Skip to main content

common-understanding

Enabling a Common Understanding in a Community

This page is under construction

In order for a community (e.g. a workgroup, taskforce, project/product team, department, etc.) to realize its objectives, it is beneficial that its members have a common set of the ideas, concepts and other knowledge artifacts that are relevant for realizing these objectives. The ability to realize such a common understanding, and to demonstrate that this is actually the case, is a critical capability for success.

Editor's note

(Agredo-Delgado, et. al., 2021)1 have tested a process for constructing a shared understanding in computer-supported collaborative work, where the construction part consists of 4 steps:

  1. each group member acquires an individual understanding of the subject;
  2. each group member exposes his/her ideas and the others actively listen to them;
  3. the group refines, builds or modifies the original ideas;
  4. the differences of interpretation between the group members are dealt with in a constructive fashion, through arguments and clarifications.
  1. Agredo-Delgado, V., Ruiz, P.H., Mon, A. et al. Applying a process for the shared understanding construction in computer-supported collaborative work: an experiment. Comput Math Organ Theory 28, 247-270 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-021-09326-z↩