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I have to admit, I was reading a posting by Stuart Roberts, 7th May 2010, on Silicon.com, entitled: “The three steps to make staff love collaboration tools as much as Facebook.”
And it caught my attention….

Here is why?
First, “Research from the CIO Executive Board - a program of the Corporate Executive Board - shows that more than 50 per cent of organizations are investing in collaboration technologies, in an attempt to increase productivity among staff. But the research also shows that despite the popularity of collaboration technologies in the workplace among employers, only 24 per cent of organizations implementing them consider their initiatives successful.”

Validation, we are seeing increased interest and adoption of collaboration tools in Italy. As researched by Politecnico of Milano, Italian companies have tighten their purse strings on ICT, but they increase their budgets for the Unified Communications Solutions, Content Management and Social Networking. In a situation characterized by high competition and pressure on cost reduction, therefore, the tools and Enterprise 2.0 technologies are seen as essential to meet business needs. The spread of initiatives in these areas is a clear indicator and, after the interesting premise of 2009, in 2010 over 90% of the sample companies have ongoing initiatives in Unified Communications & Collaboration and Enterprise Content Management, and more than half (57%) has initiatives Social Networking & Community.

Second, “That is because collaboration initiatives are often too technology-centric to really work. They fail because employees do not adopt the technologies that IT departments have deployed, and so the intended benefits are lost. To overcome this hurdle, IT departments need to secure buy-in for the tools they deploy. When launching collaboration technology initiatives, organizations that do so successfully focus on encouraging participation.”

Very sound advice, but you need to take it one step further, not just participation, but collaboration with the business function adopting collaboration tools to partner with IT in determining requirements, workflow opportunities, training and adoption and deployment.

The synergy between Robert’s post and our direction is uncanny, we also believe that you can have collaboration tools that can be people-centric or project-centric, but never technology-centric. That is a sure fire way to spend time and resources on technology that does not get adopted or used. But you provide technology to make people’s lives easier, more productive, collaborative and all on the same page and you are moving in the right direction. Robert goes on to provide some nice examples;

“Here are a few practical examples of how successful organizations tackle these challenges, and the results they achieve:

1. Embed collaboration into team workflows

It is often difficult to embed collaboration practices in employee workflows, and increase productivity. IT can help assess how teams work together and design or adapt collaboration technologies around the key elements that drive team productivity.
Example: company A designs a SharePoint site that provides virtual team workspaces to support team interactions, reinforce team identity, make it easier for teams to build relationships, increase the speed of decision-making and to meet agreed deadlines.

2. Measure and communicate team collaboration effectiveness

It is often difficult to quantify and communicate the value of collaboration investments. IT can calculate returns for investments in collaboration technologies - for example, in terms of time saved per employee.
Example: company B quantifies benefits of collaboration technologies in terms of minutes per week saved. The time saved is then sent to employees in an internal campaign, to promote technology tools tailored to the groups’ individual needs and to obtain buy-in.

3. Build a transparent collaboration roadmap

It is often difficult to provide a comprehensive overview of future technology deployments. IT can minimize confusion about the availability of tools and avoid duplicate investments in collaboration technologies by building a single roadmap of existing technologies and future investments.
Example: company C ensures employees know what is available now and creates awareness of future tools by building easily accessible roadmaps for all staff.”

Strong examples, but I have found, from my past experience, that a lot of the success from new IT initiatives should not rest solely on IT’s shoulders, but to be shared with the business function, department or division, or corporation looking to benefit from this technology. A business champion should be the one working with IT and his peers to bring new collaboration tools within their organization successfully.

If you would like to read Robert’s post here is the link: http://www.silicon.com/technology/software/2010/05/07/the-three-steps-to-make-staff-love-collaboration-tools-as-much-as-facebook-39745774

More to follow….

Thomas

Thomas Christel
CMO/International
Yooplus srl