Meetings of the Future: Enhancing Group Collaboration with Group Support Systems

Meetings frequently fail to meet the objectives or expectations of the participants. The factors that diminish performance, including creativity, can be addressed through the application of electronic group support systems. A brief history of group support systems is provided. Recent developments are examined, and it is suggested that the systems offer more than the earlier planning function. Specifically they permit more opportunities for designing meeting processes to meet the contingent requirements of each group of users. As such the systems do not remove the need for leadership, merely provide ways through which leadership efforts can be supported and enhanced.