The technology transition model: A key to self-sustaining and growing communities of GSS users

If Group Support Systems (GSS) are so good, why isn't everybody using them? A vast wealth of lab and field research shows that when the right GSS tool is applied to the right task, team productivity can be significantly enhanced (See Fjermestad & Hiltz, 1998; forthcoming for an exhaustive compendium of GSS lab and field research). Field studies of teams with tasks ranging from strategic planning (Adkins, et al., 1998; Dennis et al., 1997; Quaddus, Atkinson, and Levy, 1992) to IT requirements definition (Davison, 2000;) to military intelligence (Briggs, et al., 1998-99) can routinely achieve cycle time reductions of 75-90 % and labor savings of 30-50%. Yet an informal survey of GSS vendors suggests that there are fewer than 5,000 active GSS installations worldwide.