Develop a Strategy for Improved Collaboration

I recently participated in a planning process designed to gather information from all levels of the organization with the intent of identifying what is working and what is not working. There was a lot of positive feedback but also a lot of negative feedback. Improving communications and collaboration were common themes across all organizational units, and improving collaboration is a frequent request from our business units. But improving communications and collaboration were just two of many areas which need improvement, and with our strict budget requirements and the struggling economy we need to take a look at all issues, prioritize our most urgent needs and identify a strategy to deal with everything else. Unfortunately, improving collaboration falls into that second category, so I thought I would share my thoughts around how we all could improve collaboration.

I see collaboration as the overlooked component of everyone's job. It is often in everyone’s job description however because it is a component of our job and usually not the end result of our job it can be easily overlooked, especially if we manage to deliver on our requirements without sharing or collaborating along the way. Some people are good at this and go out of their way to avoid sharing and collaboration, however I disagree with this strategy, call it out when I see it, and try to set an example by being open and transparent to all. I believe that improved collaboration leads to increased productivity and innovation, and by sharing what you do with others, helps others in the long run.

As a manager you should be encouraging your team to share and discuss projects, tasks and assignments and you need to make sure that every business process has multiple support resources and ensure that no one person is an island. Also, managers  are not the only ones responsible for collaboration, everyone is. If you are looking for a way to improve what you do, or if you are looking for a strategy to help you stand out from your peers, consider sharing and collaborating more than you do now.

There are many ways of improving collaboration like actively maintain a wiki presence and always looking for ways of sharing your efforts with others. There are many Enterprise Social Computing tools available today that claim to improve collaboration, however we need more than just tools. If the promise of improved collaboration is improved productivity, then we should look at the areas in our organization that could use improvement and develop a strategy to integrate these new tools into our business processes and require that everyone associated with that business process use these tools.

But, that is a tall order as most business processes could be improved however making a change to the business process requires time, effort and acceptance from the business community. Also, changing a business process could impact your bottom line, therefore many organizations prefer to stick with the current business process in spite of it’s deficiencies as opposed to taking a risk on a new business process.

That is why it is beneficial for large organizations to develop a strategy surrounding collaborative tools and Enterprise Social Computing strategies. Developing an Enterprise Social Computing strategy will help you to identify the tools that will work best in your organization and will help you to better outline productivity gains and cost savings.

Improving collaboration and productivity has been in our job descriptions for many years, however now we have some tools to help us along the way. Our challenge is identifying the tools that best fit our organization and justifying the use of these tools to fit our business cases.

Comments

[KelleyDARLENE30]

The credit loans seem to be important for guys, which want to organize their career. By the way, that's not hard to get a short term loan.