Role separation in strategies for collaboration support

Collaboration support consists of process and (optionally) technology support. For these two types of support we can distinguish a design task (to design the process and the technology), an application task (to apply the process and to use the technology) and a management task (to manage the implementation and control of the process and to manage the maintenance of the technology). In our interviews we found that in many organizations only one role is distinguished for collaboration support; a facilitator. The facilitator often does the design and execution of the collaboration process and in many cases also takes care of the project management (e.g. acquisition of sessions, management of facilitation team and business administration) and technology application (operating the technology). External roles are often the design of the technology and the maintenance of the technology (hardware & software maintenance).