Freezing an intranet solution means, that for a period of time, content cannot be updated and preserved because the programmers are working on moving the old content from one system to another.
A freeze period is something that most intranet managers will go to great lengths to avoid but in the end it is often a decision forced upon them by factors outside their own control.

Generic requirements gathering processes are self absorbed. They are optimized to comprehensively find business requirements, not understand them within the context of business goals. And the more the requirements are abstracted from the goal of managing content, the less they mean. Quantity and completeness are measurements of success rather than usefulness. What is more, most generic requirements analysis techniques are designed for building custom software rather than selecting software. While custom software development goes from requirements to design, when implementing an existing WCMS, much of the design is already in place. The trick to finding a WCMS is to match your needs with a pre-existing design. Generic requirements are an indirect path to that result.

This is all good advice, and something that I’ve written about. What Seth calls “leading requirements”, I call “key selection criteria”. More on good requirements:

• Using narrative in a CMS tender
• Requirements-focused CMS selection

In my travels and conversations with peers I’ve become aware that many of them are seeing needs emerging within organisations for better collaboration tools - people are seeking better and more cost-effective ways to work together to achieve organisational objectives than via shared drives, email, telephones and cross-country business trips.

However in most cases this need is forming in a ‘lumpy’ manner. Some groups in the organisation are happy with the tools they’ve used for years, others are seeking something better - particularly where budget limitations and rising costs are making old ways of working too expensive.

Let me describe a familiar user assistance experience. A user installs a new application, and when the user wants Help, the application directs her to the user documentation on a Web site or CD-ROM. What the user finds there is a PDF file containing the manual—or a collection of PDF files, representing a library of manuals, including a user guide, configuration guide, troubleshooting guide, and various references. And the layout of each of these PDF manuals is exactly the same as if it were a printed book. This raises an interesting question: If we’re giving manuals to users to read online, why do we design and write them for paper?

Some people are referring to technology when they talk about collaboration, others are looking at the “collaborative culture” within organisations, while still others consider collaboration from an individual’s perspective. All are valid topics, but the breadth of collaboration can lead to crossed lines when we try to bring them all together.

Within an organisation, it’s easy to get caught up in just a few aspects of collaboration, leaving big holes that impact on short and long-term success. How do we ensure we’re looking at all the necessary elements of collaboration?

While sitting in an airport on the way back to Australia, a overall model for collaboration coalesced in my mind, bringing together all the different aspects of collaboration. This is still in its infancy, but I thought it would be useful to share it, and to get some feedback.

A model: three tiers of collaboration

Each tier builds on the one below, starting with capacity (pre-requisites for collaboration), through capability (strength of collaborative activities and approaches) to strategy (overall focus on collaboration).

A brief outline of each item, starting from the bottom up:

Capacity

• Culture of collaboration - integration of collaborative practices into “the way we work” throughout the organisation.
• Individual readiness - the skills, background, practices and personality of individuals for collaboration.
• Social networks - the breadth and strength of social and interpersonal relationships within the organisation.
• Business opportunity - the time and opportunity for collaboration within daily work practices and overall business model.

Capability

• Collaboration tools - designing and deploying effective collaboration tools.
• Collaboration model - overall model for collaboration, in the context of information management strategy.
• Support for the individual - providing individuals with personal tools and support for collaboration.
• Fostering connections - skills and support for fostering interaction and relationships between people.

Strategy

• Governance - ownership, resourcing and decision making processes for collaboration.
• Roadmap - overall strategy and roadmap for the adoption and growth of collaboration within the organisation.
• Business value - demonstrated business or organisational value of collaboration, and alignment with core business goals.
• Strategic focus - organisation recognises collaboration as a ‘top line’ element of overall success and strategy.

Using the model

This is a descriptive model, that oulines all the elements of collaboration, and it can be used in a variety of ways:

• as the basis for a self-assessment of where collaboration activities are currently focused in the organisation
• to identify areas of strength and weakness in collaboration strategies
• as the basis for research and learning about collaborative approaches
• as a way of structuring a collection of collaboration techniques and approaches
• as a shared model to build understanding between practitioners of collaboration

As previously indicated, this is an early version of the model, very much a work-in-progress. Your questions, suggestions or improvements? ]]> http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/three-tiers-of-collaboration/feed/ http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/the-beginnings-of-a-theory-of-participation/ http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/the-beginnings-of-a-theory-of-participation/#comments Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:12:08 +0000 James Robertson http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/?p=3115 Stuart French has outlined the beginnings of a theory of participation. To quote:

Below is my first try at mapping the interactions between these concepts and uses the actual labels used by the participants in the study. There is minimal theory in this framework. Each link is based on evidence in the data. I share it because I am interested in feedback, both from practitioners and academics. Not just on the model itself, but also if people have seen similar frameworks published. I’m sure I cannot be the only one seeing these interactions in the wild?

