Complex collaboration happening AND growing in importance
04 March 2010 Collaboration is experiencing growth and importance in the enterprise. Collaboration is a top priority today for senior executives.
We undertook this study on the State of Collaboration to understand and assess current practices in collaboration and future outlook on collaboration. Over 450 respondents participated in the survey conducted by All Collaboration in January and February 2010.
Key findings. We were struck by three main messages from our survey responses.
- Complex collaboration is already a significant work activity for many people, and will only grow in importance.
- Successful collaboration requires mostly the good principles of project management applied to dispersed teams.
- Keep it simple on the collaboration tools.
This post offers survey findings on the first theme: Complex collaboration is already a significant work activity for many people, and will only grow in importance.
People in our sample mostly have a large number of collaboration projects on the go at any point in time: two-thirds with 2 to 5 projects and one-fifth with 6 or more (Figure 1). And a majority (62%) of respondents participate on collaborative projects on at least a daily basis (Figure 2). Even allowing for some survey sample bias, that those who collaborate more are more likely to complete the survey, we found very few instances of no collaboration (Figure 1).
Figure 1: How many collaboration projects do you have underway at a typical point in time?
Figure 2: How frequently do you participate in collaborative projects or activities?
The projects are complex, often with many people involved (Figure 3). Typical team size is 3 to 10 participants (72%). Half the projects span outside the company to partners, customers, and vendors (Figure 4), and few are restricted to the one group or department (23%). This corresponds to how few of the collaboration teams meet face-to-face, with more than half meeting less than weekly or never (Figure 5).
Figure 3. How many people were directly involved in your ONE recently-completed collaboration experience?
Figure 4. What was the scope of your ONE recently-completed collaboration experience?
Figure 5. How frequently did your team meet face-to-face during your ONE recently-completed collaboration experience?
We find that the purpose of collaboration is wide ranging in the enterprise (Figure 6). Collaborative efforts permeate throughout the enterprise needs.
Figure 6. What is the purpose of your collaborative efforts?
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Even more telling is the view of the respondents that collaboration will become even more essential to the success of businesses in the future (Figure 7). As a result people want to be more effective collaborators (Figure 8) to contribute in this environment. Moreover, the respondents say that their organization wants its employees to collaborate significantly more (Figure 9).
Figure 7. How would you rate the value of collaboration to the success of your business?
Figure 8. Please rate yourself... a) I WANT to be able to collaborate, and b) I am ABLE to collaborate.
Figure 9. Please rate your organization... a) My organization WANTS its employees to collaborate, and b) My organization's employees are ABLE to collaborate.
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Assessing the State of Collaboration: Return to Essential report expands on all key themes, illustrated by survey findings and quotes from respondents. The appendix provides other survey responses.
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.
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.
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Reader Comments (1)
I posted this question on LinkedIn: Are you able to collaborate as much as you like? What promotes or hinders your collaborative efforts? A recent survey by All Collaboration on the State of Collaboration found that 2/3 say that their WANT to collaborate is extremely high but only 1/3 are ABLE to.
I received interesting responses that I would like to share.
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Kristina Elena Queroljico, Innovations and Projects Manager, HR Officer, Six Sigma Blackbelt
Yes! In any team, collaboration is the key to success. First, it is seldom we encounter a person who can have the best knowledge of everything (if ever there is such person). And in my experience, building on the strength of each member of the team to compensate with the weakness of the others, may it be across units or departments, is core for a Project Manager to do.
Second, a collaborative effort among people should start with communication. And when we say communication, it must be an open and two-way communication. People in the team should all be willing to learn and mentor each other, all at the same time. And my two-cents worth on this, is that this should be able to promote a healthy collaboration and achieve the goal.
Finally, what prevents collaboration is pride and no open goal among members to share and learn.
Hope this helps.
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Martin Sawdon PCC, Sustainable Leadership Coach, co-leader of ThinkTank Summit:Leaders Forum dialogue circles, Win-Win Workplace Champion.
What an interesting question! As a solopreneur I collaborate with colleagues whose interests are allied to mine and am open for more but I suspect the question refers more to teamwork in organizations. I see the keys to creating an environment of collaboration in a team being:
1) Hire/appoint for values,
2) As team leader, learn what it is your people need to perform at their best and provide same.
3) As team leader ensure your people are all working in their "sweet spot."
