Keep it simple on the collaboration tools
04 March 2010 This post offers our survey findings on the theme: Keep it simple on the collaboration tools.
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. Three main messages emerged 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.
Keep it simple on the collaboration tools
There is much emphasis in the media about the power and need for collaboration tools. It seems like a new one is announced every few weeks, as if the tools alone will make collaboration more effective. Such emphasis on tools misses the most fundamental point: Collaboration is about people doing things together, rather than the technology they use!
Our survey respondents are not impressed by the hype. They judged email, audio conferencing, file sharing, and web conferencing as being the most effective (Figure 1). Despite the perceived potential, instant messaging (IM), discussion forums, wikis, and video conferencing all rate among the least effective for collaboration (Figure 2). Tools also drew the sharpest comments in the open-ended question in which we asked respondents to comment on any or all aspects of collaboration.
Figure 1. How effective are collaboration tools?
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Figure 2. Of the collaboration tools you use, which tool is the LEAST EFFECTIVE?
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There appears to be little connection between current widespread use of a tool and its effectiveness for collaboration. The case in point is IM. IM has a great deal of familiarity among the masses and it is fairly easy to use, yet it scored low on the effectiveness measure for collaboration and highest for being least-effective.
There may still be some upside to proper tool selection and training on how to use them. For improving collaboration effectiveness, the respondents assigned 33 points out of a possible 100 to “improvement of tools” and “training on collaboration tools” (Figure 3). This may be a cry for help, sensing that the right tools, properly used, might improve rather than harm the collaboration effort. From our related experience and commentary in this study, this training needs to go beyond the functional “how you use the tool” to include setting the rules and norms to make productive use of the tools.
Figure 3. What weighting points would you assign (must add to 10) to each of the following to improve effectiveness of collaboration in your organization?
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In a recently released study, Managing Virtual Teams: Taking A More Strategic Approach by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), more that one-half of executives say that their virtual teams use video conferencing. Respondents score video conferencing fairly low in our survey for being an effective tool for collaboration. We suspect that the variance is due to cultural differences. The EIU study conducted surveys with only European executives. While our study included respondents for 5 continents, the concentration of respondents was from North America.
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 (2)
The findings in this study are interesting. I never thought that email was an effective form of collaboration - only a tool that everyone uses and is hard to move away from. I think there are many great collaboration systems out there, and if just takes some commitment to utilizing it and training on how to best utilize it, and the collaboration will increase and improve.
I posted this question on LinkedIn: Is email a collaboration tool? In a recent survey, 2/3 of the respondents found email to be the most effective tool for collaboration. What does it say about the current state of collaboration?
I received interesting responses that I would like to share.
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Barbara Weaver Smith, Founder and President, The Whale Hunters
Great question--and I applaud your study!
I believe people choose email as the most effective collaboration tool because it's the only tool that they and their collaborators all use in day to day work.
Email is clunky, disorganized, distracting, not integrated with a project-or-collaboration website--as opposed to a web-based collaboration platform. But although "everyone" knows how to use email, many fewer people have had training and opportunity to use a more robust virtual communication platform. And therefore people prefer to be pinged by their email--or to have their collaborating partners pinged--rather than learning to manage their own time to check in to a web platform or manage how new activity is reported to them.
I prefer a web-based environment for my own collaborative projects. But I have found that a real learning curve is required to get other people on board. It takes awhile before they can see the advantages of searchability, document sharing, time management, content management, and project history that are more readily available in a web environment rather than email.
See: http://www.q2learning.com
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Michael McKenna, Consultant, Trainer & Planner Providing Real World Solutions to Help Orgs Stay in Operation Despite Risk of Disruption.
Yes, email is a collaboration tool. So is the bed of a pickup truck, the telephone, Twitter, SharePoint, Buzz, etc.
The current state of collaboration is no different than the previous state of collaboration...if the focus is too much on the form than on the substance, then the object will ultimately suffer.
I have had robust, highly effective collaborations over email and also lousy time wasting efforts spent face-to-face. The tool used to collaborate is seldom the impediment OR the solution.
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Christine Hueber, at ChristineHueber dot com
Absolutely ... it's how I primarily collaborate with my clients, partners and vendors.
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Frank Feather, ►CEO NorthStar ►Ex-Banker ►Futurist ►Speaker ►Your Future is My Business
That is because it is simple, and it works.
