Encouraging Asynchronous Crowd Discussions Using an Interactive Video Player

The achievement of a shared understanding among all stakeholders is a key contributor to a software project's success. In prior research, so-called vision videos presenting the project vision have been found to be a suited facilitator for this task. The videos are easy to understand and can unveil stakeholders' misunderstandings which can be resolved through discussions. These discussions are usually held in synchronous meetings. However, such meetings are not always possible, for example when large crowds of stakeholders are relevant to the project or when stakeholder groups are widely dispersed among different countries or time zones. Approaches enabling asynchronous discussions are needed. In our research, we present 3 concepts that are designed to support crowds of stakeholders in their achievement of a shared understanding. In an experiment with 15 participants, we test the performance of a prototypical implementation of these concepts compared to a discussion in an online forum. Our results present an initial indication for the values of our concepts. A tool built with our concepts in mind encourages crowds of stakeholders to align their mental models and thereby increases the chances of success for their software project.