Edinburgh Napier University

  Existing organisational context and user expectations have a huge effect on the
success of introducing CSCW technology, and should have a correspondingly strong
influence on the choice and design of these tools. This paper first discusses
organisational context and end-user expectations encountered in a large distributed
engineering organisation planning to implement a CSCW pilot. It is demonstrated
that while the organisational structure was apparently ripe for support with CSCW
tools and tools existed which matched clearly expressed user requirements, potential
users remained sceptical of their value. An account is then given of the pilot itself,
where a range of collaborative technologies was implemented, of which the primary
tool actually used was email. Reasons for this are discussed. While this organisation
is, in the final analysis, unique, we hope that our conclusions will be of interest both
to practitioners working in similar contexts and to CSCW researchers.