Introduction
Enterprise collaboration software has the potential for enabling an organization to take a quantum leap in terms of collaboration, knowledge sharing and performance. Much of the benefit with regard to collaboration is inherent in the technology itself. However, to optimize the technology and achieve improvements in organizational effectiveness and collaboration, a focus on the overall organization is important. This will ensure a sound foundation for the technology.
My belief is that with regard to the implementation of enterprise collaboration software, the following questions should be answered.
- Does the technology have the appropriate and necessary functionality integrated in the most usable format to support collaboration for the organization and the challenges in question?
- Do the people who will be using the technology have the collaborative skills, attitudes and behaviors to get the most out of the technology?
- Is the structure and culture of the organization designed to provide support to the technology and to the desired behaviors?
My most recent hands-on experience with enterprise collaboration software is with Socialtext so many of my comments with regard to the technology will reference this experience. I will also be quoting Ross Mayfield who is the founder and CEO of Socialtext.
Collaborative Benefits Of The Technology
Supports Existing and Emergent Knowledge Flows
Enterprise collaboration software ideally should provide a repertoire of functionality that enables it to match the particular needs of the organization. For example, Socialtext provides wiki workspaces, extensive profiles, integrated weblogs for ongoing collaborative conversations, microblogging, common spreadsheets, social messaging and an integrating personal dashboard. The tools can be flexibly used as appropriate to respond to particular situations. For example, a wiki may be appropriate as a shared workspace while microblogging may be helpful in keeping one another up to speed about each person's current activities. Profiles, microblogging and invitations can be used to identify and draw in additional relevant expertise within and external to the organization. Customers can also be engaged via this approach.
The collaboration software should match and support existing knowledge flows while being flexible enough to allow users to create new knowledge flows to respond to emergent task needs. Users can migrate over to the forums provided by the software in continuing with current tasks. Users can begin to network and exchange ideas with others in ad hoc conversations in response to new tasks. The result will be work processes that are congruent with the knowledge needs of the users. Tags can enable users to organize new knowledge in ways that most fit with their work. Ross Mayfield, the CEO of Socialtext said with regard to the technology, "It should enable the self-organizing group formation process to occur in the social software."
Openness and Trust
Enterprise collaboration software can help to foster openness and trust. It can do this by supporting online identities and extensive profiles that set out a person's interests, expertise and recent activities. Socialtext, for example, provides customizable fields in the profile which can link to more personal information and widgets that allow for personal conversations. Trust can be built through the act of sharing knowledge with others. Using the technology supports an organization's efforts to move away from traditional practices that are based on the assumption that knowledge is available to others only on a "need to know basis."
Motivation and Commitment
The software can motivate use, adoption and commitment. When people voluntarily self-select for creative, knowledge-intensive tasks they are more likely to choose tasks to which they can become committed. The proactive aspects of the software enable the users to drive collaboration by themselves which acts to build commitment. There are implicit incentives like the satisfaction of solving a problem and gaining experience, exposure, connections and status. Ross Mayfield of Socialtext said, "The more you enable people to express themselves through their profile, the more you get adoption and richer context."
Collaborative Skills, Behaviors And Attitudes Of The Users
Revisit Individual and Organizational Habits
Collaborative software can only go so far towards building collaboration. Achieving collaboration can be problematic if people are resistant to collaboration either because of conflicting individual attitudes or behaviors or because the organization reinforces antithetical attitudes and behaviors. In this kind of situation, it is helpful to provide training in collaborative skills, behaviors and attitudes. A training environment is a place where these new behaviors can be forged in a lower risk environment. Face to face interaction can develop necessary trust in smaller intact groups. Collaborative norms can also be developed. These individual habits can be supported by modification in organizational supports and culture.
Create More Porous Boundaries
Changing attitudes and behaviors with regard to organizational boundaries will be an advantageous step. This entails helping organization members see that success lies in working cross-organizationally and with external parties rather than remaining isolated and keeping knowledge close to the vest. It will also be helpful to change the orientation of the organization from an entity with rigid boundaries to one with more porous boundaries through which users can reach out to external ideas and people.
Seek More Extensive and Diverse Knowledge
It is of value to help users recognize and be curious about the rich talent pool both within and outside their walls. Users should have an appreciation for diversity of perspective, background and knowledge. Supporting people in absorbing knowledge that is different than their own is part of this. Efforts should help people move away from past ways of passively receiving information to a more proactive approach to obtaining information.
Create Shared Meaning
The other side of seeking diverse perspectives is to create shared meaning amongst users. Shared language is one component of this. Shared language can be supported by a glossary as part of the technology. Shared meaning can also be supported via tags that are developed in a bottom-up manner.
Develop Skills For Productive Dialogue
There are skills that can make the difference between a situation where people present and re-present positions to one another and a situation where people move deeper and more wisely into a subject while creating collective intelligence. These skills include being able to recognize the assumptions that underlie taken-for-granted beliefs and conclusions and being willing to test these assumptions as part of the group conversation. They include being willing to set out one's rationale along with one's opinion and working helpfully with others to enable them to be explicit about the rationale for their opinions.
Developing A Supportive Structure
Build A Strong Container
The free flow of knowledge engendered by the technology requires a strong container to hold together these flows with integrity since many rigid boundaries and rigid pathways are being dispensed with. This container and its attributes replaces many aspects of the command and control approach of the past. Loyalty to the organization and commitment to the goals and product or service of the organization can provide some of this integrity. Incentives that reward collaboration and an ultimate quality result can also provide this glue. An enunciation of principles with regard to the porousness or rigidity of the organization's boundaries is important as a means of providing guidelines as to who is in, who is out and who though external to the organization can be sought out.
Set Clear Mission, Goals and Overarching Tasks
Another important step is to harness the free flow of knowledge into processes that are tied to business results. This can be supported by enunciating the mission, goals and overarching tasks of the organization in a clear and compelling manner. This provides an important directionality to the emergent knowledge flows. The loyal relationships that result also support the integrity of the container.
Develop Norms
The organization's leaders should provide for codes of conduct that set the formal and informal norms and rules that govern how the members of the organization interact using the technology. These can cover behaviors of reciprocity, sharing, openness and respect as well as the form and manner of contribution. Examples of norms are: "Be bold and encourage others to be bold; Be civil to other users at all times; Set out reasons for edits." People need to understand and abide by community norms. Building trust via the shared expectations of behavior that result from shared norms is important. The new norms in conjunction with new behaviors and attitudes and the attributes of the technology help to create a conducive cultural environment for collaboration.
Mix Elements of Hierarchy and Self-Organization
There should be a balance between elements of hierarchy and self-organization. The most skilled and experienced members of the community can provide leadership to help integrate contributions from the community. There can be roles chartered to integrate inputs via the technology and to oversee the quality of the inputs. Project mangers can balance the open flow of knowledge with continuing their role as the sign-off authority. Extrinsic incentives set by leadership can provide for paying people based on their contributions and for the quality of the end result.
Support A Diversity of Configurations
Traditional formal team boundaries and static team structures that move knowledge into pre-ordained pathways can be balanced by ad hoc groups that converge temporarily to accomplish specialized tasks. This in turn will lead to ad hoc processes. These groups will employ a constantly changing roster of participants. These groups can self-organize to fashion their own structure as required.
Conclusion
Enterprise collaboration software represents the next generation of advances in organization collaboration. I am personally looking forward to how this impacts how we do our work in organizations.
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