I observed that Google Docs had a dramatic impact on productivity during group work in the EDHEC MBA program. Students typically worked in groups of six students. Initially, they would divide the work so that each student would work on part of a Word document or Powerpoint presentation. One group member would be designated as the “integrator”, and would receive each student’s contribution by email. The “integrator” had to deal with a number of issues, including inconsistent formatting, content overlap (two or more students writing about the same thing), inconsistent style (point of view, 1st vs 3rd person), missing emails and files, mixed up file versions, and other problems. Typically the integrator would receive the files at the last minute, leaving little or no time to work together with team to resolve the issues.

After I introduced Google Docs and Google Groups to several teams, productivity increased dramatically. The role of integrator was eliminated.

The Google Presentation below was prepared for a student group presentation in an Introduction to Information Technology class taught by Professor Vasarhelyi of Rutgers University. Many students in the class were unfamiliar with the concept of using software other than email for group collaboration, and the presenters gave their personal testimony about the significant reduction in effort they experienced using Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office.