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Follow UsRitu Madbhavi The author is VP, IT, Draft FCB Ulka Advertising
Collaboration has been a buzzword for a number of years. CIOs have long recognized that it is a critical component in creating a lasting impact on organization performance. The optimal use of organizational talent to give the company a competitive edge is possible only if the people in an organization collaborate.
Thus to a CXO, collaboration would be about working together to achieve a common goal by bringing people with diverse skillsets together. For the CIO it would be about creating the technology platforms and also an enabling environment which makes collaboration feasible and effective.
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Typical Roadblocks
Unfortunately there are more organizations which dream about effective collaboration and are frustrated in their attempts to make take it to fruition. There are several roadblocks in building a collaborative platform. These can range from technology barriers to people beliefs. Research has shown that some of the typical barriers are as follows:
- Geographical spread with multiple locations and business units
- Organizational silos driven by specialization
- Lack of beliefs resulting in cynicism or insecurity
- Goal misalignment or lack of shared goals
- Lack of collaborative tools or low familiarity with tools
Resolving Issues
How can a CIO help resolve these issues and create a platform that not only helps people collaborate but also puts in place a roadmap for collaboration and better coordination between teams?
The first step is to create a clear demonstrator of what technology can do. Whether it is Sharepoint or other customized solutions, what works best is for people to experience the power of collaborative tools.
This helps in dissolving the most crucial barrier of getting acceptance to the concept of using collaborative tools. Even then it has been found that it still is a challenge to get people to actually start using it. Human nature forces people to resist the unknown. When organizations do not have tools you find people clamoring for a platform which will make it easier to share and collaborate. They want meeting places (real or virtual) access to data (knowledge portals) and a quick way to get feedback.
But once you have the tools in place it is found that usage drops after the initial excitement. After about 3 months the actual usage drops to as low as 10%. What many organizations do not realize is that collaborative tools also need a lot of data and discipline. The open ended collaborative processes before automation seem easier and less binding. The trick is to develop a system that is fluid and does not stifle collaboration with too many rules, checks and balances.
Evolving a Successful System
Some possible solutions to make collaborative experience successful and ensuing that the business benefits from such actions are as follows:
- Train the Organization: It is important to get people to see the benefits of collaboration and get their buy-in. These are the actual users who will make it a success and it is important to get them to rise above their insecurities and show that eventually it will be a win-win situation
- Get People to Upload Information: No collaborative tool is of use unless there is enough information residing in the repository. This is a continuous exercise and is easier said than done. Even if one has bought into the benefits of the collaboration tools, users tend to postpone uploading their info/feedback due to their day-to-day pressures and tight deadlines.
- Incentivize the Users to Share Information: Create an incentive program to condition expectations
- Use Competition as a Trigger: Another way to trigger change is to create competition among users
Efficient Collaboration
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Technology enabled collaboration is a trend that is gaining momentum. A classic case I business travel which because of rising costs is on the decline. This has been fueled by better video conferencing solutions which are growing 30% annually. Gartner predicts that by 2012 video conferencing will replace 2.1 mn airline seats per year. Add to this the power of face-to-face contact as opposed to audio conferencing and you see the potential that video conferencing alone has to make a difference in how an organization works.
As a result collaboration not just connects talent and scarce people resources but it also dramatically cuts travel costs and also helps a company conserve capital.
However technology can never replace human intent. The best laid plans and the most elaborate solutions will come to naught if the teams have not fully absorbed the goals. Modern collaborative tools do provide for time shifting and place shifting flexibilities but the very speed of such solutions means that you can self-destruct without adequate training and preparation.
Collaborative tools are now becoming open source and in an age of transparency moving into the public domain. Crowd sourcing, social networking driven collaboration solutions have already started making an impact in organizations that are brave enough to open themselves to the world.
The whole world will one day move to one large collaborative organism. Right now we need to take the first baby steps to discover how to operate in a world where everyone and everything is
connected.