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Getting Started with Collaboration

Chris Couture, Principal Consultant  :  22 July 2010 / 11:18 AM  :  0

Welcome to Web 2.0.  Just when you’ve seen the final “click here” hyperlink cleaned off the department’s web site, your boss rushes in, going on about great new things he read on a blog.  His excitement peaks as your adrenalin level spikes – you’ve just heard “…collaboration…”, plus “…new software…” and “…you!”

Relax!  Whether you’re aware or not, you collaborate every day.  Adding technology to the mix, be it a new ERP collaboration suite or Google Docs – can make collaboration much more effective.  As with many new initiatives, the chosen approach truly makes the difference between failure and success.  Pursuits of simple, quick successes give you and your team good experience and set the course for continued collaborative effectiveness.

Here’s one way to get started.

First, review the activities you do that require involvement of others. Which ones require you to pass documents, communications, pertinent information back and forth with a handful of colleagues?  Which ones require that you make decisions collectively? Which lead you to a specific end or met goal?

Make a list of those activities.  Then, for those listed, consider the people involved.  Which do you work best with?  Who do you find to be easiest to communicate with, least likely to have a sidebar agenda, most likely to focus on the goal rather than the personal gain?

Pare your activities list down. Now, of those that remain (hopefully there are a few, otherwise you might consider job change!) which are the shortest in timeframe, from start to goal met? 

Pick one of these.

What makes this simple list of criteria work?  For starters, activities you do on a regular basis are easiest to document.  You need to be able to articulate a process in order to lay a specific course of action.  This is especially important if you intend to support the process with technology.  Choosing an activity you know well means less time burned uncovering inefficiencies and surprises in the process; you can focus on learning the technology and matching it to the process.  Knowing the process well also means you’ll be able to accept more default settings the new technology offers.  You’ll make associations easier and can defer the advanced setup for later.

Picking people you like to work with makes the uncertainty bearable.  You’ll learn better in a positive environment, you’ll be comfortable with any mistakes made – they will too!  This creates a team focused on the activity, rather than the hesitation or unknowns inherent in putting new folks together.  Remember, you want some simple, quick success to build on.

Pursuing a goal over a short timespan means you can finish. You and the team will need to look back. What did you learn about the new tools? What did you learn about collaborating?  How can you use this in your next effort? Try to find, and write down, at least one positive outcome beside achieving the goal, and one thing you learned.  Use this when you start your next collaborative effort.

Oh, and make sure you let your boss know how great this all turned out!

In upcoming posts I will talk more about the technology used for collaboration.  As of late I’ve been working extensively with Oracle’s PeopleSoft Collaborative Workspace, which will serve as a foundation for many of the examples and business cases I’ll discuss.  The concepts and ideas, though, can be transferred to other technologies, as the business approach is common regardless of the tool used.

Posted in Higher Education on 22 July 2010
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Tagged: ERP  IT Strategy  Collaboration  Web 2.0   Enterprise 2.0  

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