
calendar.
3) A select group of participants (typically managers) having R access
to all calendar's but (in)directly having W access to all (or most)
calendars. Situations for this scenario was pointed out by Scott McGregor
mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM - Article 236.
Technically, scenario 2) seems to be the most appropriate for which scheduling
systems should be aimed at.
b) An agent to negotiate a meeting transaction.
Craig Fields <1990Jul25.045719.21115@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> has implemented(?)
an application that uses a mail server (agent) that negotiates with the
participants. I believe this feature would be very useful if the the
participants get to see the counter-proposal by a participant who cannot
attend a (tentatively) scheduled meeting. Of course, if the scheduling user
decided that the participant(s) who cannot make it to the tentatively
scheduled meeting are not crucial, s/he may confirm the meeting with the other
participants.
c) Portability of calendar
Susan Ehlrich [TOOIS, Oct 87] and Grudin [CSCW 88] describe situations in which
scheduling systems may be successful when scenarios require or is beneficial
to maintain uptodate online calendars.
I agree with Scott and Alan <WEX.90Jul26125605@dali.pws.bull.com> that
portability is a prime concern to the success of online calendars/scheduling
systems.
I would like to know scenarios in which online scheduling is compelling,
thereby making participants maintain uptodate online calendars.
d) "Is it beneficial for one to look behind another's calendar"
In article 233, Time Shea <SHEA.90Jul24181213@edson.East.Sun.COM> claims that
it is "not very" important for one to see inside others' calendars. I argue
that it may be important in resolving many meeting conflicts. The following
discussion is based on a priority-based, graphical scheduling system (called
Visual Scheduler or VS) that I had worked on in school three years back. A
paper on this system is scheduled to appear in CSCW '90 proceedings.
VS allows a participant to assign a priority to each event which is depicted
by a different shading. Also, a participant can leave a short description of
the event which then appears on the graphical display of the calendar.
The scheduling is darker for high-priority events and lighter for low-priority
events. A scheduling user quickly locates mutually acceptable time slots by
stacking the participants' calendars together and looking for an open slot.
If none is found, the least disruptive time is the one that admits the most
light. In case of conflicts (as often is the case), a scheduling user can
look behind the stacked calendar transparencies to see a list of the
participants blocking a time slot. S/he can make a spontaneous decision to
schedule a meeting depending on whether a participant is crucial to a meeting
or whether s/he thinks a participant can be asked to reschedule a prior event.
Also, a participant can leave a short description of the event which then
appears on the graphical display of the calendar.
I would appreciate if someone could post a summary of the important conclusions
drawn from previous discussions on this topic that I have missed.
muru palaniappancrowston@athena.mit.edu (Kevin Crowston) (07/30/90)
Actually, there's a distinction beyond the importance of a meeting that I think is important for more automated calendar agents to take into account and that is rescheduability (pardon the hideous neologism). Some very important appointments are easy to reschedule and I would be willing to move them to be able to attend another meeting (e.g., a meeting with a member of my research group who's around every day); others are perhaps not so important but fixed (e.g., public lectures or seminars). Depending on the amount of notice, appointments might move from one category to another; e.g., given a few week's notice, I can change a doctor's appointment; given only a few days, it's essentially fixed. This particular feature of meetings is relatively common for people to discuss when negotiating over a meeting time (e.g., "How about 3?" "I'll have to see if I can move my other appointment and get back to you." vs. "There's a seminar I wanted to attend" (i.e., if there's no other time, then okay, but I'd sooner not)) but does not seem to be either easy to make explicit (i.e., exactly which appointments are you willing/able to reschedule? How easy is it to move this meeting vs. that meeting?) or often represented in computerized calendars. However, it's also one that a computerized calendar system might offer a significant advantage in handling. In particular, rather than your having to check with the other person, change your appointment and then call back the original requestor, your calendar agent could do it all for you (or as much as you wanted to let it) and simply present you with a message saying, e.g., "The best time for the group meeting was 3; you were scheduled with Bob then, but he can make it at 4 instead; shall I go ahead and change your schedule and confirm these two new meetings?" Kevin
mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) (08/01/90)
In article <46147@brunix.UUCP>, muru@iris.brown.edu writes: > a) The prominent scenarios for an office scheduling are: > 1) Each participant has equal access to anyone's calendar (can R/W on any > calendar). > 2) Same as 1 except that s/he can R anyone's calendar but only W his or her > calendar. > 3) A select group of participants (typically managers) having R access > to all calendar's but (in)directly having W access to all (or most) > calendars. Situations for this scenario was pointed out by Scott McGregor > mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM - Article 236. > > Technically, scenario 2) seems to be the most appropriate for which scheduling > systems should be aimed at. > > I would appreciate if someone could post a summary of the important conclusions > drawn from previous discussions on this topic that I have missed. Considering the scenarios above, scenarios 1) and 3) have the opportunity for most leverage as groupware, that is, a technology that fundamentally changes the way all members work. Scenario 2) is most like a personal productivity tool, in that everyone still has to go through the personal work of doing the scheduling requested of them. You can really see this clearly in the interactions that are done to actually get a meeting scheduled--typically mail system mediated propose-and-formalize type negotiations. In some cases these negotiations are via agents instead of direct person to person, in which some additional groupware type support is perceived, though perhaps less than if the user MUST involve themselves in meeting negotiation when they would not care or have a choice. Since scenario 2) has more personal productivity tool attributes and less groupware attributes, it is less subject to problems that arise from machine mediated interpersonal control. Scenarios 1 and 3 do significantly change the way individuals participate in group actions. This can lead to threatening machine mediated interpersonal control, but also offers the opportunity to significantly reduce the amount of personal overhead work needed to conduct group activities. Details in the construction of the system and its suitability for the specific workgroup with its existing work cultural norms are crucial for acceptance. Because work cultures vary so widely and details matter so much, this does not bode well for a single product getting wide acceptance, and may therefore inhibit development of such systems. Scott McGregor mcgregor@atherton.com