Why Frameworks for Collaboration Platform Deployment are important

Top 5 Pitfalls for Collaboration Programs and Platforms

Why deployment of social collaboration platforms may not gain sufficient traction?

(& what can be done to maximise engagement and outcomes?)

The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with some tools and techniques which will accelerate their organisations performance, towards the leadership position in their space, enabling significant changes in how people work and collaborate. In addition to ensure that investment in social collaboration platforms gains maximum traction and avoids the major pitfalls. Underpinning the approach is recognition that collaboration and collaboration maturity are complex human behaviours and, that deployment of social connection platforms to release an organisations talent will not deliver unless they are underpinned by very high levels of organisation maturity and learning. There has been a general recognition in business that there is a strong Organisation Development (OD) element to accelerating collaboration , however there is a tendency to be  driven by the simple definition of collaboration behaviours such as “it’s about trust, sharing of goals and communications” and using SNA measurements as indicators. The reality is there are 20 core OD dynamics that influence collaboration maturity and outcomes, and in the paper we introduce a simple diagnostic to measure these so that personal, organisation and platform development can be aligned for maximum traction.

Top Five Pitfalls for deployment

1.        Failure to sufficiently recognise that we are enabling a change in how people work together and as such the deployment of collaboration strategies and platforms is an important organisation development activity.

2.        Failure to recognise that collaboration is a human activity and human system activity; it’s about people, their style, their behaviours, their motivations and their incentives.

3.        Deployment of social media collaboration platforms are often treated as an IT or System upgrade projects rather than core business change initiatives.

4.        Failure to create an explicit and strong connection to the business case, goals and KPI’s of the business in the eyes of the stakeholders.

5.        The absence of a suitable framework to deploy a collaboration strategy and attain the target ROI.

Though there are many other pitfalls they are generally covered if we adopt a collaboration strategy that addresses the top five pitfalls. So we can say that the critical success factors for successful deployment of a collaboration strategy and platform are as follows:-

1.        Establish the business case for collaboration up front and identify how the organisation will demonstrate that performance meets or exceeds the business case.

2.        Define the collaboration OD strategy across the business that connects the business case with individual and organisation development plans.

3.        Measure the collaboration maturity across the organisation; it becomes the base-line for selecting and deploying the level and type of interventions and actions that will allow maximum traction for new ways of working and the platform.

4.        Integrate the social media collaboration platform Adopt an overall collaboration Framework/Methodology to pull together the components of the collaboration strategy and allows the stakeholders to engage and influence.

5.        project into the overall strategic OD program. Aligning the enablement of features and functions with the other interventions that reflect the level of organisation and individual learning.

The Global Institute for advanced organisation learning “collaboration framework“(collaborationIP™)

The CollaborationIP™ Methodology

CollaborationIP™ Methodology Components

The overall methodology is a roadmap and a set of tools, processes, templates and guides designed to successfully guide an organisation through the process of strategic change towards creating a leadership zone position where the collaboration maturity is creating sustainable strategic and operational leadership. Each Domain has the appropriate tools for an organisation. Let us now review each core domain. Built into the framework and methods are best practice collaboration techniques for the organisations leadership to design and execute the program. So in-build will be leadership by example and learning from the leaders.

CIP™-Business

Objective: - To enable key stakeholders to identify the key business drivers and performance metrics that accelerating collaboration capability is designed to impact, and prepare a business case and a set of business controls to ensure during and on completion of a collaboration program that intended outcomes can be achieved within the investment scope approved.

Approach Recommended: - Workshop & Templates

This domain has three key deliverables:-

·         The Business Case for Collaboration

·         The collaboration KPI Integration Map

·         Collaboration Program Metric process

CIP™-Facilitation

Objective: - To identify CSF’s & Risks for the overall program and confirm stakeholder commitment, governance and support for all aspects of the program and related investment.

Approach Recommended: - Workshop & Templates

This domain has three key deliverables:-

·         The program vision & Goals

·         The core governance & facilitation structure

·         Program Role definitions

CIP™-Diagnosis

Objective: - To scientifically diagnose the level of collaboration maturity within the organisation to enable program interventions to be designed at an appropriate and sustainable learning level. In additional to maintain alignment on the 3 core programs (Personal, Organisation & Platform).

Approach Recommended: - On-Line

This domain has three key deliverables:-

·         Collaboration Diagnostic Plan

·         Collaboration Maturity Diagnostic report (Actual level, steps for next level)

·         Collaboration Maturity Dashboard

CIP™-Strategy

Objective: - Using the findings from the Diagnosis phase the key stakeholders can now refine the overall strategy so that relevant execution-able and integrated programs and metrics can be executed.

Approach Recommended: - Workshop & Templates

This domain has one key deliverable:-

·         Collaboration Program and Project Statement

CIP™-Programs (Personal, Organisation, Platform)

Objective:- create the plan, process, tools, KPI’s  and teams for each of the three key streams and kick off the integrated programs:-

Approach Recommended: - Workshop & Templates

This domain has the following deliverables: - (Normally adopting the organisations standard PM methods)

·         Project Plans and Milestones

·         Reports and metrics

CIP™- Progress

Objective:- Integrated into the model and referenced above is the need to ensure stakeholders can see progress and connect their actions and behaviours to accelerating collaboration maturity at all levels in the business this will include:-

·         Business KPI’s

·         Operational KPI’s

·         Collaboration KPI’s and Social Network analysis

·         Maturity and cultural indicator

Approach Recommended: - PMO & Templates

Collaboration Maturity & Collaboration Platforms

How do we release talent within & across organisations (Collaboration)?

