Taking the Bore Out of Collaboration
For all its progress over the past fifteen years, collaboration tool vendors have been iterating on the same three elements: group chats, action items, and file archiving.
Now, all we seem to be seeing in the marketplace is various graphical renditions of these three elements. It is time to take the bore out of collaboration.
This is the first in a series of briefs that will be a critique of team collaboration software based on the elegance and timeliness of the solutions they enable. Specifically whether:
- Debates lead to elegant solutions.
- Project partitioning and allocation is efficient.
- Progress monitoring improves capital allocation.
- Risk mitigation improves project outcomes.
Our Take
The concept of collaboration stems from the long held social notion that “two heads are better than one.”Intriguingly, that is juxtaposed with “if you want something done, do it yourself.” So, which one is it? The analytical answer “it depends” is correct but not directive. IT executives want resolutions, not dissertations.
Collaboration tools need to gamify the process of generating a product – allowing every project team member to take on a set of objectives and compare their progress. Furthermore, they must allow project managers to allocate resources based on expected cost and probability of failures.