What
collaboration technology is used within your organisation?
It's
highly unlikely that you will be able to answer this question with just one
word. "Collaboration" means so many different things to different
people, and as a result most of us use several - or even many - different
collaborative tools in our business lives, depending on the work we are doing,
who we are working with, and where we - and our colleagues - are working from.
And once you extrapolate that out across an entire organisation, it becomes a
very complicated picture.
The
most obvious collaboration technology is perhaps email - but others include
real-time communications tools such as instant messaging, audio and video
conferencing, and new messaging tools like Slack. There are also a plethora of
document collaboration options, including document management tools, file
sharing tools, and co-authoring or co-editing tools. And there are many others
too - for example online meeting tools, intranets, social collaboration /
enterprise social networking tools, project management tools - not forgetting
the business applications that incorporate collaborative features, such as your
CRM , ERP or Finance system. The list goes on…
The
implications of this type of diverse environment is that it can be hard for us
as users - deciding which tool to use in which situation; constantly being
presented with new tools to get our heads around; getting frustrated because
colleagues or team members are using different tools to us and we're never
quite sure we (and they) have access to the most current and accurate
information we need to work efficiently. It's also frequently a major headache
for the IT organisation; firstly because often they are unaware of the full
extent of the different tools that are being used throughout the organisation,
and the consequences of potentially insecure or inappropriately managed
technologies getting traction; and secondly because - despite this - IT is often
expected to provide support for the various tools that people are using. This
has considerable implications both in terms of the cost of providing such
support - for example skilling up staff across such a breadth of tools, and
also resourcing the support efforts - and also in terms of managing
relationships with a large number of vendors.
The
challenge is that there is not an easy solution to this problem; while there
may be some scope for reducing the number of technologies in play, this will
often be limited to where there are true duplicates in use, for example two
instant messaging platforms or two social networking platforms. For the
remainder, the issue is that different tools are typically employed to support
different use cases - either through different types of collaboration (for
example real-time discussions in the context of a project vs. collaboratively
authoring a document) or through their relevance in a particular context (for
example enabling the sales team to collaborate around their accounts and
opportunities vs. enabling the engineering team to share information around a
product development process). Another issue is that the tool that an individual
uses for a particular situation may be entirely out of their (or the
organisation's) control, for example if a partner organisation requires them to
use a particular tool as part of a shared project.
I know
many organisations try to standardise on just a small handful of collaboration
technologies - or standardise on the products from just a few vendors - and
while I completely understand the reasoning behind this, the truth is that it
rarely works in the long-term. The rate of innovation in the collaboration
space means that new and interesting technologies are constantly emerging - and
disrupting - all the time, and - quite simply - if your employees find a tool
that meets their needs better than the ones you have standardised upon, today's
cloud-based and freemium models mean that they can - and will - use them to get
their work done.
The
reality is that IT organisations need to be pragmatic in dealing with the
proliferation of collaboration tools that are popping up across our
organisations, because this is the new
normal. Clearly it is a complex issue which will have different
implications for different organisations, but I have two pieces of advice for
IT to bear in mind in handling this:
-
Embrace the peer network. Your
IT organisation can't be everything to everyone, so let your employees
support each other through a combination of self-service and peer-based
support for whichever collaboration tools. Take advantage of some of those
collaboration tools to allow early adopters and enthusiasts to answer the
bulk of the "how do I" questions, empowering those who are ready
to share their knowledge, and taking the pressure off your IT resources.
-
Integrate and connect wherever you can. If
you can't reduce the number of tools that are being used, tying them
together is the next best thing, to overcome the risk of new siloes of
collaboration counteracting many of the benefits that collaboration tools
aim to overcome. If you can allow employees to use their collaboration
tool of choice while still allowing the conversation to be open and
inclusive, this creates the best of both worlds. In practice, vendors'
support for integration with other collaboration tools (both competitive
and complementary) is mixed, but it is improving, particularly among the
cloud-based vendors in the market.
Is
this an issue your organisation has grappled with? I'd love to hear your
experiences!
#socialcollaboration #Collaboration