4) Ensure all understand the characteristics of the different personality styles,
5) Teach people how to share conflicting ideas without conflict,
6) Ruthlessly exterminate turf protection & the hoarding of information and ideas,
7) Ensure all have a crystal clear understanding of the team's objective,
8) Use failures as learning opportunities,
9) Celebrate progress!
Creativity is another key to collaboration and I've included a link to a Top Ten.
See: http://www.coachingworks.ca/toptens/increasecreativity.php
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Kathleen McGrorty, Partner at Craft Strategies, LLC.
I find it interesting that your question has not yet been answered.
I am not able to collaborate as much as I would like because I do not often encounter people who have a compatible approach to collaboration. There are more than a few skills that need to be present and they have less to do with learned skills than natural abilities and native intelligence.
What promotes my collaborative efforts? By this I am assuming that you are seeking to find out what enables me to participate successfully in a collaborative way. For me it begins with a brain storm. And I do mean storm. Being among intelligent people who are tackling a problem in a fast paced manner (storming - though not in the project management sense) is wonderful.
What hinders me is being in a group of people who are seeking to solve problems at tactical detail levels before getting a grip on the strategic or BIG picture.
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Isam Shahwan, Regional Sales and Marketing Director at E3 Corp FZ LLC
I strongly believe that this is tied to the organization's culture. If this culture rewards individuals for collaboration then they will succeed but if it does not, then it can be a hard task. I worked at an organization in the past where collaboration was part of the employee's objectives and we had no other possible way to achieve our goals without collaborating. There were many who failed because it was not compatible with their personalities but most others succeeded.
On the other hand I worked in an organization where the culture was not tailored around collaboration and I would say that you had too many cowboys running around and the organization rewarded them. This was a hindering collaboration factor as no one cared for anything except for their own objectives.
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Cathy Pales, President at Powerful Purpose Leadership
Folks at earlier stages of leadership development have a more limited definition of collaboration then folks at later stages. As such, someone may be thinking he/she is collaborating, but his/her actions don't seem like collaboration to others. Also, true collaboration requires a willingness to facilitate issue-related conflict and resolving interpersonal conflict. Collaboration is about group decision-making and groups rarely agree on everything.
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Neetubala Raina, Manager-Corporate HR at Neilsoft
To me every human being from the cradle to the grave has to essentially and effectively collaborate with others to lead a life smoothly. To me “collaboration skills” is the hallmark of learned and successful people who have managed their relationships with diverse teams and personalities effectively only to get pushed to the path of success.
Collaboration skills help one to “beautify relations” as people with excellent collaboration skills are blessed with the competencies to understand and deal effectively with the communication and relational dynamics within and outside their own groups.
A need to collaborate is an integral part of human DNA and I believe everyone would want to collaborate given an opportunity, but with the people they share same wavelength with as that results into an interesting conversation keeping both the parties creatively engaged. Challenge here while looking to collaborate is finding the right set of groups/individuals to converse with as it is always Pareto’s law, 80/20 Rule, it is 20% of the people in this world who are actually instrumental in fostering and retaining such positive attributes of human species as other 80% people probably are more occupied with mastering such attributes and dealing with the challenges thereby. Not everyone can master all the skills in the world by way of law of nature as probably God too wanted to ensure strategizing equal distribution of skills and talent , to further nurture respect for each other although for self – interest reasons as humans are driven by self interest!!!!
Few paragraphs from my poem “Beautify Relations” relevant to this discussion I am pasting below:
Confirming to myself that yes! I belong to the same species
Do I contribute to being an asset to the world and myself?
Screamed my soul, “malnutritioned am I, seeking justice to survive identity crisis,
Please give me some time and space to retain my original form”
Yelled my soul, “get me close to my body which innocently is evading away,
Can’t do without my body; need a form to give an expression to my thoughts!”
Sobbed my soul, “everyone is craving to be an important entity,
When it is so evident humans can’t part to survive without each other”
Methinks! Humans are not creatures of logic but emotions,
So are “emotions” all that will feed my soul to rejuvenate others?
A sudden thrust of strength into my soul I could witness,
Should I be cultivating a culture of positive emotions, will I be an asset?
An asset to myself first, to exude positivity to infuse vigor to be the victor,
An asset to my family, to let them hold on to me for the times those taste bitter,
An asset to my relations, to invigorate them the times emotions confuse them,
An asset to the humanity for nurturing emotions to beautify relations!