Don’t overdo collaboration

[Sean Lew]

Generally, overdoing anything is not good. For example, humans have to drink water to survive, however, if one drinks way too much, the water would wash away the nutrients in the body and its bad for one’s health. Collaboration is the same. Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technologies promotes collaboration across groups of people and there has been alot of buzz about it.

My experience with such implementation is that many leaders do not know when to collaborate and when not to. One classic example is when teams can’t decide on a specific problem or find the best route of advancement. I do not think the relationship works this way – the more people collaborating, the better result is achieved. Just like a 2 hour meeting with 20 people in the room is generally a waste of time. Leaders must target collaboration strategically.

Collaboration takes time and effort of employees and teams and this translates to opportunity cost. Employees from both sides of the team could have spend doing something more useful. The exact time spent on collaborating could be translated to a cost (based on salary of employees). Employers needs to ensure that employees are using their time effectively and help their organisation make money.

Collaboration between teams also cost money. There is a cost for the technology platform, telephone calls, traveling to other sites and so on. These costs should not be under estimated – small amounts can roll up to be a substantial amount.

Based on this, the returns of a collaboration arrangement between teams should be greater than the sum of opportunity costs + collaboration costs.

Returns on collaboration > opportunity costs + collaboration costs

If a collaboration arrangement does not fulfill this model, then it would be better to stay status quo or find another way to maximise the returns on other investments.



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