Supporting Collaboration in the Geographically ...

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Supporting collaboration in the geographically distributed work with communication tools in the remote district SME´s

Kari Liukkunen, Kai Lindberg, Jarkko Hyysalo and Jouni Markkula University of Oulu Department of Information Processing Science Oulu, Finland [email protected] projects, the need for special expertise has usually meant increasing traveling for these experts. In the working teams, the members have a growing need for other member’’s knowledge to fulfill their own tasks. Alternative to face-toface meetings is virtual presence; however this requires good communication connections and tools to support collaboration. In distributed software development, collaboration is the backbone for the project. It has an impact on all details and the goal is to find the best and right solution for the problem the project is working for. In collaboration, the solutions are based on the opinions of several individuals, who will give their suggestions based on the aspects of their knowledge regarding the question. In business networks, the software companies need to collaborate and communicate with other companies and customers. Collaboration can be defined as an activity that involves two or more companies, departments or customers who combine their competencies and technologies to create new shared value while, at the same time, managing their respective costs and risks. The entities can combine in any one of several different business relationships and for very different periods of time, ranging from some duration needed to exploit a particular innovation or business opportunity, to a much longer term on-going relationship. [4] With new technology (e.g. virtual presence), it is possible to offer tools for good communication, even in the distributed projects. Communication is the most critical issue in collaboration, and in order to achieve successful results, communication must be arranged properly. In this paper, we study the use of communication tools to support geographically distributed work in small ICT companies located in rural areas. Because of the nature of these companies, we mainly discuss geographically distributed, inter-organizational work. Our conclusions are based on the company interviews carried out during 20062009. The structure of the paper is the following. Chapter 2 describes the background of collaboration based on a literature review, chapter 3 presents the challenges of collaboration, and chapter 4 opens the settings and the research methodology. In chapter 5 we explain the obtained results and chapter 6 concludes the paper with a discussion about the research and implications for future research areas.

Abstract—— In the global software development environment, the companies face the challenges of collaboration. This is particularly challenging for software companies in rural areas, which are typically small companies with limited resources. Often their customers and partners are also geographically dispersed. These factors, in addition to geographical distances, highlight the challenges of communication and collaboration. The focus of this research is to find out how to support geographically dispersed/distributed projects. We addressed this problem by identifying the key categories of collaboration challenges from the literature and conducting an empirical study on companies of the area. The study consists of 30 interviews with 13 companies sited mostly in Finnish rural area, Kainuu region. The company interviews revealed that, instead of the project management purposes, communication tools are needed to provide an infrastructure for collaborative sessions, to interact with colleagues and customers. Limited resources also add the challenges of the communication tools and processes implementation. Keywords-collaborative software development; distributed work; SME; communication; communication tools

I.

INTRODUCTION

In today’’s global software engineering and business environment, companies face collaboration challenges in different levels of their operation. Companies meet even more situations where they have to work in different brand offices or together with other organizations to fulfill the defined task. Especially in development projects, many technical, organizational and economic factors have led to the globalization of project work [1]. Usual reasons for this are [2, 3]: • Limited number of well educated work force • Salary and development cost differences between countries • Different time zones enable continuous work and shorter development time • Infrastructure development (e.g. fast data connections) • To be near to markets People working in the distributed projects are usually experts in their own field. In geographically distributed 999777888-­-­-000-­-­-777666999555-­-­-444111222222-­-­-888///111000      $$$222666...000000      ©©©      222000111000      IIIEEEEEEEEE DDDOOOIII      111000...111111000999///IIICCCGGGSSSEEE...222000111000...222666

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II.

