Requirements for a virtual collocation environment

We analyze how physically collocated teams work together now and what services they require to work together across distances, focusing on real time interactions because those interactions justify collocating teams today. We explain how Integrated Product Teams (IPTs) are organized in system development programs and how their physical collocation facilitates communication, collaboration, and coordination within the team. Interactions within IPTs take two forms: scheduled meetings and opportunistic interactions. Scenarios of scheduled IPTs meetings help motivate and identify requirements for supporting distributed meetings. Opportunistic interactions are far more common than scheduled meetings and more difficult to observe and analyze because they are not scheduled or predictable. (C) The Boeing Company. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.