In my own research into collaborative processes over the years, I found (to my surprise!) that there is really no good accepted terminology in the field. So I developed one.

Some of the questions that I asked myself have been:

• What exactly is the difference between, say, a team and a community?
• What exactly makes a team virtual?
• Looking at some vendor's "collaboration software", what types of work groups was it really developed for? Teams or communities? Synchronous or asynchronous? Problem solving or process oriented? Do different work groups really all want the same features, or does the type of work group determine software requirements? And if so, which?

In order to be able to answer some of these questions, I have put together a taxonomy for work groups that defines and contrasts terms such as team, task force, community, and many others. It is attached below, and I hope it will be broadly useful for the community. It includes a work sheet for work group categorization that we have found useful ourselves.

Here it is.