BACKGROUND

Another common theory is Dennis and Valacich`s media synchronicity theory. It suggests that effective media use requires a match between media capabilities and fundamental communication processes needed to perform the task. Multiple communication media should be used when performing a task, which involves both, exchanging information and developing shared meaning for the information. [40] Third theory, social presence theory suggests that the social effects a medium has are based on the medium’’s ability to provide awareness of the presence of an interaction partner. The better communication tool can provide awareness of presence, the better people can feel they are socially present in the communication situation. Theory helps to understand what kind of social needs different mediums can fulfill. [41] In addition to the three theories described, it has been discussed for decades that there is a gap [34, 36] between experts of IS and clients, but even within the IT community [36]. The gap may be an understanding gap - or worse - an ignorance gap as Adams et al. [35] impresses that ““many technologies are often designed and implemented on the basis of assumptions which can result in users being excluded.”” One gap has been described as the ethics gap. Moor explains that [31] it ““occurs when new computing technology emerges and we have no clear idea about how to utilize it appropriately.””

The focus of this research is to find out how companies support geographically dispersed/distributed projects in their activities. These projects have become common in companies and R&D environments. Reason for this development can be found in global competition, increased need for flexibility, access to global resources, and substantial financial gains, which all drive companies to engage in geographically distributed software projects (GDSPs) / global software development projects (GSDPs) [11]. Communication infrastructures are also more easily available, thus geographically distributed projects have become increasingly feasible to organize and manage. However, these projects face numerous management challenges that are inherent to their distributed nature, e.g., limited social interaction [15, 11, 26], language barriers [13, 27], and time zone differences [2]. While the growth in GDSPs / GSDPs has attracted increasing attention in the literature, there is still considerable variation in the terms used, including virtual teams, global virtual teams, virtual work groups, virtual organizations, distributed projects, and geographically distributed development teams In this paper we use terms ““geographically distributed work”” and ““geographically distributed team”” in their broad meaning, which covers in this case terms presented above. There are three theories that are usually connected to communication and communication tools. First of them is media richness theory [39]. A media is considered richer the more communication channels and feedback it provides (Figure 1), the more targeted the message is, and if the language conveys shared meanings and is easily understood by all communicating parties. Media richness theory suggests that different professional tasks are completed more efficiently when task properties and media richness matches.

39]

III.

CHALLENGES IN COLLABORATION

In the literature, collaboration has been discussed, and its challenges have been addressed. We have reviewed and analyzed the literature and identified the issues below. Collaboration is not an easy task because it contains several preconditions and barriers, which will make it challenging. Communities have to cope with the following barriers: (1) spatial (across distance), (2) temporal (across time), (3) conceptual (across different communities of practice and (4) technological (between persons and artifacts) [25]. The most significant barriers to collaboration include concerns over IPR's, protection of competitive advantage, the problem of benefits being seen to be intangible and the risk of becoming involved in an untested collaborative venture [29]. Those are mostly technical barriers of collaboration. Still there is also something else which may have an impact on working together. Another main barrier and cause of the problems are people’’s mindsets. Collaboration is complex co-operation of individuals because they have different personalities and expectations about joint working [29]. A. Problems in collaboration

Figure 1. Hierarchy of Media Richness [modified from

Collaboration is built by individuals and the behavior of those persons varies. In global context this means higher operating costs for the companies due to language and cultural barriers among number of other issues, as it requires

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considerably more effort to transfer knowledge over time and distance in comparison to development done under one roof, where tacit and explicit knowledge is exchanged on a regular basis. The findings of the literature analysis have been classified to the following categories: loss of communication richness, coordination breakdown, geographical dispersion, the loss of teamness, and cultural differences, which have also been described by Carmel [10].

D. Geographical dispersion Communication is difficult in geographically distributed development. There could be, for example, lack of overlapping working hours due to the time zone differences [9]. Distribution also causes challenges for requirements development [5, 17]. For example, major problem for a remote stakeholder is the difficulty to understand the requirements [9]. Dividing the tasks and work across development sites is also difficult due to the restraints of the available resources, the level of expertise, and the infrastructure. [11]. There can be great differences in governance, making it more difficult to manage inter-site work dependencies and to coordinate and control the distributed work [ 5].