With the advent of social media and collaboration platforms, the tools available to leaders and managers have become sophisticated and powerful.  However the ability of organisations to effectively deploy and realise the potential of these new tools can be hampered by the culture, structure and processes within the organisation.

To compete or even to survive many knowledge based organisations need to accelerate innovation, creativity, knowledge sharing /re use and productivity. Increasing the productive engagement of stakeholders whether it be within and organisation or with external stakeholders leveraging the available tools requires a change in how we work.

The purpose of a collaboration platform is:-

a)      Speeding up Responsiveness

b)      Facilitating Innovation

c)       Enhancing Learning

d)      Growing the competence mass of the organization

e)      Increasing the capacity and speed of organizational intelligence

f)       Improving Involvement and Sharing Responsibility

Primary areas for organisation consideration are:-

b)      Enterprise 2.0 - Inside the organization to improve:

a)      efficiency and productivity

c)       B2C 2.0 - Connecting with customers/stakeholders to improve

a)      profitability and customer satisfaction

Organisations are fundamentally human systems made up of people, communities and teams and therefore are the core to any change to accelerate overall performance. Managers and Leaders when designing interventions whether Organisation development or Introducing change such as new technology often omit to take into account the organisation maturity and behavioural capacity of the individuals and teams within.

Why is organisation Development a key component to collaboration?

Because getting the most from the product is as much a people/organizational issue as a technical issue -

¡  Collaboration is an interpersonal activity & should be introduced & managed accordingly – otherwise, it will fail

¡  It is the most complex form of organizational activity and needs an O-D & Change-Management approach

¡  It has the greatest capacity for organizational transformation of any O-D intervention

¡  It can be truly systemic in scope – from customer to production and all stakeholders, functions, etc.

n  “The system is the product”

¡  Systemic Collaboration offers Organizational Advantage, which is best achieved through an Organization-Development approach

¡  Organizational Effectiveness improves performance, retention and sustainable growth

The power and features  of new technologies (Collaborative Platforms, such as Lotus Connections, MS SharePoint, Facebook, Mindtouch etc.) facilitate knowledge creation and re use. The ability to create communities, facilitate rapid identification of a person, expertise or information, make the process of innovation and collaboration be time and location independent can really accelerate the performance and creativity of an organisation.

Deploying these new platforms is not just an IT project and regardless of how mature and effective your IT management processes are, you may fail to leverage the benefits if you do not consider the organisation development factors.

COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGY + COLLABORATION MATURITY = COLLABORATIVE PLATFORM

The level of collaborative maturity differs from organisation to organisation, so how do we measure it, in order that our program to roll out a collaborative platform may include appropriate OD interventions, whether they are education, awareness, structure, coaching, facilitation etc. Most Models out there such as CMMi or ISO are descriptive and require a significant commitment, they are not based on the fundamental principles of human systems and human behaviour (And related psychology), they do not consider how humans and organisations learn and change.

However we now have a simple scientific model that allows prompt and effective measurement of the collaboration maturity in an organisation so that any project/program to accelerate innovation, productivity and knowledge sharing leveraging collaboration platform(s) can have the OD interventions and components built into the program.

The Collaboration Maturity Model

n  THE PROBLEM for optimising Collaboration has been identified: it IS getting people to use it, i.e. TRACTION

n  The Model was  DESIGNED with one thing in mind – TO GAIN TRACTION for interventions

n  It does this by measuring the level of organizational functioning so that it can be raised across the board to the required level to optimise collaboration

n  No other framework exists to cater for both organizational diagnosis and intervention guidance

The model is underpinned by human science research and the primary inputs to the model are based on on-line questionnaires that can be completed by participants within 20 minutes.

The outputs of the Model are 1. A report on the maturity level in your organisation on all key dimensions of collaboration, and recommended OD interventions to support your overall collaboration business program.  2. A visual dashboard of the maturity on all dimensions of collaboration maturity.

As well as providing guidance on the OD elements of a program, it also provides a benchmark that can be conducted periodically to ensure the interventions and ant platform program are having the desired effect and ensure the correct timing for further/future OD interventions as an organisation drives towards the Leadership Zone.

How does it fit in the deployment of a collaboration platform?

1.       Business decision to improve collaboration

2.       Business goals and business case for program

a.       Financial, Creativity, Productivity..etc.

b.      New Products/services , cycle times, lead times

c.       Maturity dimensions

3.       Measure collaborative Maturity

a.       On Line questionnaire & reports

b.      Small number of interviews/workshops

c.       Confirm threshold has been reached (Research to date suggests an organisation must be in or entering the learning zone before any platform investment is made)

d.      Design interventions

4.       Create Platform roll out program and project plan

5.       Execute plan

6.       Measure KPI’s and maturity to ensure benefits are being realised.

A Key consideration

To achieve the overall objectives , these new techniques for working as individuals and teams must become central to the leadership and management culture and require on-going support and facilitation. (More on this in the future)