quantmleap

I’ve referred in an earlier post to the fact that Collaboration is an attitude, not a tool. I was pleasantly surprised then to come across an interesting article in businessweek.com titled “Creating Collaboration Takes More Than Technology“.

The article, by Evan Rosen, suggests that where some organizations chase up the introduction of collaboration tools as an end in itself, the real purpose of introducing collaboration is (yes you guessed it) to CREATE VALUE.

So what if the tools got introduced and no tangible value can be realized as a return? The answer is rather simple. The tools themselves cannot bring in the desired value, unless the the organization is ‘collaboration ready’. All the tools do is create a potential for value creation. Actualizing this potential is dependent on the organization putting in place the appropriate and correct culture and processes.

Given the influx of posts promoting the use of social media and collaboration tools, it is most certainly worthwhile remembering that organizations that failed with their collaborative approach before the introduction of the tools are not more likely to succeed in their collaboration effort after having the tools introduced. Collaboration is not tools’ dependent and lacks technological sensitivity. If you want your organization to better collaborate make damn sure you encourage cultural and behavioral change, one that is not dependent on the tools but rather on the attitude and the approach.

One of my biggest issues with the ‘Project Management 2.0′ concept is that it is conceptualized around other ’2.0′ concepts like ‘Web 2.0′ and ‘Enterprise 2.0′; both of which are terms that emphasis and denote a technological dimension relating to human interactions. In that context, and following the same logic, PM 2.0 is meant to be denote the application of ’2.0′ technologies to enhance project management capabilities.

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review analyzed the reasons behind the failure of western Intelligence Services to prevent the recent terror attack on an American Airline. The article states that the whole episode represents a “massive failure of collaboration among intelligence and governmental officials”. The facts known about this terror attack are sufficient to conclude that although there was sufficient information to enable an effective prevention of this incident, it lacked nevertheless the final  touch of connecting all the dots and consolidating the known data into effective management information.

The author of the HBR article concludes that despite the US (and other countries) investing in IT systems aimed at supporting the above detection and alert systems, it lacked nevertheless the investment in cultural change necessary to ensure that information is not only collected but is also shared. This, the author says, is a matter of cultural change, one that will encourage and foster not just collaboration but effective collaboration.

An interesting case study is cited by Professor Morten Hansen from the INSEAD institute, where SONY failed to launch an effective competition against the Apple iPod and, despite having a collective know-how and expertise in all aspects of designing and manufacturing an iTunes-iPod hybrid, “it turned out to be a failure because the individual departments did not work in unison”.

In an earlier post I have stated that ‘a fool with a tool is still a tool‘. The premise of that post was that a tool in the hands of an inexperienced user, will not generate the desired results. The observations cited above add another dimension to this claim. they highlight the point that even when used by experienced users, desired results are still dependent on other organizational factors, primarily based around cultural adaptation.