B. Loss of Communication richness Communication is the most critical issue in collaboration, and in order to achieve successful results, communication must be arranged properly. Common understanding or shared understanding is also created through communication. It is "a mutual knowledge of all team members on what they are doing, why, and how they are doing it" [19]. Adopting from Nonaka [20], it is created through "continuous dialogue between tacit and explicit knowledge". It is crucial in order to develop a product or service together. Learning to communicate with other parties and building trust takes time and face-to-face contacts are important in this. If development is distributed and face-to-face contacts cannot be arranged, there will be loss of communication richness hindering the communication. This means that shared artifacts, such as flip charts, whiteboards, and tack boards, cannot be used to show the work in progress or as reference material [16]. Distribution also hinders informal or unplanned communication and all this has to be managed and supported through groupware or the like [7]. A loss of communication richness makes it necessary to concentrate on the quality of documentation, as poor and inadequate documentation is likely to cause inefficiency in collaborative development [11]. It has been noticed also that asynchronous exchange of information via shared documentation increases need of synchronous communication by face-to-face meetings or through video conferencing [24].

E. Loss of teamness Lack of informal communication has negative impact on knowledge management and other issues, such as trust [5, 14]. Lack of communication and trust may lead to unclear agreements and expectation of the end results may diverge, which will complicate the effectiveness of collaboration [28]. The role of trust is significant in collaboration and contracting, because it is (almost) impossible, to make perfect contracts. Furthermore, different processes and practices tend to diminish teamness [5]. F. Cultural differences Cultural differences cause communication problems. If the distribution crosses cultural boundaries, even just between different organizations, the implications for legal issues, knowledge-transfer, development and project management and quality management may be amplified, while language, time, and infrastructure issues can make the process even more challenging. [9, 18] This is truth, especially if we are thinking of current high tech, multi-site and over-the-technology-border type of R&D projects. All partners should have basic understanding about the business areas of the companies are participating in the project.

C. Coordination breakdown Team coordination is important issue, as different practices and processes of teams cause problems. The need for specific practices and processes for collaboration is often underestimated. Collaboration also sets additional requirements for planning; for example, the need for coordination between teams and the procedures for how to work with partners are often not paid enough attention to in planning collaborative projects [9, 12, 17]. Difficulties in identifying distant colleagues and problems with not knowing to whom to contact across sites are also reported [17]. A number of software integration problems were reported that was due to a large number of independent teams in globally distributed development [5].

G. Potential collaboration solutions Global inter-organizational development projects are common and therefore practices to handle collaboration are very important. There are plenty of solutions to collaborative work in the literature. This chapter discusses potential solutions to collaboration issues. H. Management practices Project management practices are in a key role while solving problems in collaboration. Properly planned development strategies and visible goals should be defined [22], as well as, which teams are involved and what they will do [6]. Synchronization of the main milestones with clear entry and exit criteria is needed [14]. Decision-making practices and project level coordination should be used as a

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supporting structure [8]. Also it should be ensured that commitments exist in written and controllable form [6]. Decoupling the work across sites so that these can work as independently as possible is recommended [18] and each of the teams should be fully accountable and responsible for their results [6]. There should be one project leader or responsible for achieving project targets [6] and the importance of relationship management is great [23]. Several relationship-building practices are suggested, such as faceto-face meetings, organizational charts help to recognize persons, and common kick-off meeting [15, 8]. Useful informing and monitoring practices include a number of practices, such as weekly meetings and progress reports. Informing and monitoring should be followed-up in all directions [15]. Also key risk factors should be identified and an approach to mitigate them should be prepared, furthermore, these risks should be monitored continuously [5, 6].

Cultural awareness should also be created involving all the cultures represented in the development teams, including different organizational cultures that may vary a lot between different organizations even in the same city. This can be done, for example, by circulating management across sites and cultures ("cultural liaison") or by setting up mixed teams of different cultures to create awareness for cultural diversity. This will also give ideas for how to cope with the diversity along with creating team spirit. [6] Finally, it should be noted that competence and experience in general are likely to improve the chances for successful collaboration [5].

