by thomas_sly
Robertson: Ten tips for succeeding at collaboration:
[Via Knowledge Jolt with Jack]
James Robertson of StepTwo posted his slides for a recent presentation entitled, Ten tips for succeeding at collaboration (with audio). Along with the tips, he includes some background around the ideas he presents. Nice.
Always nice to see presentations using newer technology like Slideshare. Being able to also hear a presentation rather than just see them is another huge bonus.
Here are the enumerated tips (in American English :-). And a few of my thoughts sprinkled through.
Get ahead of the curve. “Thousands of uncoordinated wikis and blogs in your company is anti-knowledge-sharing.”
Recognize when collaboration will work. In James’ talk, he gives two key criteria: A sense of purpose and a Clear sense of community. And he talks through several examples of using these criteria.
Understand where collaboration fits in. Internet need not be in conflict with the Intranet, as the purposes are different between the outside world and the internal world.
Establish a portfolio of tools. One tool will NOT unite them all.
Identify an owner of collaboration. Not sure who should be the “collaboration czar” or where it should fit.
Define boundaries and relationships.
Establish policies and support.
Start by ‘gardening.’ x
Focus on business needs. “Pilot in an area that people care about.” Don’t bother piloting in IT or in the KM team. They aren’t normal people!
Don’t forget it’s all about the people! Of course! But I hope we can say this with a bit of a smile, as it seems a cliche. Just like “It’s not about the tools.”
A very nice list and a fun presentation. The important thing is to focus on a specific area, a specific need, and some specific people. Once they find the usefulness of collaboration, it will spread to others who will use it.
While the people are important, the tools are also. The key is to make sure the tools fit the group of people, not the other wat around. You would not give someone a screwdriver to hammer a nail. Same thing here.
But recognize that not every needs to collaborate, at least initially.
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