The 4Ps of Effective Collaboration - Redux

It has been about a year since we wrote about the 4Ps framework for effective collaboration.  Since then we have found this to be a useful and robust perspective.  So often we see that good results come from the proper balancing of the Purpose, People, Process, and Place (including tools) for each collaboration project. 

We will continue to apply this framework and, in the meantime, thought it valuable to revisit it with a richer media presentation.  The following is a video presentation of The 4 Ps of Effective Collaboration.  Please share your comments, experiences, and reactions below in the comments section.

Update on 25 December 2010 by Lokesh Datta

See Related Posts:

• 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



Comments

[kare anderson]

Purpose: Goal

People: Participants - all needed and no extra

Process: Steps + rules of engagement + timetable +who is lead person on what

Place: ? ... tell me more
+ and yes - definitely the non "P" ...Tools
:-)

[Lamont]

Good comments Kare. I confess to taking literary license in favor of the alliteration.

As I have ruminated on this model, I have grown comfortable that "Place" contains face-to-face meetings, remote meetings, as well as the tools. The more the leader is forced to reduce the face-to-face meetings because of cost or logistics, and perhaps reduce the remote meetings because of language concerns (see post Mind the Language Barrier) -- then the more important to put investments in the tools. That includes selection, formating, training, and reinforcement.

[Lokesh Datta]

Kare and Steve,

Great discussion! I would offer my 2 cents.

“Place” is the place for team interactions for: meetings, communication, information exchange, and so on. These interactions could be real-time (synchronous) or non real-time (asynchronous) and face-to-face or virtual. Thus, the team’s needs and rules of engagement for interactions determine the types of tools for: i) Communication, ii) Organization, iii) Writing/editing, and iv) Engaging/networking. See the post Taxonomy of Collaboration Tools, at: http://allcollaboration.com/home/2010/4/19/a-taxonomy-of-collaboration-tools.html

Effectively, the “Place” subsumes tools, as the team employs the right horse for the course.

Regards, Lokesh

[Lokesh Datta]

It might be helpful to add the initial write-up, for Place, by Steve, about a year ago.

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 context of "place" and how the team members will interact."

The original post by Steve on the Four Ps of Effective Collaboration is at:
http://allcollaboration.com/home/2009/12/15/the-four-ps-of-effective-collaboration.html