The New Art and Technology of Collaboration

Looking beyond the tools to transform business processes

by Bill Koch, Editor, definingINSIGHTS

Few phrases drew as many groans during our school years as, “Now we’re going to break up into small groups.” For overachievers, it meant you would be doing all the work. For underachievers, you always felt your contributions were undervalued. For middle-achievers, you immediately worried about your standing in the group.

Those small groups gave collaboration a bad name. In today’s business climate, “collaboration” is a buzzword mostly centered around tools. Everyone knows the technology for this that’s out there—document management, instant messaging and web conferencing. But not many people know how to use the tools for the most effective collaboration.

The problem comes when companies plunk down money for technology without really understanding how technology can be used to address their workflow issues. Most companies fail to effectively implement the technology because they don’t start at the beginning. The first step in improving collaboration with these tools is to determine what you’re already doing.

Analyze processes to choose the best technology

“Anyone can dazzle you with technology,” says Lisa Bianco, director of strategic partnerships for Definition 6, “but it’s important to start with a thorough analysis of your current environment.

“In order to choose the best collaboration technology,” Bianco continues, “you need to understand what goals you have for improving collaboration. Do you want improvements within your company? Between yourself and a client or vendor? Will the collaboration be short-term or long-term?”

Bianco and her team recommend a four-step assessment of a client’s existing environment:

1. Assess existing architecture

“Security is a primary concern for many customers right now,” Bianco relates. “A thorough examination of current security measures should come before any recommendations about opening systems for collaboration.”

Protecting clients and their data is vital for a company’s comfort level with new levels of sharing. Bianco says, “You must protect the client and their data. It’s not as simple as a threat from outside hackers. If you are going to collaborate with a client or vendor, their systems have to be just as secure.”

2. Examine what you want to share

The idea of sharing knowledge can spur a lot of creative thinking about how it could work. Bianco helps clients hone that vision into practical systems. “I ask them what they specifically want to share within their company or with clients and vendors. Are we talking a few documents or a big pipeline for real-time financial spreadsheets?”

Deciding which types of documents will be shared affects the technology chosen. It may also send the team back to step one. “What they want to share may require a reassessment of the security situation. Once you show people how effectively they could be sharing, more often that not, they want to share more.”

3. Determine how long the collaboration will last

The difference between a short-term and long-term collaboration makes a big difference in what tools to chose. “If this is a short-term collaboration for one project, there may not be a need to create a big, expensive real-time pipeline,” Bianco says.

For a short-term project, inexpensive tools are available. Bianco explains, “For example, Outlook can be used to create a document collaboration system. The documents and e-mails can be set to expire on a predetermined date when the project is complete. That way, ongoing security concerns are addressed once the collaboration has ended.”

4. Consider new add-ons

“This is where clients can experience all the exciting new technology,” Bianco says. “They can think about going beyond the basics like document management or web conferences to dramatically improve their workflow.”

One example is allowing online transactions between your company and clients or vendors. “In our relationship with Microsoft,” Bianco says, “for example, you could pay for your annual fees within a secure Extranet,” Bianco says. “A vendor can also send us money directly for marketing services.”

Beyond the convenience and timeliness of payment transactions, the online transactions also create reports that both companies can analyze. Bianco explains, “Vendors and clients can both monitor each others’ performance. They both get objective reports that can be used to evaluate how often they are on time and meet goals. This allows them to honestly assess what value they receive from their collaboration.”

Effective collaboration leads to unexpected benefits

Once a business analyzes its process and selects the best tools, most businesses can grasp the workflow improvements that increased collaboration creates. What many can’t imagine are the unexpected benefits of improving the ability to combine and manage resources, skills and knowledge across an enterprise—or with clients and vendors.

“Most often this occurs with workplace cultural issues,” Bianco explains. “Being able to share documents and work from anywhere is fantastic. But you can miss something by not physically being in the office.”

We’ve all experienced the camaraderie of working in an office. The jokes in the hallway, the banter over lunch—these moments are hard to share with someone who works outside the office. Bianco says, “It’s easy to feel out of the loop when you’re not at the same location. You miss some of those important ‘hallway decisions.’”

Bianco continues, “It’s also hard to joke around with a formal e-mail, but new options like instant messaging allow you to show a little more of your personality. They are more immediate and can be more friendly.”

Even more affable are new options for video conferencing. Once the domain of super villains threatening to destroy world peace in James Bond movies, now anyone with an Internet connection and a web cam can show its face at a meeting. “Using the Internet opens up so many possibilities for more intimate connections,” Bianco says. “A simple web conferencing meeting can allow you to see you co-workers or clients and gauge their reactions more effectively.”

Learning from success stories

You understand the tools. You have analyzed your processes and have identified your workflow issues. Now what? How have other companies successfully implemented collaboration technologies?

“We recently worked with a restaurant chain that has 220 locations across the country,” Bianco explains. “In the past, the general manager for each restaurant would overnight its reports to the corporate headquarters in Atlanta. They would then discuss their reports over the phone with corporate.”

Bianco continues, “They were spending tens of thousands of dollars a month in overnight shipping fees. We knew that we could provide a cheaper—and more efficient—alternative.”

Bianco and her team set up a secure portal that allowed each general managers to input their reports over the Internet, using their existing connections. Their reports could be input on a laptop or even a PDA that was connected wirelessly to the Internet.

At corporate headquarters, instead of having to review a 40-page report from each restaurant, the data was tabulated into a database that could be easily scanned or sorted for pertinent information. The restaurant managers could input their information more easily. Corporate executives could access just the information they needed.

“The best part is the solution paid for itself in just a few months,” Bianco says. “The solution is much more efficient and cost-effective from both ends.”

Another client Bianco recently helped was a financial services organization with 127 locations, many in rural areas. “In the past,” Bianco explains, “every night, each location sent in a report to one admin assistant. That assistant combined all those reports into one report for the CEO. She did this every day.”

Bianco’s team developed a secure Internet portal for the locations to send their data to headquarters. They also created an automated SQL reporting system that allowed the locations to quickly input their data. On the corporate side, the automated system allowed the CEO’s assistant to pull together substantially more informative reports in much less time.

“They also didn’t spend a lot on infrastructure,” Bianco says. “By leveraging existing Internet connections in new ways, both sides save time and money now. They also get more informative reports. The SQL data can be manipulated to produce new reports, too.”

Collaboration in the real world

Collaboration tools can make your company more efficient and can provide significant cost-savings. But only if you do your homework first.

“Collaboration tools satisfy our need for ‘instant gratification,’” Bianco says, “but they will simply sit on your employees’ desks if you fail to research their most effective use.”

By examining your existing infrastructure and thinking about exactly what you want to share, collaboration can be a powerful means to bring your employees together, no matter where they are located. If you analyze your business needs and workflow issues first, then choose the appropriate collaboration tools, your employees and clients will actually get excited about “breaking into small groups.”