Tuesday
Dec152009
The Four Ps of Effective Collaboration
15 December 2009 Tweet In all our commentary we repeatedly make the case that enterprises need to approach collaboration holistically. Effective collaborations must cross functional and company boundaries to include all the right people. They must challenge and inspire the teams to invent new approaches. And they must encompass more than the team assignments and the tools. In short, they must address what we call the Four Ps of Collaboration.
- Purpose. What is the collaboration effort trying to achieve? How should the team measure success? How will they know when they are done, and when it is time to pop the champagne corks? Make sure your collaboration effort is more than a set of meetings and activities, and has a clearly-defined purpose.
- People. Who needs to be on the team, and in what roles? Which departments or functions need to be represented? Which suppliers, partners, or customers need to have a voice? What types of skills does the team need to be effective -- to look at the problem from the right perspectives and to develop buy-in around the solution? Avoid picking the people who are most convenient or who have worked together on a recent project, and instead think about who is needed for this project. Go beyond the usual limitations of time zones, email access, international travel, and sharing of proprietary data -- and instead think of who is needed to do the best job.
- Processes. What is the overall process to define the problem, analyze the current situation, gather data, analyze options, and gain input and support from other people? What are the necessary behaviors among the team members and interacting with others to get to the best solution. Some collaboration projects need to be relatively closed to protect secrecy, and others deserve to be out in the open. Some need to be streamlined to find the best solution fast (think of the crisis on the Apollo 13 space flight), and others require a slower pace to arrive at the best solution. Some need to be driven from the top-down to fix a particular solution, while others are better to be bottom-up to create new and workable solutions.
- Place. How will the team conduct their interactions? What is the mix of face-to-face meetings versus virtual teams? What is the mix of real-time meetings (physical, phone, or web) versus non-real-time interactions (message boards, wikis, email exchanges, etc.)? How might the mix of interactions or "place" change over the course of the collaboration project -- perhaps kicking off with more direct contact, separating into more virtual interactions, then coming back together with direct contact to converge on the solution? Collaboration tools can be effective to help a team work together, but only in the broader contect of "place" and how the team members will interact.
There are many ways to drive effective collaboration. At the same time, explicitly agreeing on the Four Ps of what is best for each situation helps ensure an integrated and holistic approach, as well as helps align all the people on the team.
Update on 24 December 2010 by
Lokesh Datta
Lokesh Datta
See Related Posts:
- The 4Ps of Effective Collaboration - Redux
- You Have Been Asked to Run a Complex Collaboration Project... Now What?
- Assessing the State of Collaboration: Return to Essentials
- Managing Complexity in Collaboration Demands Rigor
- How’s your collaboration effort going?
- Articulate the Purpose of Your Collaboration Effort!
- Current Practices in Virtual Team Management
- Collaboration Is More than Team Building and Management
- Managing Virtual Teams
- The What and Why of Enterprise 2.0
Reader Comments (9)
Great post Steve! This sums up THE real issues in collaboration. Al Schmidt has been discussing with me offline the importance of the "ecosystem" for collaboration. You summed it up fabulously.
Thinking about Al Schmidt’s idea of ecosystem for collaboration and your post, it reminded me of the 6Ws in journalism:
What and Why = Purpose
Who = People
When, Where and How = Process and Place
Based on clear objectives, goals and deliverables:
Why we need to collaborate, on What and to What extent,
among Who (based on expertise, availability, experience, accountability and roles), and
When, Where and How.
omg, somebody give me a glass of water ... This article is SO FREAKING DRY.
No really though, the underlying concept and intention of this post is good, but I wonder how it really has an impact on my life in my workplace. If you provided specific examples of things we can notice in our everyday lives (and quick fixes too!), this information could be more useful.
My generation of peers (labeled as "Generation Y"), needs advice from which we can take direct action. We all have A.D.D., and while this post begs us to ask questions and review our current collaboration techniques, we will never concede because we simply do not have the patience to do so.
Creating Collaborative Environment using the 4Ps Collaboration Framework
Reading Steve’s post on the 4Ps of Collaboration triggered some thoughts on how a simple yet powerful and elegant framework can sharpen the focus and provide guidance.
A lot of poorly functioning teams out there think they are just fine. Building or creating a framework could help fix those teams. Maybe that's where the opportunity is.
Given what I've heard and experienced, I was trying to think of symptoms of poorly functioning teams; for example, many long conference calls, confusing activities with progress, territorial conflicts, and so on.
The MIT Sloan Management Review article, How to Manage Virtual Teams , is interesting and I think basically makes the same point, "... a company can't just assemble a dispersed team of top-notch talent and hope for the best ..." I think this is what happens too often today.
After informal feedback from 16 different teams on LinkedIn, my own personal experience working remotely and on virtual teams for over a decade, and personal communications from others working on virtual teams, I’m coming to the conclusion that teams need to have a specific, formalized task of evaluating and creating the best collaborative environment. The importance of this task becomes amplified when the team members are not co-located. I’m going to assume that typically this task doesn’t occur often enough today. The 4Ps of Collaboration begins to create a framework with which to perform this task.
As mentioned on this site , this is about the people, their tasks and their social interactions with other team members. Selecting the best tools is important, but once the collaborative context (ecosystem) is defined, selecting the best tools should be evident.
