I am talking about collaboration; something each and every one of us does every day without thinking about it. We all collaborate in different ways. Some of us use shared workspaces, email, text, and yes now and then, one-to-one communication by phone or in-person conversation.
Recent research by AIIM finds that internal collaboration is “crucial” for 63% of businesses and external collaboration is crucial for 32%.1 indicating that even if we as individuals are not thinking about it, businesses are. In fact this same study finds that the biggest drivers for collaboration are general productivity, knowledge pooling, and pulling together a dispersed workforce. It is also found to be important in speeding up review processes, customer responses, and project completions.
How do you do it?
While collaboration is found to be key in business, how you collaborate and how well you do it, is another thing. Many organizations have come to rely on email as the main form of collaboration. Housed within the email is an attachment for the intended parties to review, and act upon. The reason this is a popular method is that is has become comfortable and “the way we work”. This is not an effective way to work and also places the organization at risk.
The Risk Factor
While email is convenient and comfortable, it also increases the number of copies of a file. For example, an email is sent to a person with an attachment, say the departmental budget spreadsheet, and that spreadsheet is downloaded to the person’s hard drive. You now have at minimum of four copies of that spreadsheet. There is now the original copy on your hard drive, the attachment in your sent box, the attachment in the other person’s sent box, and the downloaded copy on that person’s hard drive. If you are being audited or brought into litigation and facing an eDiscovery request, you would now be required to produce all copies. At this point legal may make the determination as to which is the one and true copy, but you may still have to present all of them to the auditors or court.
In my view
The method of collaboration in business can mean the difference between high risk and cost, and efficiency and accuracy. Imagine you are working on a project and find that there are many copies, and even versions, of a document vital to your project’s success. Imagine that R&D made updates to product specifications, and manufacturing does not have them as yet. Mistakes are made, costly rework is needed, and the project is falling behind. As in the days of hard copy, thee response might be “it is in your email”. In today’s world, there is no legitimate reason this should happen. The only reason is disconnect in the collaborative process.
Beginning Today
Look at the collaborative processes you have in place. Identify where your information comes from, and how it enters this process. Ask who uses this information, what do they do with it, and determine if it could be managed in a central location where all parties can access it. Look at how email is used and begin the transition away from email as a collaboration tool. Rather than send an attachment, send a link to the appropriate file where it is stored. Make this one copy, the official copy or version that everyone works from, rather than working from individual copies. Use version controls to ensure when a change is made, it is reflected as the new version. If as an organization, you are ready to move forward with improving the collaborative process but are not sure where to begin or what to do next, seek professional assistance and/or training to get you started. The key is to take action.
About the Author
Bob Larrivee is Director of Custom Research at AIIM, and an internationally recognized subject matter expert and thought leader with over thirty years of experience in the fields of information and process management. Bob is an avid techie with a focus on process improvement, and the application of advanced technologies to enhance and automate business operations.
Resources: 1AIIM Industry Watch titled: Content Collaboration and Processing in a Cloud and Mobile World
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