A meeting of minds
A meeting of minds
The technology to ease collaboration in business-both internally and externally-is readily available, but it seems the Australian business community is yet to be convinced of its merits. By James Dellow.
Australia often prides itself on being innovative early adopters of technology, so it is often frustrating for knowledge managers to find that local organisations are cautious in using information technology to work collaboratively. In comparison, the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to support collaboration for training, meetings and project teams in North America and Europe is far more widespread, with greater penetration beyond the corporate arena.
Certainly, geographic and ICT infrastructure differences in Australia are a factor in limiting use. However, knowledge workers in Australia will also often point the finger of blame for the poor uptake at their bad experiences in using technology such as videoconferencing, or from the productivity issues associated with managing email. But the tide is slowly turning, with computer-mediated collaboration developing into a hot topic within both the business and government sector locally. It is now not difficult to find examples of collaboration technologies being used in many industries, ranging from construction to health and professional services to manufacturing.
With this renewed emphasis comes a realisation that the successful use of collaboration technologies requires both a technology and management response.
Computer-mediated collaboration is the use of ICT to collaborate, and extends the concept of computer-mediated communication to include the full range of synchronous and asynchronous mediums available. This definition embraces everything from the humble fax and phone to email and web-based project rooms. These technologies allow virtual teams, workgroups and service providers to collaborate with each other, their partners and their customers.
It is, however, important to note that while the phrase 'virtual team' is used here, this does not mean that collaboration is purely electronic. In fact, one important lesson is that the best virtual teams are those that know exactly when to use which communication mode to collaborate.
Growing interest in collaboration is driven by a combination of factors that includes technology availability and infrastructure maturity, and also a desire for more value to be created by information technology. The Internet itself is an important factor in the uptake of collaboration-the web provides the glue that allows project teams to quickly span organisational boundaries and to respond more quickly to a changing environment.
For example, it is possible for even the smallest business to utilise hosted collaborative tools such as web conferencing on a casual basis, while larger organisations have a competitive choice of in-house and outsourced options. More forward thinking or competitively pressured organisations also look to collaborative technologies as a key enabler for greater agility and knowledge mobilisation.
They see strategic benefit from defying time and distance by allowing knowledge workers to be connected anytime, anyplace. Wireless technology in particular, but also Voice over IP and instant messaging, will play a role in freeing people from the network leash. Of course, with increased connectivity we can also see how computer-mediated collaboration will create new social and personal productivity issues that need to be managed.
In the excitement of rushing towards technology-enabled collaboration it is easy to miss the issues that relate to the management of both the technology and people aspects of computer-mediated collaboration. A structured approach to understanding the collaborative infrastructures used within organisations and of those they collaborate with can be used to avoid the pitfalls of mobilising knowledge workers with technology.
By understanding the collaborative infrastructures as a whole, the overall collaborative capability of an organisation can be improved. It is simply not enough to get a virtual team working effectively once-as the use of collaborative technologies becomes commonplace, organisations need to be able to get it right time and time again. And those organisations that are able to develop and nurture this expertise are likely to gain a competitive edge.
For individual knowledge workers it also means that those with collaborative know-how that combines people skills with high degrees of information and technology literacy will be highly sought after.
Computer-mediated collaboration is difficult for all the same reasons that people and teams perform poorly within organisations, but with the added dimension of risk that ICT creates. To an extent, these people and technology issues can be separated, and what is clear is that computer-mediated collaboration should never be used as an excuse not to tackle broader people management issues in organisations. But ultimately the two must be treated together so that virtual collaboration can be used effectively.
For example, in one instance, a web-based document sharing space was created to facilitate information sharing between a service provider and their customer. Unfortunately, the vendor made the mistake of approaching the shared space as resource to be delivered as a final 'product' to the customer, rather than an environment to be developed together as part of the service relationship. This approach ignored underlying change management issues around the introduction of this new technology and, not surprisingly, the electronic workspace was poorly used. Feedback from the customer included confusion about the purpose and information architecture of what was supposed to be a collaborative work area.
In another case, sales teams in two different cities decided to link up by videoconference to resolve an issue of conflict that had arisen between them related to a shared client. Unfortunately, one team was unaware that the audio connection was enabled prior to the activation of the video component at the start of the meeting. The other team overheard negative comments that only ended up damaging the already poor relationship between the two teams.
Fundamentally, the use of collaborative technology requires not only the right ICT but also a change in how organisations do business. One of these changes includes the ability of end-users to directly control how and when they are used. This direct ownership of the collaborative environment is in fact a critical success factor for electronic collaboration, but it provides mixed blessings.
The risk exposure for an organisation can be increased unintentionally when end-users have low levels of information literacy or a lack of knowledge about information security. But rather than instinctively restricting access and control over collaborative tools, a systematic or facilitated approach to sharing lessons learnt can help to mitigate these risks. Overall, for effectiveness to be maximised and risks reduced, organisations must create a balance between control and allowing end-users to innovate within a reasonably safe and stable information technology infrastructure.
For a long time many of us have wondered how to increase the return on investment from ICT. Mobilising knowledge workers with technology can provide new value to organisations, but only if they acknowledge the challenges of working in a new way and address this as a management issue rather than a problem with the technology itself. A greater understanding by organisations of their collaborative infrastructure is a step in the right direction.
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