Investigating the Use of Online Team Collaboration Platforms in Ideation Sessions During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Exploratory Qualitative Study

Abstract

In the current situation, most of everyone has changed their behavior and lifestyle due to COVID-19. People have changed their working style. Some people can work anywhere. Some people work from home to prevent the spread of germs. As for students, learning styles have also changed. Learners study anywhere and learn from home where people can communicate or work together as a medium in a network connection. Most people are learning and collaborating online. Everyone has quick access to resources and can connect to the platform for work. Moreover, everyone can communicate using the meeting platform via video. In addition to talking or chatting on the video conferencing platform, it has been found to be shared with the collaboration platform in case all participants can participate. Therefore, the researcher sees the attractiveness and differences in behavior and lifestyle changes according to the times and situations. I think that access to data sources or information from end-users can be beneficial to those who need to develop the platform or even facilitators who need the information to prepare before starting a session. The situation had changed from the past when everyone was able to carry out the activities face to face. Nowadays, everyone can only look at the screen and talk to others. That is the reason to know the difference between face-to-face idea generation and online ideation on a collaborative platform and to know the advantages and disadvantages of an ideation session. This independent study is an exploratory study that uses a qualitative approach to collect data by directly interviewing end-users and experts involved in the topic. They have experience participating in an ideation session both offline or face-to-face and online formats using online collaboration and communication platforms. Most ideators share their opinions on the issues and benefits. The Facilitator side has their own opinions on the issues and benefits same as the ideator result. Ultimately, both facilitator and ideator opinions chose to do brainstorming in an offline ideation session as the issue of interaction still mattered.