Digital Collaboration Study

Researchers wanted to investigate the impact of introducing a new collaborative digital messaging platform on communication patterns among staff in a local government department.

The researchers observed employees in a traditional department where internal communication was primarily restricted to formal emails and weekly face-to-face meetings. At a later date, the department transitioned to using an open digital workspace platform (with direct messaging and public collaboration channels). The researchers monitored communication patterns during both phases.

The researchers recorded two types of communication:

• Face-to-face interaction was measured using wearable sensor badges that recorded the duration (in seconds) of physical interactions between employees in the office.
• Digital messaging was measured quantitatively by tracking the server to count the total number of peer-to-peer direct messages and channel replies sent across the organization's network.