The ETH Value Lab and Two Software Tools for Knowledge Creation in Teams

This article discusses three tools that allow making collaboration and decision-making more effective. It presents insights from working in the "ETH Baugarten Value Lab", a new research space with five touch displays. First, the article introduces this lab. Then, it introduces two software tools to support communication and group decision-making. The first tool is targeted at urban planners, the second at managers. We found that (1) the lab fascinates and engages the users, (2) that not many software tools are available for such a setting and that those tools are not very user friendly, (3) that people underestimate the time to design suitable workshops. We have found in various workshops that our two tools seem to go in the right direction, which states that "less functinality is more".