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Anne K Scott, Business transformation, Technology Delivery and Intuitive Leadership Professional
Yes it is a collaboration tool because that is how it is being used; however, it is a tool that has been commandeered rather than designed for purpose. There is are opportunities for far more efficient collaboration tools with much more recent developments than email which is a relatively old technology based on what is i.e. the postal system rather that what we would truly love to have. Out of the box thinking and vision is key. In the meantime email holds the fort but there is so much more to come.
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Jeff Cooper, IT Infrastructure Manager at Abbott Vascular Devices
I disagree with Barbara Weaver Smith. As an example, Microsoft Outlook is well-integrated with MS SharePoint and MS Project, and SharePoint and Project are also well-integrated such that tasks, tracking, etc can be passed back and forth among the three products.
Email as collaboration will evolve. While it is the most prevalent / most popular today, as a younger workforce enters the market, email will become secondary to social networking, instant message, text message, etc. As an anecdote, my daughter is 10 and does not have an email account (nor has she asked for one). But she and all of her friends have text.
Finally, consider if you asked this same question 10 - 15 years ago. I bet the survey would have found that most folks considered the telephone as the primary tool for collaboration.
PS. One other comment...Google has a "Wave" product that seems to blend email and instant messaging into a next generation tool. https://wave.google.com/
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Barrett Peterson, CPA, Consultant and Senior Financial Executive, experienced in Accounting, Finance, Planning, IT, M&A, Operations Mgmt.
I suspect "tool" is the key here, and email is an effective tool. Like all tools, it enhances/documents/facilitates the collaboration process. Email does not supplant or become the definition of collaboration. Most good processes employ tools and this finding just confirms that modern methods are unsurprisingly finding their way into and informing all human interactions.
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Harry Cobbs, End User at NA
Definitely yes! Email is the simplest tool you can acquire for team collaboration. Some other collaboration tool an organization can have are a feature-packed virtual pbx phone system, unified communication system, unified messaging system, etc.
See: http://virtualphonesystem.blogetery.com/category/unified-communication/ and http://virtualphonesystem.blogetery.com/category/unified-messaging/
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Wallace Jackson, Multimedia Producer and i3D Programmer for Acrobat 3D PDF, JavaFX, Mobile & Virtual Worlds
It says the current state of e-mail collaboration needs to go to a 2nd level with GoogleWave
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Darin Bush, IT Support Analyst Contractor at Stiefel Laboratories
I created and maintained a Lotus Notes knowledge base that did all of it's communication through the email client. As for answering the question, I know that might be a backwards answer - the dbase used email - but it was very collaborative.
I know I can Google this, but, in the context of this question, how do you define "a collaboration tool"? If you can send an email to any number of people instantly, doesn't this qualify?
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Nkateko Okwera, Project Manager at ICF Macro
Email is a collaboration tool. I have seen people build extensive methods of collaborating through outlook. That being said – is it the best collaboration tool? I don’t think so. When I think of collaboration, I think of some core requirements:
• Is there version control on documents?
• Can multiple people work on the same resource at the same time?
• Is it accessible anywhere?
• Does it support multiple levels of organization?
• Can you funnel all of your information through one person with email?
• Can you actually create a sort of site map to meet all resources?
• How does it ensure that you have the most up to date information?
• How much of the organization is managed manually vs. programmatically?
• Can multiple people look at the same thing at the same time?
• Can files be stored in a single location?
Email is often used as a collaboration tool, but it seems to be more of a vehicle to support online collaboration. On its own – it is far from sufficient – but without email – would collaboration be possible? For example, without email – how would you receive alerts that you are supposed to do something? How would you search through past communications? How would you send files or even notify someone that there’s a file they need to see?
Having spent years working with SharePoint and supporting people in using it as a collaboration tool, I can understand why people feel email is the most efficient collaboration tool. For starters, most people have more number of years of experience with email – compared to other collaboration tools. Often collaboration tools/suites are deployed without adequate training or follow-up support. The learning curve alone often cripples the usage of such tools. Email is quick – it’s right at your finger tips – and best of all – you already know how to use it! Unfortunately many people make their decisions about the right tool to use with that same logic. Without a real assessment of user needs, no collaboration tool will truly be utilized fully.