Remote Collaboration-Study on Factors Affecting Team Mental Models

Abstract

Design activities are becoming more scattered in place due to the development in technology and globalization of resources. As a result, the Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) for design, is not only required to adopt suitable technical products and systems to effectively support designers’ work, but also the remote collaborative _ team mental model factors affecting theory required to deeper exploration for designers team. Team mental models as cognitive variables of a team get attention in recent years. The concept that the team mental models can help team improve performance has been 20 years of history, but so far the team mental models theory has not yet formed a relatively complete system. The current measurement methods of team mental models are mostly static, individually measured for each team member's mind and then unity. This is tantamount to default team mental models are all members’ mental model of simple addition, ignored the team interactive processes effects obviously. This paper will be based on the current study of team mental models, through investigate the designers’ mental model of the same team, to analyze the team mental model factors of designers working in distributed environment, then establish corresponding reference models as well.