Assessing the State of Collaboration:

Return to Essentials

 The new era of collaboration. Studies suggest that collaboration is a top priority today for senior executives. Collaboration is experiencing a growth in impact and importance in the enterprise. Numerous driving forces are responsible, which include: trends in globalization and outsourcing, workforce demand for flexibility, critical need for rapid innovation, co-creating value with vendors and customers, technology and tools enabling a networked world, and behavior and expectations of Gen-Y. 

We undertook a study to understand and assess current practices in collaboration and future outlook on collaboration.

Key findings. We were struck by three main messages from our survey responses.

1. Complex collaboration is already a significant work activity for many people, and will only grow in importance. Most respondents have multiple collaborative projects underway at any given time. The purpose of these collaboration projects spans virtually the entire spectrum of enterprise needs. Collaboration efforts extend well beyond a group/department to include collaboration with other departments, partners, vendors, and customers. Collaboration is viewed as being essential across the board in the future, significantly more than the reality today. Individuals as well as organizations believe that they need to collaborate substantially more than they do currently.
2. Successful collaboration requires mostly the good principles of project management applied to dispersed teams. Getting the old-fashioned basics right is critical. Most important advice from the respondents on effective collaboration is to: i) Define goals, roles, timelines and deliverables clearly, ii) Communicate the process and progress frequently and clearly, and iii) Select team members who bring real knowledge and expertise. Key challenges to effective collaboration include organizational culture and priorities, and collaboration process and tools.
3. Keep it simple on the collaboration tools. Email, audio and web-conferencing, and file sharing are rated the most effective tools for collaboration. Wikis, IM, video conferencing and discussion forums rank low on effectiveness for collaboration. Selection of right tools and proper training are identified as potential areas for improvement.

The subtitle of this report, Return to Essentials, captures these themes.  It helps emphasize that collaboration has become or is becoming an essential for how enterprises get their business done.  At the same time we must all be careful about the latest fads in tools and approaches, because our survey respondents point out the importance of time-tested meeting-management practices and well-travelled communications tools as the best way to make collaboration effective.

Assessing the State of Collaboration: Return to Essential report expands on these key themes, illustrated by survey findings and quotes from respondents.  The appendix provides other survey responses.

Commentary …

Keeping it simple and applying business-meeting fundamentals is the clear message that comes through loud and clear from this study. This message is applicable for business leaders, collaborators at large, and tool makers alike.

As the importance of collaboration continues to grow, challenges remain; the human element in collaboration far outweighs technology and tools. To get this balance right, we believe collaborators must address what we call the Four Ps of Collaboration: Purpose, People, Process and Place.

Message to leaders. We have seen a good bit of debate on whether collaboration is a strategy or tactic. The simple answer? Who cares! When collaboration is a key to creating value for business success, it must become a core capability – something you intentionally and deliberately nurture, develop and practice. It requires culture change aimed at flattening hierarchy, increasing transparency, allowing right talent to naturally flow to right endeavors without organizational barriers, establishing open communication, ensuring recognition commensurate with contributions, firing know-it-all’s and gate-keepers, and so on. You will know you have succeeded when leading companies are trying to steal your employees because of their collaboration skills.

Message to collaborators at large. Collaborators must have a shared understanding of: i) goals and their impact and rewards for the business and self, ii) roles and responsibility, and expectations iii) collaboration process including decision-making process, and iv) selection of collaboration means and tools.

No two collaboration efforts are alike, as we know. Seemingly little things can become big, especially when it comes to the human element. It helps a great deal to pay close attention to communication styles and needs, cultural differences, personal desires and constraints, and recognition and rewards.

When if comes to tools, choose the right horse for the course! Choosing the right, agreed upon tools for the project is important. Tools must be effective. Bear in mind that some apparently inefficient and looked-down-upon tools may be more effective for a collaboration effort than feature-rich tools that collaborators do not use for various reasons such as lack of reliability, difficulty in access, complexity of use, poor control of alerts, or general lack of training.  And whatever the chosen process and tools – either use them consistently or change them.

Message to tool makers. It is not what a collaboration tool can do for collaborators; it is about what collaborators do with the collaboration tool. Features/functionality of tools must translate into addressing real-life needs and expectations of collaborators. The product roadmap may entice or lead the end-user but it must never lose the end-user. Bring the end-user along.

Helping collaborators with selection of right tools and offering proper training are the areas of opportunity.

At the end, keep it simple!

About the Study

The primary objective of the study was to assess the state of Collaboration among individuals and in organizations. This includes:

• expectations, purpose and level of collaboration,
• use of collaboration tools and their effectiveness, and
• barriers to collaboration.

By collaboration, we mean working jointly with others.

Over 450 respondents participated in the survey conducted by All Collaboration in January and February 2010. Respondents came from all levels within organizations, all functional areas, a wide range of organization sizes, a wide range of industries with some concentration in consulting, and different regions although mostly North Americans. While there are some differences in emphasis, the general findings and conclusions are consistent across most of these groups.