Filed under: Collaboration and social
Managing collaboration takes a lot of work. Rolling out the tools is easy, whether it’s team spaces, wikis or blogs. To ensure that they are successful is another matter.
If collaboration is to succeed across the enterprise, organisations will need to appoint at least one full time person (probably two) to manage collaboration. Their responsibilities would include:
- developing strategies
- establishing governance
- communicating and promoting
- providing training
- designing solutions
- project managing improvements
- gardening and housekeeping
I know of only a few organisations who have such a person (or team) in place. (BT in the UK is one at present.)
Management isn’t just going to appoint these roles because we say they’re important. Thus my statement:
We need to find the business value in collaboration, and urgently.
It’s not good enough to vaguely “support collaboration”, “enhance conversations”, “build culture” or “share knowledge”. These are not strong enough to get the resources needed for success.
British Airway’s Crew Community Forums are a perfect example of business value, as is the Competitor Intelligence wiki at Scottrade. Nothing less than these will do. Let’s make this a priority, before the growth of collaboration spaces overwhelms our ability to manage them.
(If you’ve used collaboration tools to deliver real benefits, do enter this year’s Intranet Innovation Awards.)