co-Laevo - Supporting Cooperating Teams by Working 'within' Shared Activity Time Lines

In this paper, we describe the interaction design and implementation
of co-Laevo: an activity-centric desktop computing system supporting
task coordination within cooperating teams. Coordination is supported
by having all team members orchestrate their dependent tasks on a shared
activity time line. Each task (or activity) is associated with a personal
dedicated workspace within which related resources, like files and windows,
are embedded. As users access activity workspaces, the past, current,
and planned state of the activity can be updated to reflect ongoing
work. In contrast to stand-alone scheduling tools, like a team calendar,
the actual work is not disconnected from the plan. In essence, users work
‘within’ a shared schedule, suspending and resuming activity workspaces
in order to access the contained resources required for their work. Users
are thereby constantly confronted with their own and collaborators’ activities
as part of task switching during everyday work. We introduce
this concept, and several entailing design implications, as cooperative activity
life cycle management. We anticipate the design of such a system
to decrease information overload and increases awareness among team
members.