IV.

RESEARCH SETTINGS AND METHODS

In order to study the collaboration and communication challenges from the point of view of SME’’s in the remote areas we carried out this empirical study. We selected Kainuu region as a representative of the Finnish remote areas. In her study of entrepreneurship in Kainuu region Salmela [37] has estimated that there are about 180 companies doing business in the ICT or electronics and a minority of these companies is focused on the pure software business. In the area there are just a few larger international enterprises, the rest of the companies are small or midsize companies [37]. Under the regional research program - called CreaTOL there have been gathered 47 transcribed interviews out of 23 local organizations, where four are large international companies, 19 of them are SMEs. Within the research of distributed project work of CreaLearn project we have focused on 11 local organizations, which represent almost all the software companies that, according to our research material, have geographically distributed projects in this region. In addition, we have selected interviews of two outside Kainuu district operating international organizations to have a sight of possible differences of activities of the research focus. Out of the organizations interviewed in CreaLearn, there were 10 SMEs and three larger, international organizations. We have started co-operation with most of these local companies in the year 2005 and the background information presented here is based on interviews gathered during the years 2006-2009. Our research has been implemented as qualitative research, following the principles of case studies, where we have been involved in deep and longitudinal examination of single instances or events –– cases - of companies involved. According to Yin [33] a case study is ““an empirical inquiry, which investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident””. The methods of collecting information during our research have included literature review, interviews and observations. Interview results presented in this paper about how to support collaboration in distributed project work with communication tools are based on the interviews done during the period 5/2009-12/2009. All of our material used

I.

Support practices Configuration management with the transmission of critical data and multisite production must be well planned and executed in order to have successful collaborative work [14]. A common software configuration management tool with multisite replication and centralized bug repository is suggested [5]. Switching over to one single process is not needed, if the collaborating companies have good enough processes of their own. Instead the synchronization of the main milestones and iteration cycles of similar length is suggested with frequent builds. The collaborating companies being able to use their own development processes provides a faster start for a project, while also making it easier for several companies to collaborate [15, 8, 5]. In any case, the decision about single or separate development processes should be made at the beginning of the collaboration. An interactive process model based on accepted best practices that allow tailoring the development process for the specific needs of a project or even a team is suggested [6]. Sufficient communication means and support for them are obviously required [6]. Furthermore, heterogeneous tools are suggested to be integrated for system development and concrete activities (e.g., programming, unit testing, conducting workshops), and not only for abstract concerns (e.g., analysis) [21]. Proper network infrastructure is needed in order to have fast data and information exchange between sites. Common rules, procedures and practices for problem solving are needed, e.g., how to use configuration management systems and how to escalate problems. Strategies for communicating internally and maintaining contact with all participants help in building trust [22]. Furthermore, establishing peer-to-peer links is suggested, denoting, for example, communication link persons or liaisons between companies established at all organizational levels, e.g., subcontracting managers, project managers, and also developers [15].

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in this research is consisted of 30 transcribed interviews with 13 companies (Table 1).

for the purpose of understanding with respect to communication from the viewpoint of project team in the context of distributed SW development.”” Based on this goal and the findings and categories found out of the literature review above interviews were conducted. We used formal GQM abstract sheet to collect data from the interviews. The interviewees represented various roles from entrepreneurs to software developers. They all worked in geographically distributed projects and used communication tools to collaborate with their colleagues or customers. The length of a typical interview was 90 minutes. Interviews were also recorded and transcribed by an external party. Two different researchers listened to the recorded interviews and compared their results with the abstract sheets the interviewer filled up during the interviews. Interview data was also collected in the common data sheet, which made it possible to use some statistical analyses also. The findings of the interviews were then compared with the theoretical framework of the literature analyze first executed. The methods we have used give us systematic ways of looking at events, collecting data, analyzing information, and reporting the results.

