Teleplace

Program Management Great teamwork starts with good communication and the tools to be effective.

Creating an effective work environment can be a real challenge for today's program managers and project leaders whose team members are spread across multiple geographies and time zones.

Creating a sense of place for more effective collaboration

Teleplace gives teams an always-available virtual workspace in which they can establish relationships, agree on processes, exchange information, and get real work done. As an information-centric collaboration environment , Teleplace provides the context and the tools that team members need to work together effectively—without the cost and productivity drains associated with travel, conference calling, or document exchange.

Communication to build relationships

High performing teams are characterized by members that know and trust each other. Teleplace provides a high degree of personal interaction and feedback:

• Presence. Teleplace's compelling 3-D interface enables intuitive "speech-gesture-sketch" communication modes that foster successful teamwork and a deeper sense of participation by remote employees.
• Desktop video support using standard webcams. Team members can see each other and interact based on verbal and visual feedback.

• Built-in VoIP. A high bandwidth audio channel providing a richer voice experience than conference calling.
• Interactive whiteboard and sticky notes. Gives users the tools to sketch out ideas and communicate concepts.
• Text chat. Allows users to share thoughts without interrupting the speaker.

Documents, workflows, and tools available to everyone

Project teams share a wide variety of information that evolves as work progresses. Reference information is found in documents, timelines, and spreadsheets as well as enterprise applications that need to connect to other systems. Teleplace provides team members with multiple mechanisms for increased access to information:

• Persistent workplace. Documents become part of a persistent, versioned virtual space accessible by team members at any time. Team members can use the persistence in Teleplace when they meet and work as a full team, doing break-out tasks in sub-groups, or even when working individually.
• Shared documents. Team members can easily drag and drop documents into Teleplace to share them. All team members can see the shared documents and make their own contributions. Live applications can be shared from a users' desktop machine directly into the workspace, enabling support for a wide variety of client-server and legacy interfaces.

• Shared applications using Teleplace Multi-Share™. Teleplace has built-in support for common document formats including Microsoft® Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Adobe® PDF. External applications can also be integrated and used by team members within Teleplace.