I’m going to assume that there are basically two types of teams:
• Legacy Teams – These teams have evolved over time and use processes that either were used in the past and/or are convenient. These are working, productive teams; and, given that they have existed for sometime, they are performing at some acceptable level. The risk is that the performance is not optimal. These teams need a method of measuring their current collaboration effectiveness and to identify improvements. The 4 Ps’ can guide this measurement.
• New Virtual Teams – These are new project teams. My sense is that these teams look around for what they need or carryover the legacy processes. The 4 P’s aren’t applied to the creation of the team. There is tremendous risk of deliverable delays, miscommunications and complete failure where sub-teams need to be relocated. As one team commented, they found out that it took more than an excel spreadsheet. At a minimum these team will stumble around and discover, overtime ways to get the work done.
The intent is to use the framework proactively to enhance the team’s collaborative effort. It is assumed that each team is somewhat different; for example, how much brainstorming is required, who needs to brainstorm, how often does the team or sub-teams need to meet on conference calls, how should the calls be structured, how does functional group A interact with functional group B, when are face to face meeting needed. Applying the 4P’s can focus on creating the best collaborative environment.
Making all of this actionable:
I totally agree with Eugene's post. The framework is great; we now have to make this actionable. Teams need to move fast. They can’t slow down to analyze or ask "How are we working and collaborating?"
Each team is going to be different and have different needs. Although there could be a quick fix, without more information about how the team collaborates or doesn’t, it is going to be hard to know what the fix is. Even the basics of sub-team A creating a requirements document that needs to be communicated to another sub-team can have multiple issues along the path of creating the document.
Eugene, do you have a specific issue or example of something that’s on your mind?
I like where this discussion is going! Thanks Eugene and Al.
Making it all actionable is the end-goal, moving incrementally from descriptive to prescriptive. While judgment calls would always be a part of one’s actions, depending on unique individual situation, more detailed model can offer specific guidance in each of the 4Ps of the framework.
I think we need to identify, in more detail, key issues/questions/challenges for each P of the 4Ps as a start, which then would lead to specific answers/recommendation/suggestion with caveats for what can go wrong and how to fix it. Real-life collaboration stories/case studies/experiences would play a critical role.
I also have the feeling that we can create specific diagnostics for each of the 4Ps, to ensure that a potential team can not overlooked some critical factors.
I would also emphasize that the first 3 Ps (Purpose, People and Process) must come before the last P (Place). As Al said, tools would become self-evident one the context is fully developed and understood.
Here is another thought from 4 Ps and 6 Ws to 3Ms!
Motive: Purpose
Manner: People and Process
Means: Tools
As noted in previous comments, the 4 Ps framework requires more detail to make it actionable. The holistic approach of the 4 Ps lays a great foundation on which to build. I was curious to learn what topics would be of interest to the practitioners of collaboration. I started discussions in LinkedIn Groups and Q&A on:
Which topics would you like to see in a book on collaboration? Please be as specific as you like.
Here is the input I received.
I would buy a book on collaboration if it had good content about:
-- Collaboration within a 2,3,4 or 5 shift roster
-- Knowledge building within a 2,3,4 or 5 shift roster
By Rob te Velde, Group Leader Liquid packaging & Warehousing at Sara Lee Joure
topics:
the usual stuff +
* ways to prevent and remove distrust (in virtual teams).
By Ger Bargerbos, Product- and process Quality
What is the new structure for collaborative leadership-define it, what are the elements, what is the process, who is involved, how do you decide, how to, map it, follow your instinct, ...
Let's discuss the importance of horizontal and vertical collaboration within and among organizations and organizational structures and how to achieve maximum collaboration- open, honest and transparent for maximum effect. How to apply this concept to large and small organizations, non-profits, corporations, teams, and especially government entities (within and among and across govt structures). This may be a new way to approach worldwide transformation various structures.
This new approach and definition would take along time especially with government structures- it is a change in governance both internally and across governments but by exploring the concepts and clearly defining them (the concepts and the components) and think of pilot projects- how do you put these ideas into action- we could discover models that could be examples for other institutions to try. The 21st century with new workforce demands and different financial institutions and the global movement of money and workers needs new ggovernance models.
By Kathleen Leos, CEO of The Global Institute for Language and Literacy Development
I'd like to see something that addresses the holistic approach needed to transform to a collaborative environment. It should address how technology, culture, measures, policies and even organizational structure all play a role in collaborating effectively.
By Michael V Littlejohn, Vice President and Partner, IBM Business Consulting Services
Listing ways to create the distinction called "TEAM" How does one create it in a timely manner?
Communication by one person can help create a team environment - but that person needs to know how to do it. Create a book with this topic and it will sell, sell, sell.
I believe, there is one way to create team. That way is to agree upon a common mission, communicate how that mission will benefit others and how each individual will have an impact in that benefit.
Communicating the 30,000 foot view and how each individual gets to participate. Then getting agreement on that from each individual.
Each person on the team must know who the other team members are. Not their names, their locations, what the area of expertise is - but literally going through each other's resumes. having them discuss their biggest WINS in their career, what motivates them, what they are committed to providing by conducting their work, etc.
When this is communicated, it is must easier to collaborate and to communicate - because you have the confidence that each person is as committed as you are. Write a book that can do that and you are in good shape.
By Lou Storiale, PMP, CSM -- Marketing and Website Projects - On-time. How Refreshing :-)
I'd like to see a description of how to draw in the "lone wolf" types.
By Josh Chernin, General Manager at Web Industries; Itinerant Writer; and Decent Little League Coach
A very good article. Have you ever done a Rapidshare Search before? I recommend to try it.