TABLE I. Company

Interviewed companies Domain

International /National

Size

A

SW development

International

Large

B

IS development

National

SME

C

SW development

International

Large

D

SW development

International

SME

E

SW development

International

SME

F

SW development

International

SME

G

Web systems

National

SME

H

Web systems

National

SME

I

Web systems

National

SME

J

SW development

National

SME

K

Consulting

National

SME

L

Consulting

National

SME

M

Education

National

Large

V.

RESULTS

The findings of our study are presented here according the same basic structure as literature review in the chapter 3 after some overall findings about used tools. Quotations are provided to give examples of the typical or descriptive interview data. All of the interviewed companies used telephone and email to communicate with each other and with their clients. These traditional communication tools had become part of the basic communication infrastructure in the interviewed companies. When companies act locally these basic communication tools are usually enough. As soon as company starts its first globally distributed project demands changes.

Most of the interviewed companies were still working in locally distributed intra-organizational or locally distributed inter-organizational environments (Figure 2.). Some larger companies were already working in global environments, mainly intra-organizational. In many companies global development and collaboration was seen as a natural next step in the company’’s future.

””Telephone and email are not enough anymore.”” After email and telephone next popular communication solution was online conference meeting tools. 85 % of interviewed companies used these tools. We found out that for the users voice was the most important feature and together with document sharing it was enough for most of the interviewees. Videoconferencing as well as the other meeting tools use is growing because of the high traveling costs and ecological reasons. Companies have also found out that traveling time is not productive time.

Figure 2. Company type classification [modified from 32] In the CreaLearn project interviews reported in this paper we used the Goal/Question/Metric method (GQM) [30]. According to this method, the first formal goal should be defined at first, in this case our formal definition was defined as: ““Analyze distributed project team’’s working environment

““We are still flying to Helsinki for the meetings. It is stupid. We lose a lot of money and I am away from the productive work.””

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Videoconferences were not as commonly used as online conference tools, 54 % of interviewed companies used videoconference. Reason for that seemed to be that videoconference equipments considered to be difficult to use.

Interviewees informed that in two situations as rich media as possible was needed. First situation was selling something to the client. ““A picture will help in convincing clients. It gives the feel of trust, (which is) in phone faceless.

““It (videoconference) is difficult to use, demands tuning, in fact it’’s almost easier to travel””

Another situation rich media is needed is to resolve conflict or there is need to gain consensus and there are divergent opinions.

Companies using instant messaging (69% of interviewed) were divided to two groups. Some of the companies’’ instant messaging tools were used as supplementary tool for e.g. when voice connections did not work during online conferences. Other group was companies where instant messaging was the most important tool for internal communication. Instant messaging advantages were: real time communication, knowledge of the user’’s state, use culture and ease of the use.

B. Coordination breakdown As literature and research has suggests team coordination is important issue, as different practices and processes of teams can cause problems. We found out that this is true in the bigger and older companies. Our findings suggest that small companies working processes are so agile and sometimes even ad-hoc, that they can handle these problems quite well even with limited communication tools. Here are some examples of a quite typical small company (four employees working at their homes) interview:

““Using instant messaging is merciful, you can do other work same time.”” Using Wikis and Blogs has rapidly grown in many areas. 62 % of the interviewed companies used Wikis or Blogs in their work. Blogs company use was considered to be mostly for the external communications. Wikis have established its use as the internal communication tool for the projects.

““The communication happens via chat mostly, but we do tend to meet each others, if not every week, at least in some weeks, though””.

A. Loss of Communication richness Learning to communicate and building trust takes time. It was common understanding in the companies that fastest and easiest way to achieve this was to organize face-to-face meetings in the beginning of the project or work task. If these face-to face meetings were impossible to organize video picture connection was broadly accepted instead.

