At the European Telework Development Initiative website
ACTS Telework Chain (GAT: General Access - Telework)

A note from John Nolan jno@postman.dg13.cec.be and Jan Wijgerde jwi@postman.dg13.cec.be
Issued with agenda for GA Chains Group meeting on 23 October 1996

This note was to be reviewed at the GA Chains Group meeting, it is described as a reflection paper on Guidelines which could be used as a starting point for further discussions at Chain level.

Chains should be (made) objective driven or they should not be allowed to continue as chains.

The objective of every chain should be to consolidate the work of individual projects on a given subject and to produce a tangible shared result for a specific purpose (that is meaningful outside of the programme) by a pre-determined date.

The result of a chain may be a concise written document (i.e. a Guideline), or may be of a more practical nature (i.e. the realisation and evaluation of a demonstration). In the latter instance, one of more guidelines may often emerge from the planning, conception or evaluation of the demonstration.

All chains need to go through an initial learning period or "synthesis", during which projects submit contributions and a base-line document of relevant technical information is assembled. This is a relatively easy process to support.

To prepare the guideline or the demonstration, projects need to first determine much more precisely the persons /organisations on which these are to be targeted. What are their needs? How can a guideline / demonstration address those needs?

Guidelines generally should be non-trivial, yet small and sharply focused on a single issue. Different issues should be addressed in different guidelines.

In substantiating recommendations as part of the guideline, which are the few most significant research results to be included / made prominent?

Just as important; which should be left as implicit or left out altogether so as not to detract from the main message?

Common Structure for Guidelines

Cover Page:

Target Recipients: Persons / organisations who should receive the guideline
Needs addressed by the guideline
Purpose of Guideline (How it will address the needs)
Communication of the Guideline in order to meet the needs (By when,
where, to whom, how)

Guideline itself (typically 5 pages??):

Summary of Guideline (statement of the main recommendations)
Applicability of Guideline & evolution road map or timeline
Synopsis of major ACTS Results supporting Guideline
References