The concept is a great, practical development of web 2.0 - let anyone in your community create an idea and then let anyone else vote and comment on it. Then promise to do something about the ideas that get voted to the top.

The Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) spec was created by a group of ECM vendors — specifically, Microsoft, IBM, EMC, Oracle, Alfresco and Open Text. The purpose of the specification is to define a common Web services interface that will allow developers to build applications that can talk uniformly to many different content repositories.

I’m therefore very excited to hear that J. Boye has launched their very successful community of practice in the UK. I’ve spoken at a number of J. Boye sessions in Denmark, and they’ve brought together a great group of people.

If you’re in the UK and interested in intranets, content management, search or portals, definitely have a look into this group.

Collaboration on the frontline – the challenges and some success stories

We will look at some case studies where simple tools have been really successful in supporting knowledge workers on the frontline of businesses (and in return benefiting those businesses). We will pick out some of the obstacles and the strategies that were employed to overcome or avoid them. We’ll do some thinking, some watching and some talking. Hey - we may even collaborate!

Matt Moore is also speaking on “Justifying Your Knowledge Management Programme”, which should be excellent. Not to be missed if you are in Sydney!

Similarities

Coming out of these and previous trips, my observation is: intranets are pretty much the same the world over.

We all share the same goals and objectives, and wrestle with the same issues. Similar discussion topics seem relevant across the globe, including:

• How do we manage our intranets?
• How do we design/redesign the intranet?
• What are the best practices and latest innovations?
• How do we deliver great intranet content?
• Where does collaboration fit in?
• What about web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0?
• What do staff want, and how do we deliver it?
• How do we develop an intranet strategy and roadmap?
• What does it take to gain senior management support and more resources?
• Where should the intranet team sit, and what should it be doing?

No one country is “ahead” when it comes to intranets, and most sites are in a similar stage of evolution.

Differences

Of course, intranets are far from uniform. As I’ve observed in the past, intranets reflect the organisations they serve, and organisations themselves vary widely. Intranets therefore vary organisation-to-organisation, rather than country-to-country.

Factors that influence intranets include:

• size and structure (eg global multinational, government agency, etc)
• organisational culture
• purpose and function of the organisation
• staff skills and activities
• technology, both historically and currently
• plus a hundred other factors

Learning from our differences

There are many great ideas being pursued, and the differences between organisations generate very different approaches. The challenge remains to surface and share these, regardless of which country they come from.

Your thoughts and observations?

A great example of this bias in surveys was when British Airways was designing its new ‘Raid the Larder’ concept in Club World. The team involved did the right thing and got together some focus groups of regular customers and asked them to name the type of food they would like to have available to snack on during a flight. The respondents were pretty clear - mineral water, apples, maybe a light salad. In due course the larder was stocked with these kinds of things. However, when real customers used the larder they tended to leave the fruit and salad and head straight for the chocolate and cakes.

You will also need to record each page visited and the details of the assessment (I’m putting together a form that I am intending to use myself, if you want a copy please post a comment). Then you need to analyse the results and look for patterns. This part is vital. Do it well and it will provide incontrovertable evidence of the content value. You can go down the route of calculating the standard deviation , which will give you a predicted range of results, but in most cases an average figure presented as a percentage will be more than sufficient. Percentages are great - if you can say that on average 48.9% of a site’s content sucks then you are more likely to be believed.

For organisations looking to benefit from enterprise 2.0, we obviously want successes. From where I stand, there are three main considerations when conducting strategic planning:

1. Purpose. What is the reason for pursuing a particular solution or approach? How will it benefit the organisation? It’s nice to help people to chat, and this may help to build a sense of community, but this is not enough. There are many business needs and issues, and our job is to find way of solving them.
2. Culture. As many have highlighted, solutions need to match the culture of the organisation (and perhaps move it forward by half a step). And this is the current culture, not the culture we may have when a new generation enters the workforce.
3. Motivation. Why will staff use of new solutions? This is the classic “what’s in it for me” factor, and it’s even more important for solutions that require bottom-up involvement from a wide number of staff.

The aim here is to distil the thinking down to three items that can be used as a simple “test” when thinking and planning about enterprise 2.0. If you don’t have a clear answer for all three aspects, the strategy is likely to fail.

Of the three, motivation is the most important, and strangely, the least talked about.

We would all like “internal Facebook” or “internal Wikipedia” solutions. The motivation of people to participate in these platforms on the web is not the same as motivations for staff within organisations. I believe there are motivations that can be tapped into, but we know precious little about them at present.

This is where we should be devoting more of our effort. If we want most staff in an organisation to become active participants, we had better understand what will motivate them to do so!

So I’ll bring it back to three factors: purpose, culture and motivation. Find these three, and success will come.

As ever, your thoughts?

Importance to the business: Just how important is the project/application in meeting organisational/business goals?

Importance to users: What will happen to users if you mess up. Will they be harmed, or will they just go elsewhere?

$$: How much is the project going to cost? (i.e. how much will be wasted if you mess up)