““We have a lot of companions whom we have never met, but we also have those with whom, at some occasions, our collaboration goes deeper and those we meet face to face. It is true, that this way sometimes ““corrects the curves””. I, still, don’’t see this (meetings) always necessary. So, sometimes it is ok but not always””. ””It is generally understood, that business needs personal contact, (but) it does not add value (to business). Personally I like using email””.

““Face picture is necessary only when we are in touch for the first time and there is no possibility for a face-toface meeting.””

In the case of this company internal communication was handled mainly by chat. For newcomers this might bring some obstacles for example if one writes slowly.

We found out that the need for video picture vanished quite soon. One reason for that can be that in SMSs there are very limited amount of people taking part of meetings and it is quite fast to make the acquaintance of the colleagues and customers. With familiar colleagues loss of communication richness was easily accepted.

””For example it was difficult for X, because he wrote that much slower than he was thinking, this led to some phone discussions frequently at the beginning. Nowadays he writes relatively fast and its kind easy.””

““Seeing the face(s) is not important, not even clients’’, because (they) are familiar.””

In the cultural differences part we discuss a little more how we found out that company’’s working context and maturity level had also influence on their communication culture. This has also influence on the way companies coordinate their team work. Our findings suggest that small companies have very interesting ways to deal with coordination and communication problems in the distributed working environments. In the literature it is easier to find

““Video is unnecessary if we share ppt. ––slides on the screen, or other documents in discussion. Picture is needed depending on the case, voice is more important.””

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"Indians and Chinese want to communicate with telephone, we want also picture to check that message is understood.””

examples of big companies’’ solutions than these more innovative ways to use new tools. C. Geographical dispersion Interviewees expressed that geographical dispersion caused mostly problems with communication, traveling and the attitude towards rural area companies.

We found out that cultural differences were more differences between age groups or between company cultures. Common opinion was that communication tools and the use of the tools are rapidly changing when younger generation is coming to workplaces.

””We have to prioritize (in what kind of activities) we will go along, this is anyways business and work, so we can’’t just participate into meetings just anywhere, we still are a small organization with ten people here……””

““Knowledge distribution and the need for collaborative working plus media use depend on the client. Young ones want to use different media than older ones.”” Communication cultures depended also on the person’’s work assignment. This finding is aligned with the media richness theory’’s suggestion that different professional tasks are completed more efficiently when task properties and media richness matches and earlier studies [e.g. 38]

““Being a small (company) and sited in Kainuu, the solutions and know-how (we produce) has to be pretty good so that we can show the know-how and products in the markets out there. ““

““Communication depending on the work tasks: project managers do business by phone, coders and tech staff by instant messaging, tech support only by using documents.””

““In the capitol area it was seen that company from Kainuu could never reach a market leading position ……and the possible cooperation was not possible with larger organizations of the field, because it was taken as competition, although we didn’’t see it that way””

Many interviewees from the bigger companies had noticed that company’’s working context and maturity level had also influence on their communication culture.

D. Loss of teamness There was consensus between almost all the interviewees about the importance of the face-to-face meetings in the beginning of projects. If these meetings were not possible to organize video pictures importance became obvious in the first distributed project meetings. It was expressed that it was possible to gain teamness and trust also without face-to-face meetings, but it will take much longer time. In the interviewed companies the loss of teamness was not experienced as a big problem. Mainly this could be explained with the size of the companies and teams. Once these people got to known each other they did not need rich media to support their social interaction.

““The lower level of the maturity of the client works the richer media is needed to communicate and the higher level of the maturity of the client works the fewer medium is needed.”” ““It’’s (video picture) important with new media companies, for us moving picture has meaning only at the beginning, then it’’s enough to if we have the document under discussion visible””. ””Small SW- and new media companies are in a need of real-time (communication), bigger (companies) do not need real-time (communication)””.

““Picture is not necessary even there are cameras at hand.”” F. Management practices In the geographically distributed work it is very important to understand and follow good project work practices. When people can´t communicate all the time with colleagues, good planning and good practices become valuable. Communication practices should be common to all employees and companies should develop company practices to the communication. One part of the company practices is also security solutions. These security solutions should be balanced with usability issues.

