The business world today values collaboration and team work skills such as those found in the area of project management, business process reengineering, quality circles, etc. In response, the use of group projects permeates many curricula today with varying consequences and levels of success. Technology claims to enhance collaboration in distributed teams but its success has been a challenge for organizations. Our objective, is to demonstrate that the concepts underlying team work can be the pedagogical basis for a hands-on, information systems class to teach the development of systems to support teamwork. In the end, the class exposes students to the underlying assumptions of good group work and provides underlying principles for how best to automate a collaborative environment.