Using Collaborative Online Drawing to Build Up Distributed Teams.

Building up effective teams over a distance is a challenging but common problem in global software engineering. We propose an approach to help build up teams through collaborative online drawing. Our goal is to evaluate how drawing, as one activity that can facilitate expression of personal affective status, can benefit distributed teams. Preliminary results indicate positive effects of collaborative online drawing in increasing team cohesion and positive emotions. We discuss our approach and preliminary results in terms of design implications for future collaborative drawing systems for building up distributed teams.