””We have not met a situation, where we would have needed videoconferencing, we focused on the matter””

E. Cultural differences Because these small companies did not have so far many partners outside Finland or Europe, cultural differences between countries did not play so big role in the interviews. However, some interviewees reported their experiences about cultural differences and trust.

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TABLE II.

““Company data security policy restricts working more than communication tools features.””

Feature importance

Feature

Most of the interviewees emphasized that company have to have common communication and meeting roles. These roles and used tools varied but the idea was that everybody has to know what company’’s policy was and follow that policy. In many companies there was also growing tendency to avoid unnecessary meetings. Quite often (I am) bothered that someone wants to sit down to go thru things, which could be done with phone, or just throwing questions into email. I prefer email and other (technologies)””

G. Support practices We found out that the main problem in the SMEs was workers poor skill level to use communication tools. Small companies could not hire supporting personnel and application training was only organized in bigger companies. Personnel did not recognize the value of these trainings.

Frequency x Importance (0-3)

Voice

497

Desktop sharing

330

Ease of use

243

Document sharing and writing Video picture

207

Real-time communication

171

Instant messaging

144

Indication of the state of someone Multipoint

72

Reliability

27 VI.

““People should be able to use software which we have been agreed about. One of the problems is that people don’’t take part into application training””

204

65

CONCLUSIONS

Geographically dispersed/distributed projects have become common in companies and R&D environments. The goal of this research was to find out how to support communication in these projects with ICT. In this study, we identified the key categories of collaboration challenges from the literature and conducted interviews in 13 companies. These interviews were transcribed and analyzed. Company interview results were in line with the theories presented earlier in this paper (media richness theory, media synchronicity theory and social presence theory). However, during our research, it was found out that the models created for large international companies’’ needs are not, however, directly transferable for use by SMEs. Instead, organizations need to adjust their activities according to their own purposes, principles and goals. Our findings suggest that in small companies the communication practices differ from the practices used in the bigger companies. Reasons for this could be found both in the size of the teams and the size of the personnel. To our conception, limited amount of colleagues reflects in easier agile working methods usage and ad-hoc communication. Coordination was not experienced as difficult in the small companies as in the bigger ones due to the flexible management styles. The fact that company is situated in a rural area sets higher know-how and quality expectations on these companies effecting on its personnel, working environment and communication needs. If these companies’’ intentions are to grow and to have more customers and educated workforce, they usually have to set up brand offices in bigger cities or abroad quite an early stage of their life span. In their

Especially there were problems with Open Source programs. Open Source program manufacturers or distributors did not usually have good enough support services or help desk services that small companies needed. To have support personnel and training are things companies can do internal. Choosing right communication tools for the external communication was another issue. Using many different communication tools lead to the situation where none of these tools are used properly. Main reasons to use many different tools were the clients’’ communication tool decisions. Small company has to adapt its practices to the client’’s practices. ””We should be able to choose and train clients’’ communication software””.

H. Common requirements for the communication tools Interviewees were asked to list important features for them when they use communication tools in distributed work. In the Table 2 these features are listed and there are also points for every feature. These points are calculated only to give some order for these features, they are not absolute grades. Basis of calculation is feature frequency x importance (0= not important ……3=very important).

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early stage it is usual that companies have very limited resources and know-how how to choose right tools to supporting their working in the new distributed working environment. With limited resources, this choice can be vital for the company’’s future. New technology can give us good tools for the distributed working environments, but first we have to study the experiences of the supporting tools and learn how to use them. Future research would be needed to understand better the special needs, which SMEs have in the rural areas. One specific topic for us is to analyze the gaps of collaboration more deeply.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors kindly acknowledges the support from the CreaTOL project (2005-2007) which was supported by the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund), Regional State Administrative Agency (Northern Finland), and CreaLearn project from University of Oulu, which has been supported by ERDF via Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes). [1]

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