Project planning in a virtual world: information management metamorphosis or technology going too far?

The paper considers the emerging technology of virtual reality (VR) as a to ol to help manage and make sense of complex management information systems. Project management is taken as an example business system, with broad comm ercial and industrial applications, that depend on the efficient and effect ive communication of information at several organisational levels to succee d. The use of a virtual world, having three physical dimensions and a time dimension, as a metaphor to represent planning, sequencing, and scheduling information in a way that improves the communication process is considered. Examples of how the technology has been used to date are given. The techno logy is shown to have a lot to offer complex information environments such as large projects. However, there are clearly gaps in how the technology ca n be used cost effectively and how far the concept of a virtual world shoul d be taken as a replacement for more traditional, two dimensional and symbo lic, methods of communicating information. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. A ll rights reserved.